New Brunswick

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New Brunswick Nouveau-Brunswick
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: Spem reduxit (Latin: "Hope restored")
Capital	Fredericton
Largest city	Saint John
Largest metro	Metro Moncton
Official languages	English, French (the only constitutionally bilingual province in the country)
Government
Lieutenant-Governor	Herménégilde Chiasson
Premier	Shawn Graham (Liberal)
Federal representation	in Canadian Parliament
House seats	10
Senate seats	10
Confederation	July 1, 1867 (1st)
Area	Ranked 11th
Total	72,908 km² (28,150 sq mi)
Land	71,450 km² (27,590 sq mi)
Water (%)	1,458 km² (563 sq mi) (2.0%)
Population	Ranked 8th
Total (2008)	751,250 (est.)[1]
Density	10.50 /km² (27.2 /sq mi)
GDP	Ranked 8th
Total (2006)	$25.221 billion[2]
Per capita	C$33,664 (12th)
Abbreviations
Postal	NB
ISO 3166-2	CA-NB
Time zone	UTC-4
Postal code prefix	E
Flower	Purple Violet
Tree	Balsam Fir
Bird	Black-capped Chickadee
Web site	www.gnb.ca
Rankings include all provinces and territories

New Brunswick (French: Nouveau-Brunswick) is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces, and is the only constitutionally bilingual province (French and English) in the federation.^[3] The provincial capital is Fredericton. Statistics Canada estimates the provincial population in 2008 to be 751,250; a majority are English-speaking but there is also a large Francophone minority (32%), chiefly of Acadian origin.

The province's name comes from the English translation for the city of Braunschweig in north Germany, the ancestral home of the Hanoverian King George III of the United Kingdom.

Contents 1 Geography 1.1 Physical geography 1.2 Urban areas 2 History 2.1 4000 BC - 1 AD 2.2 Pre-European 2.3 French Colonial era (1604-1759) 2.4 British Colonial era (1759-1867) 2.5 New Brunswick in Canada (1867-present) 3 Politics 4 Culture 5 Economy 6 Education 7 Tourism 8 Media outlets 9 Demographics 10 Notes 11 References 12 See also 13 External links

[edit] Geography

[edit] Physical geography

Main article: Geography of New Brunswick

New Brunswick is bounded on the north by Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula and by Chaleur Bay. Along the east coast, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Northumberland Strait form the boundaries. In the south-east corner of the province, the narrow Isthmus of Chignecto connects New Brunswick to the Nova Scotia peninsula. The south of the province is bounded by the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world with a rise of 16 m. To the west, the province borders the American state of Maine.

New Brunswick differs from the other Maritime provinces physiographically, climatologically and ethnoculturally. Both Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are either wholly or nearly surrounded by water and oceanic effects therefore tend to define their climate, economy and culture. New Brunswick on the other hand, although having a significant seacoast, is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean proper and has a large interior which is removed from oceanic influences. The climate therefore tends to be more continental in character rather than maritime. The settlement patterns and the economy of New Brunswick also is different from its Maritime neighbours, in that it is more based on the province's river systems rather than on its seacoasts.

The major river systems of the province include the St. Croix River, Saint John River, Kennebecasis River, Petitcodiac River, Miramichi River, Nepisiguit River and the Restigouche River. Northern New Brunswick lies within the Appalachian Mountains. The New Brunswick Lowlands form the eastern and central portions of the province. The Caledonia Highlands and St. Croix Highlands extend along the Bay of Fundy coastal region, reaching elevations of more than 300 metres. The northwestern part of the province consists of the remote and more rugged Miramichi Highlands, as well as the Chaleur Uplands and the Notre Dame Mountains with a maximum elevation at Mount Carleton of 820 metres. The total land and water area of the province is 72,908 km², over 80% of which is forested. Agricultural lands are found mostly in the upper Saint John River valley, with lesser amounts of farmland in the southeast of the province, especially in the Kennebecasis and Petitcodiac river valleys. The three major urban centres are in the southern third of the province.

[edit] Urban areas

Main article: List of Municipalities in New Brunswick

Metropolitan Moncton (Moncton, Riverview, Dieppe) with a population of 126,424 (Canada 2006 census) is the largest urban centre in the province. Saint John is the largest city and has a Metropolitan population (Saint John, Quispamsis, Rothesay) of 122,389. Greater Fredericton has a census agglomeration population of 85,000.

Moncton is the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the province, and among the top ten fastest growing urban areas in Canada. Its economy is principally based on the transportation, distribution, information technology,^[4] commercial and retail sectors. Moncton has a sizeable francophone Acadian minority population (35%) and became the first officially bilingual city in the country in 2002.

Saint John is one of the busiest shipping ports in Canada (in terms of gross tonnage). Saint John is a major energy hub for the east coast: it is the home of Canada's biggest oil refinery (with a second one planned), an LNG terminal is being constructed in the city and there are major oil-fired and nuclear power plants located in or around the town. The retail, commercial and residential sectors are currently experiencing a resurgence.

Fredericton, the capital of the province, is home to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University. Canada's largest military base is located in suburban Oromocto. The economy of Fredericton is tied to the governmental, military and university sectors.

[edit] History

Main article: History of New Brunswick

[edit] 4000 BC - 1 AD

Native Americans have occupied New Brunswick since about 4000 BC. These include the Sáqwéjíjk, who settled the area around what is now New Brunswick. The Sáqwéjíjk begin calling themselves Míkmaq, a possessive form indicating awareness of their spiritual and collective unity. The concept roughly translates as "my kin friends".^[5] The Augustine mound was built during this time, in 2500BC, near Metepnákiaq (Red Bank First Nation).

[edit] Pre-European

The indigenous peoples of New Brunswick include the Mi'kmaq (Micmac), Maliseet (Wolastoqiyik - "people of the good river" or St. John) and Passamaquoddy (Panwapskewiyik). The Mi'kmaq territories are mostly in the east of the province. The Maliseets are situated along the Wolastoq (St. John River) and the Passamaquoddy nation in the southwest, around Passamaquoddy Bay.

[edit] French Colonial era (1604-1759)

Main article: History of the Acadians

The first known exploration of New Brunswick was by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1534. The next French contact was in 1604, when a party led by Pierre Dugua (Sieur de Monts) and Samuel de Champlain set up a camp for the winter on St.Croix Island between New Brunswick and Maine. The colony was relocated the following year across the Bay of Fundy to Port Royal. Over the next 150 years, other French settlements and seigneuries were founded along the St. John River, the upper Bay of Fundy region and in the Tantramar Marshes at Beaubassin, and finally at St. Pierre (the site of present day Bathurst). The whole Maritime region (as well as parts of Maine) were at that time proclaimed to be part of the French colony Acadia.

One of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 was the surrender of peninsular Nova Scotia to the British. The bulk of the Acadian population now found themselves residing in the new British colony of Nova Scotia. The remainder of Acadia (including the New Brunswick region) was only lightly populated and poorly defended. To protect their territorial interests in what remained of Acadia, France, in 1750, built two forts (Fort Beausejour and Fort Gaspareaux) along the frontier with Nova Scotia at either end of the Isthmus of Chignecto. A major French fortification (Fortress Louisbourg) was also built on Ile Royale, but the function of this fort was mostly to defend the approaches to the colony of Canada, and not Acadia.

As part of the Seven Years' War (1756-63), the British extended their control to include all of New Brunswick. Fort Beausejour (near Sackville) was captured by a British force commanded by Lt. Col. Robert Monckton in 1755. Acadians of the nearby Beaubassin and Petitcodiac regions were subsequently expelled in the Great Upheaval. Some of the Acadians in the Petitcodiac and Memramcook region escaped and under the leadership of Joseph Broussard continued to conduct guerrilla action against the British forces for a couple of years. Other actions in the war included British expeditions up the St. John River in both 1758 and 1759. Fort Anne (Fredericton) fell during the 1759 campaign and following this, all of present day New Brunswick came under British control.

[edit] British Colonial era (1759-1867)

After the Seven Years' War, most of New Brunswick and parts of Maine were incorporated as Sunbury County into the colony of Nova Scotia. New Brunswick's relative location away from the Atlantic coastline hindered settlement during the post war period, although there were a few exceptions such as the coming of New England Planters to the Sackville region and the arrival of Pennsylvania Dutch settlers in Moncton in 1766.

The coming of the Revolutionary War had little effect on the New Brunswick region, aside from an attack on Fort Cumberland (the renamed Fort Beausejour) by rebel sympathizers led by Johnathon Eddy. Significant population growth would not occur in the region until Britain convinced refugee Loyalists from the United States to settle in the area following the war. With the arrival of these Loyalist refugees in Parrtown (Saint John) in 1783, the need to politically organise the territory became acute. The British colonial administrators in Halifax felt that the regions west of the Isthmus of Chignecto were too remote to allow for effective governance. As a result, the colony of New Brunswick was created by Sir Thomas Carleton on August 16, 1784.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some deported Acadians from Nova Scotia found their way back to "Acadie" where they settled mostly along the eastern and northern shores of the new colony of New Brunswick. Here they lived in relative (and in many ways self-imposed) isolation.

Other immigration to New Brunswick in the early part of the 19th century was from the west country of England and from Scotland, and also from Waterford, Ireland, often after first having come through or having lived in Newfoundland. A large influx of settlers arrived in New Brunswick after 1845 from Ireland as a result of the Potato Famine. Many of these people settled in Saint John or Chatham.

The north-western border between Maine and New Brunswick had not been clearly defined by the Treaty of Paris (1783) that had ended the Revolutionary War. By the late 1830s, population growth and competing lumber interests in the area created the need for a definite boundary. In the winter of 1838-39, the situation quickly deteriorated, with both Maine and New Brunswick calling out their respective militias. The "Aroostook War" was bloodless, and the boundary was subsequently settled by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.

Throughout the 19th century, shipbuilding, both on the Bay of Fundy shore and also on the Miramichi River, was the dominant industry in New Brunswick. The Marco Polo, the fastest clipper ship ever built, was launched from Saint John in 1851. Resource-based industries such as logging and farming were also important components of the New Brunswick economy.

[edit] New Brunswick in Canada (1867-present)

New Brunswick was one of the four original provinces of Canada and entered into the Canadian Confederation on July 1st, 1867. The Charlottetown Conference of 1864 that ultimately led to the confederation movement had only been intended originally to discuss a Maritime Union; but concerns over the American Civil War as well as Fenian activity along the border led to an interest in expanding the scope of the union. This interest arose from the Province of Canada (formerly Upper and Lower Canada, later Ontario and Quebec) and a request was made by the Canadians to the Maritimers to have the meeting agenda altered. Many residents of the Maritimes wanted no part of this larger confederation for fear that their interests and concerns would be ignored in a wider national union. Many politicians who supported confederation, such as Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley (New Brunswick's best-known Father of Confederation), found themselves without a seat after the next election, nevertheless backers of the wider confederation eventually prevailed.

Following confederation, the fears of the anti-confederates were proven right as new national policies and trade barriers were soon adopted by the central government and this disrupted the historic trading relationship between the Maritime Provinces and New England. The situation in New Brunswick was exacerbated by the Great Fire of 1877 in Saint John and by the decline of the wooden shipbuilding industry. Skilled workers were thus forced to move to other parts of Canada or to the United States to seek employment. As the 20th century dawned however, the province's economy began to expand again. Manufacturing gained strength with the construction of several textile mills and, in the crucial forestry sector, the sawmills that had dotted inland sections of the province gave way to larger pulp and paper mills. The railway industry meanwhile provided for growth and prosperity in the Moncton region. Nevertheless, unemployment remained high throughout the province and the Great Depression would bring another setback. Two influential families, the Irvings and the McCains, emerged from the depression to begin to modernise and vertically integrate the provincial economy especially in the vital forestry, food processing and energy sectors.

The Acadians in northern New Brunswick had long been geographically and linguistically isolated from the more numerous English speakers who lived in the south of the province. Government services were often not available in French, and the infrastructure in predominantly francophone areas was noticeably less developed than in the rest of the province. This changed with the election of premier Louis Robichaud in 1960. He embarked on the ambitious Equal Opportunity Plan, in which education, rural road maintenance, and health care fell under the sole jurisdiction of a provincial government that insisted on equal coverage of all areas of the province. County councils were abolished, and the rural areas came under direct provincial jurisdiction. The 1969 Official Languages Act made French an official language.

[edit] Politics

Main articles: Politics of New Brunswick and Monarchy in New Brunswick

New Brunswick has a unicameral legislature with 55 seats. Elections are held at least every five years but may be called at any time by the Lieutenant Governor (the vice-regal representative) on consultation with the Premier. The Premier is the leader of the party that holds the most seats in the legislature.

There are two dominant political parties in New Brunswick, the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party. While consistently polling approximately 10% of the electoral vote since the early 1980s, the New Democratic Party has elected few members to the Legislative Assembly. From time to time, other parties such as the Confederation of Regions Party have held seats in the legislature, but only on the strength of a strong protest vote.

The dynamics of New Brunswick politics are different from those of other provinces in Canada. The lack of a dominant urban centre in the province means that the government has to be responsive to issues affecting all areas of the province. In addition, the presence of a large francophone minority dictates that consensus politics is necessary, even when there is a majority government present. In this manner, the ebb and flow of New Brunswick provincial politics parallels the federal stage.

Since 1960, the province has elected a succession of young bilingual leaders. This combination of attributes has permitted recent premiers of New Brunswick to be disproportionately influential players on the federal stage. Former Premier Bernard Lord (Progressive Conservative) has been touted as a potential leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Frank McKenna (premier, 1987 - 1997), had been considered to be a front-runner to succeed Prime Minister Paul Martin. Richard Hatfield (premier, 1970 -1987) played an active role in the patriation of the Canadian constitution and creation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Louis Robichaud (premier, 1960 -1970) was responsible for a wide range of social reforms.

On September 18, 2006, the Liberals won a majority with 29 out of 55 seats, making 38-year old Shawn Graham the new Premier of New Brunswick.^[6]

[edit] Culture

Early New Brunswick culture was aboriginal in flavour, influenced by the native populations who made their home along the coast and riverbanks until the arrival of French-speaking settlers in the early 1600s and English-speaking settlers in the 1700s.

As described by Arthur Doyle,^[7] in a paper written in 1976, an invisible line separated the two founding European cultures beginning on the eastern outskirts of Moncton and running diagonally across the province northwest towards Grand Falls. Franco-New Brunswick (Acadie) lay to the northeast of this divide and Anglo-New Brunswick lay to the southwest.

Mr Doyle's statement was made not long after government reforms by Hon. Louis J. Robichaud had significantly improved the status of French-speaking Acadians within the province and initiated their journey towards cultural recognition and equality with their English-speaking counterparts.

Nineteenth-century New Brunswick was influenced by colonial ties to France, England, Scotland and Ireland as well as by geographical proximity to New England and the arrival of about 40,000 Loyalists.

Local society was founded in forestry and seaborne endeavours, thus a tradition of lumber-camp songs and sea chanties prevailed. Acadian cloggers and Irish and Scots step dancers competed at festivals to expressive fiddle and accordion music. The art of storytelling well known to the native populations passed on to the early settlers and poetry—whether put to music or not—was a common form of commemorating shared events, as the voice of a masterful poet or soulful musician easily conquered the province's language barriers.

Other cultural expressions were found in family gatherings and the church—both French and English cultures saw a long and early influence of ecclesiastical architecture, with Western European and American influences dominating, rather than any particular vernacular sense. Poets produced the first important literary contributions in the province. Cousins Bliss Carman and Sir Charles G. D. Roberts found inspiration in the landscape of the province, as would later writers as well. In painting, individual artists such as Anthony Flower worked in obscurity, either through design or neglect. Few nineteenth-century artists emerged but those who did often benefited from fine arts training at Mount Allison University in Sackville, which began in 1854. The program came into its own under John A. Hammond (serving from 1893 to 1916). Alex Colville and Lawren Harris later studied and taught art there. Both Christopher Pratt and Mary Pratt were trained at Mount Allison. The university’s art gallery, which opened in 1895 and is named for its patron John Owens of Saint John, is Canada’s oldest. (It actually opened in Saint John ten years earlier, but was moved to Sackville.) In French-speaking New Brunswick it would not be until the 1960s that a comparable institution was founded in the University of Moncton. Then, a cultural renaissance occurred under the influence of Acadian historians and such teachers as Claude Roussel; through coffee houses, music and through protest. An outpouring of Acadian art, literature and music has pressed on unabated since that time. Popular exponents of modern Acadian literature and music include Antonine Maillet and Edith Butler. The current New Brunswick Lieutenant Governor, Herménégilde Chiasson is a poet. (See also "Music of New Brunswick").

Dr. John Clarence Webster and Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook have made important endowments to provincial museums. Dr. Webster gave his art collection to the New Brunswick Museum in 1934, thereby endowing the Museum with one of its greatest assets. James Barry's Death of General Wolferanks as a Canadian national treasure. Courtesy of Lord Beaverbrook, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton has a collection of world-class art, including works of such luminaries as Salvador Dali.

The performing arts have a long tradition in New Brunswick, dating back to travelling road shows and nineteenth-century opera in Saint John. The early crooner Henry Burr was discovered at the Imperial Theatre in Saint John. The most important proponent of theatre today is Theatre New Brunswickbased in Fredericton under the direction of Walter Learning, which tours plays around the province. Canadian playwright Norm Foster saw his early works premiere at TNB. Other live theatre troops include Theatre L'Escaouette in Moncton, the Théatre populaire d'Acadie in Caraquet and Live Bait Theatre in Sackville. All three major cities have significant performance spaces. The refurbished Imperial and Capitol theatres are found in Saint John and Moncton respectively. The more modern Playhouse is located in Fredericton.

In modern literature, the writers Alfred Bailey and Alden Nowlan dominated the New Brunswick literary scene in the latter third of the twentieth century. The world renowned literary critic Northrup Frye was influenced by his upbringing in Moncton. The expatriate British poet John Thompson, who settled outside Sackville, proved influential in his short-lived career. David Adams Richards, born in the Miramichi has become a well respected Governor-General's Award winning author.

The Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada, based in Moncton, has recently flourished, features Russian and European trained dancers, and has started touring both nationally and internationally. Symphony New Brunswick, based in Saint John, also tours extensively in the province.

[edit] Economy

New Brunswick's urban areas have modern, service-based economies dominated by the health care, educational, retail, finance and insurance, sectors. These sectors are reasonably equitably distributed in all three principal urban centres. In addition, heavy industry and port facilities are found in Saint John, Fredericton is dominated by government services, universities, and the military and Moncton has developed as a commercial, retail, transportation, and distribution centre with important rail and air terminal facilities.

The rural primary economy is best known for forestry, mining, mixed farming and fishing.

Forestry is important in all areas of the province, but especially in the heavily forested central regions. There are many sawmills in the smaller towns and there are also several large pulp and paper mills, located in Saint John, Miramichi, Nackawic and Edmundston.

Heavy metals including lead and zinc are mined in the north around Bathurst. One of the world's largest potash deposits is located in Sussex. A second potash mine, costing over a billion dollars, is in development in the Sussex region. Natural gas deposits are also being developed in the Sussex region.

Farming is concentrated in the upper Saint John River valley (in the northwest portion of the province); where the most valuable crop is potatoes. Mixed and dairy farms are found elsewhere, but especially in the southeast, concentrated in the Kennebecasis and Petitcodiac river valleys.

The most valuable fish catches are lobster, scallops and king crab. The farming of Atlantic salmon in the Passamaquoddy Bay region is an important local industry.

Tourism is an important income generator, especially in the Passamaquoddy region (dominated by the resort town of St. Andrews), and in the southeast of the province, centred on Moncton and Shediac.

The largest employers in the province are the Irving group of companies, several large multinational forest companies, the government of New Brunswick, and the McCain group of companies.

[edit] Education

New Brunswick has a comprehensive parallel system of anglophone and francophone public schools providing education from kindergarten to grade 12. There are also several secular or religious private schools in the province, such as the university preparatory Rothesay Netherwood School.

The New Brunswick Community College system has campuses in all regions of the province. This comprehensive trade school system offers roughly parallel programs in both official languages at either francophone or anglophone campuses. Each campus however, tends to have areas of concentration to allow for specialisation. There are also a number of private colleges for specialised training in the province, such as the Moncton Flight College, one of the top pilot-training academies in Canada.

There are four publicly funded secular universities and four private degree granting religious institutions in the province. The two comprehensive provincial universities are the University of New Brunswick and Université de Moncton. These institutions both have extensive post graduate programs and Schools of Law. Mount Allison University in Sackville consistently ranks as one of the best liberal arts universities in Canada and has produced 47 Rhodes Scholars, more than any other liberal arts university in North America.

Publically funded provincial comprehensive universities

• University of New Brunswick, (Fredericton and Saint John), anglophone
• Université de Moncton, (Moncton, Shippagan and Edmundston), francophone

Publically funded undergraduate liberal arts universities

• St. Thomas University, (Fredericton), anglophone
• Mount Allison University, (Sackville), anglophone

Private religious undergraduate liberal arts university

• Atlantic Baptist University, (Moncton), anglophone

Private degree granting religious training institutions

• St. Stephen's University, (Saint Stephen), anglophone
• Bethany Bible College, (Sussex), anglophone
• New Brunswick Bible Institute, (Hartland), anglophone

[edit] Tourism

See also: List of New Brunswick parks

The province has a number of other outstanding tourist attractions. These include the New Brunswick Museum, Kouchibouguac National Park, Mactaquac Provincial Park, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, King's Landing Historical Settlement, Village Historique Acadien, Les Jardins de la Republique, Parlee Beach, Hopewell Rocks, La Dune de Bouctouche, Saint John Reversing Falls, Magnetic Hill Zoo, Crystal Palace, Magic Mountain Water Park, Cape Jourimain National Wildlife Preserve, Sackville Waterfowl Park, Fundy National Park and the 41 km Fundy Hiking Trail.

[edit] Media outlets

New Brunswick has four daily newspapers, three of which are anglophone: the largest is Times & Transcript (40,000 daily) based in Moncton and serving Eastern New Brunswick, the The Telegraph Journal (37,000 daily), which serves Saint John and is distributed throughout the province, and the provincial capital daily The Daily Gleaner (25,000 daily) based in Fredericton. The French-language daily is L'Acadie Nouvelle (12,000 daily), based in Caraquet. There are also a number of weekly newspapers which are local in scope and based in the province's smaller towns and communities.

The three English-language dailies and the majority of the weeklies are owned and operated by Brunswick News, privately owned by J.K. Irving. The other major media group in the province is Acadie Presse, which publishes L'Acadie Nouvelle.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has various news bureaus throughout the province, but its main anglophone television and radio operations are centred in Fredericton. The CBC French service is based in Moncton. Global Television has its New Brunswick base in Saint John with news and sales bureaus in Fredericton and Moncton. CTV(ATV) Maritime is based in Halifax and has offices in Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John as well.

There are many private radio stations in New Brunswick with each of the three major cities having a dozen or more stations. Most smaller cities and towns also have one or two stations.

[edit] Demographics

Main article: Demographics of New Brunswick

Ethnicity

First Nations in New Brunswick include the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet). The first European settlers, the Acadians, are today survivors of the Great Expulsion (1755) which drove several thousand French residents into exile in North America, Britain, and France for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to King George III during the French and Indian War. American Acadians, who were deported to Louisiana, are referred to as Cajuns.

Much of the English-Canadian population of New Brunswick is descended from Loyalists who fled the American Revolution. This is commemorated in the province's motto, Spem reduxit ("hope was restored"). There is also a significant population with Irish ancestry, especially in Saint John and the Miramichi Valley. People of Scottish descent are scattered throughout the province with higher concentrations in the Miramichi and in Campbellton.

In the 2001 Canadian census the most commonly reported ethnicities were 193,470 French (26.9%); 165,235 English (23.0%); 135,835 Irish (18.9%); 127,635 Scottish (17.7%); 27,490 German (3.8%); 26,220 Acadians (3.6%), 23,815 "North American Indian" (First Nations) (3.3%); 13,355 Dutch (Netherlands) (1.9%); and 7,620 Welsh (1.1%). It should be noted that 242,220 people (33.7%) identified themselves as simply "Canadian" or "Canadien" while 173,585 (24.1%) also selected another ethnicity, for a total of 415,810 (57.8%) identifying as Canadian. (Each person could choose more than one ethnicity.)^[8]

Population since 1851

Year	Population	Five Year  % change	Ten Year  % change	Rank Among Provinces
1851	193,800	n/a	n/a	4
1861	252,047	n/a	30.0	4
1871	285,594	n/a	13.3	4
1881	321,233	n/a	12.5	4
1891	321,263	n/a	0.0	4
1901	331,120	n/a	3.1	4
1911	351,889	n/a	6.3	8
1921	387,876	n/a	10.2	8
1931	408,219	n/a	5.2	8
1941	457,401	n/a	12.0	8
1951	515,697	n/a	12.7	8
1956	554,616	7.5	n/a	8
1961	597,936	7.8	15.9	8
1966	616,788	3.2	11.2	8
1971	634,560	2.9	6.9	8
1976	677,250	6.7	9.8	8
1981	696,403	2.8	9.7	8
1986	709,445	1.9	4.8	8
1991	723,900	2.0	3.9	8
1996	738,133	2.0	4.0	8
2001	729,498	-1.2	0.8	8
2006	729,997	0.1	-0.1	8

Source: Statistics Canada^[9][10]

Languages

The 2006 Canadian census showed a population of 729,997.
Of the 714,490 singular responses to the census question concerning 'mother tongue' the most commonly reported languages were:

1.	English	463,190	64.83%
2.	French	232,975	32.61%
3.	Mi'kmaq	2,515	0.35%
4.	Chinese	2,160	0.30%
5.	German	1,935	0.27%
6.	Dutch	1,290	0.18%
7.	Spanish	1,040	0.15%
8.	Arabic	970	0.14%
9.	Korean	630	0.09%
10.	Italian	590	0.08%
11.	Malecite	490	0.07%
12.	Persian (Farsi)	460	0.06%

In addition, there were also 560 responses of both English and a 'non-official language'; 120 of both French and a 'non-official language'; 4,450 of both English and French; 30 of English, French, and a 'non-official language'; and about 10,300 people who either did not respond to the question, or reported multiple non-official languages, or else gave some other unenumerated response. New Brunswick's official languages are shown in bold. Figures shown are for the number of single language responses and the percentage of total single-language responses.^[11]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

Photo Gallery

Hopewell Rocks	Dickson Falls, Fundy National Park	Mount Carleton	Longest covered bridge in the world, in winter, Hartland
Boardwalk across the dunes, Bouctouche	Fort Howe	Cape Enrage	Imperial Theatre, Saint John
Confederation Bridge	Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton	Grand Falls	Miramichi River

[edit] See also

• Communities in New Brunswick
• Counties in New Brunswick
• Elections in New Brunswick
• Famous people from New Brunswick
• Lieutenant-governors of New Brunswick
• Airports in New Brunswick
• Music of New Brunswick
• New Brunswick Assembly
• Premiers of New Brunswick
• Rivers in New Brunswick
• Schools in New Brunswick
• Scouting in New Brunswick

[edit] External links

• Official site of the Government of New Brunswick
• Maritime provinces history & culture -- links
• Symbols of New Brunswick
• New Brunswick Museum
• New Brunswick Covered Bridges
• New Brunswick Lighthouses
• Historical and Genealogical Resources of New Brunswick historical census, birth marriage and death records, immigration, settlement, biography, cemeteries, burial records, land records, First Nations and more
• Acadian Ancestral Home - Acadian history & genealogy storehouse.
• From Louis to Lord: New Brunswick Elections, 1960-2003
• Fence New Brunswick's Highways

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