Canada

A federation assembled slowly and mostly by negotiation, holding two founding European languages and a continuing argument about the peoples who were there first. Indigenous nations occupied the whole territory, and the Royal Proclamation of 1763 recognised their land rights in terms still cited in court. New France was conquered in 1759, and Britain then chose not to assimilate its sixty thousand French inhabitants, restoring French civil law and Catholic practice in 1774 - the decision that made Quebec durable. Confederation in 1867 united four provinces and expanded west by purchase, treaty and force, with the Métis resisting under Louis Riel and the numbered treaties followed by reserves, the pass system and residential schools that removed around 150 thousand children; a truth and reconciliation commission called it cultural genocide in 2015. Canada fought as part of the empire and emerged with its own foreign policy after 1945. It patriated its constitution only in 1982, adding a Charter of Rights that Quebec has never signed. Two sovereignty referendums were lost, the second by about one per cent. It is the second largest country by area and among the least densely populated. Ottawa is the capital. The country has about forty million people, most within a few hundred kilometres of the American border. English and French are both official. It has the longest coastline of any country and more lakes than the rest of the world combined. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are the largest cities. Around a quarter of the population was born abroad.

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