Canada - Geography, Political system, Cities, Population, History, Economy and transportation

Economy and transportation

Canadian economy is traditionally based on natural resources and agriculture. Canada is the world’s second largest exporter of wheat that is mainly planted on the prairies in the interior of the country. Nevertheless Canada is not only agriculture country, some regions are known as industrial centres - Ontario. For Canadian economy is forestry important too, because forest covers 44% of the land area.

In Canada can be found almost all ores and energy raw materials. In 1896 was in the Yukon Territory discovered gold and this accident started golden rush all over the world. Peoples from all countries travelled into Yukon to wash gold.

Canada’s largest value is in minerals. It is first in exploitation11 of nickel, zinc and uranium; second in cadmium; third in lead, gas and platinum; fourth in copper12 and magnesium13. It is also important producer of gold, silver and aluminium. Less important is exploitation of iron ore, oil14 and coal.

Transport has a key role in Canada, because distances are great. The east-west Canadian Pacific railway built in 1885 and the Canadian National railway contributed a lot to the development of prairie agriculture. One of Canada’s major highways is Trans-Canada route, Vancouver is one of its major ports. Canada has more than 93.000 km of railroads and almost 1 million km of roads. For long distances is in Canada very important air traffic - the largest international airports are Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Gander and Vancouver. The largest ports are Vancouver, Thunder Bay, Port-Cartier, Sept-Îles.

Thanks to agriculture, forestry, fishing and mineral industry, Canada belongs among the richest countries in the world (G7). Canada also has one of largest GNP (Gross National Product) in the world - over $ 20.000 per each inhabitant. Its market economy is closely linked with that of the United States.

1. ysvětlivky:

   venkov↩

2. krajina↩

3. mírný↩

4. potaš - zdroj draslíku↩

5. nadvláda↩

6. těžba↩

7. měď↩

8. hořčík↩

9. ropa↩