Quebec

Quebec Québec (French)
Province
Flag Coat of arms
Motto(s):  Je me souviens  (French) "I remember"
BC AB SK MB ON QC NB PE NS NL YT NT NU
Coordinates: 52°N 72°W
Country	Canada
Confederation	July 1, 1867 (1st, with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario)
Capital	Quebec City
Largest city	Montreal
Largest metro	Greater Montreal
Government
• Type	Parliamentary constitutional monarchy
• Lieutenant Governor	Manon Jeannotte
• Premier	François Legault (CAQ)
Legislature	National Assembly of Quebec
Federal representation	Parliament of Canada
House seats	78 of 338 (23.1%)
Senate seats	24 of 105 (22.9%)
Area
• Total	1,542,056 km2 (595,391 sq mi)
• Land	1,365,128 km2 (527,079 sq mi)
• Water	176,928 km2 (68,312 sq mi)  11.5%
• Rank	Ranked 2nd
	15.4% of Canada
Population  (2021)
• Total	8,501,833
• Estimate  (2025 Q3)	9,058,297
• Rank	Ranked 2nd
• Density	6.23/km2 (16.1/sq mi)
Demonym(s)	in English: Quebecer, Quebecker, Québécois in French: Québécois (m), Québécoise (f)
Official languages	French
GDP
• Rank	2nd
• Total (2022)	C$552.737 billion
• Per capita	C$63,651 (9th)
HDI
• HDI (2019)	0.916—Very high (9th)
Time zone	UTC−05:00 (Eastern Time Zone for most of the province)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−04:00
Postal abbr.	QC
Rankings include all provinces and territories

Quebec (/kəˈbɛk/ or /kwɪˈbɛk/; French: Québec [kebɛk] (listen)) is a province in the eastern part of Canada located between the Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It is the biggest of Canada's 10 provinces by size. It also has the second-largest population, after Ontario. Most of Quebec's inhabitants live along or near the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. Not many people live in the north of the province. Quebec borders the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick and the U.S. states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Unlike the other provinces, most people in Quebec speak French (Canadian French), which is the only official language. There is a strong French-language culture, which includes French-language newspapers, magazines, movies, television and radio shows. Their culture and language, however, is quite different from that of France, mainly because of Quebec's isolation from France since the 17th-century and the separate evolutions of the French language in Quebec and in France. The Quebec culture is also influenced by English-speaking Canada.

The government of Quebec has its offices in the capital, Quebec City, which is one of the oldest cities in North America. The city with the most people in the province is Montreal, which is also the second-largest city in Canada.

Quebec has many natural resources that are used to create jobs. Quebec also has many companies that create products for information and communication technologies, aerospace, biotechnology, and health industries. It has also developed close relations with the Northeastern United States.

Leaving Canada

Quebec was part of New France until 1760, which then became under British control. Quebec became a province in the Canadian Confederation in 1867.

Since then, some people in Quebec have wanted to leave Canada. Since Quebec is mainly French-speaking, most of its people feel that it is very different from the rest of Canada and want to keep it that way. Some feel that for this to happen, Quebec must leave Canada and become its own country. However, the people of Quebec are divided as to its place in Canada.

Quebec held democratic votes in 1980 and 1995 to decide whether to leave Canada. In 1995, the people of Quebec chose to stay in Canada by a 1% margin.

History

Aboriginal people and Inuit groups were the first peoples who lived in what is now Québec. The Aboriginal people lived by hunting, gathering, and fishing. Some of the Aboriginal people, called Iroquoians, planted squash and maize. The Inuit fished and hunted whales and seals for fur and food. Sometimes, they warred with one another.

Vikings came in longboats from Scandinavia in 1000 AD. Basque whalers and fishermen traded furs with Aboriginal people throughout the 1500s.

The first French explorer to reach Quebec was Jacques Cartier. He sailed into the St. Lawrence River in 1534 and established a colony near present-day Quebec City.

Samuel de Champlain came from France and to the Saint Lawrence River. In 1608, he founded Quebec Citty as a permanent fur trading outpost. Champlain signed trading and military agreements with Aboriginal people. Voyageurs, coureurs des bois, and Catholic missionaries used river canoes to explore the interior of the North American continent.

After 1627, King Louis XIII of France made a rule that only Roman Catholics could go to live in New France. Jesuit clerics tried to convert New France's Aboriginal people to Catholicism. New France became a royal province of France in 1663, and its population grew from about 3,000 to 60,000 people between 1666 and 1760. Colonists built farms on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River.

In 1753, France began building a series of forts in the British Ohio River Country. Britain asked the French to remove the forts, and the French refused. By 1756, France and Britain were at war. In 1758, the British attacked New France by sea and captured the French fort at Louisbourg.

In 1759, British General James Wolfe defeated General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm outside Quebec City. France ceded its North American land to Great Britain at the Treaty of Paris (1763). In 1764, New France was renamed the Province of Quebec.

In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act, which recognized French law, the Catholic religion, and the French language in the colony and gave the Quebec people their first charter of rights. That angered American colonists angry, which was one reason that launched the American Revolution. A 1775 invasion by the American Continental Army was stopped at Quebec City. In 1783, Quebec gave the territory south of the Great Lakes to the new United States of America. In 1837, disputes between English-speakers and French-speakers helped causew the Patriots' Rebellion in which over 100 died, and thousands were hurt. In 1867, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the British North America Act, which united some of the British North American provinces.

Quiet Revolution

The conservative government of Maurice Duplessis dominated Quebec politics from 1944 to 1959 with the support of the Catholic Church. After he died, the Quiet Revolution was a period of social and political change.The newly-elected Liberals passed laws in which the English Canadians lost their control over the Quebec economy, the Roman Catholic Church became less important, and the Quebec government took over the hydro-electric companies.

In 1963, a terrorist group that became known as the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) began bombings, robberies, and attacks on government offices. In 1970, the FLQ kidnapped James Cross, the British trade commissioner to Canada. The FLQ also kidnapped and assassinated Pierre Laporte, the Quebec Minister of Labour and Deputy Premier. Laporte's body was found in the trunk of Paul Rose's car on the South Shore of Montreal on October 17 1970. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, and 497 people were arrested.

The Quiet Revolution was so named because it was not marked by many protests or much violence.

In 1977, the newly-elected Parti Québécois government of René Lévesque introduced the Charter of the French Language. Often known as Bill 101, it defined French as the only official language of Quebec.

Government

The government is based in the provincial capital, Quebec City. The government is led by a lieutenant-governor (pronounced "lef-") who represents the Crown. As of 2024, she is Manon Jeannotte. The political leader of the province is the premier. He is François Legault of the Coalition Avenir de Quebec (CAQ), elected in 2018.

Other websites

• Wikimedia Atlas of Quebec
• Government of Quebec Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
• Quebec at the Open Directory Project
• Discover the Quebec in pictures, photos
• Bonjour Québec, Quebec government official tourist site
• Bill 101
• CBC Digital Archives – Quebec Elections: 1960–1998
• Agora, online encyclopaedia from Quebec (in French)
• An article on the province of Quebec from The Canadian Encyclopedia Archived 2017-10-05 at the Wayback Machine
• Quebec travel guide from Wikivoyage

History

• Quebec History, online encyclopaedia made by Marianopolis College
• The 1837–1838 Rebellion in Lower Canada, Images from the McCord Museum's collections
• Haldimand Collection, documents in relation with Province of Quebec during the American War of Independence (1775–1784)