First Responders Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native English speakers, and the province's population is 969,383, according to the 2021 Census. It is the most populous of Canada's Atlantic provinces. It is the country's second-most densely populated province and second-smallest province by area, both after Prince Edward Island. Its 55,284 square kilometres (21,345 sq mi) includes Cape Breton Island and 3,800 other coastal islands. The peninsula that makes up Nova Scotia's mainland is connected to the rest of North America by the Isthmus of Chignecto, where the province's land border with New Brunswick is located. The province borders the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east. It is separated from Prince Edward Island and the island of Newfoundland by the Northumberland and Cabot straits, respectively.
The land that comprises what is now the Miꞌkmaq people inhabited Nova Scotia at the time of European exploration. In 1605, Acadia, France's first New France colony, was founded with the creation of Acadia's capital, Port-Royal. Britain fought France for the territory on numerous occasions for over a century afterwards. The Fortress of Louisbourg was a key focus point in the battle for control. Following the Great Upheaval (1755–1763), where the British deported the Acadians en masse, the Conquest of New France (1758–1760) by the British, and the Treaty of Paris (1763), France had to surrender Acadia to the British Empire. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), thousands of Loyalists settled in Nova Scotia. In 1848, Nova Scotia became the first British colony to achieve responsible government, and it federated in July 1867 with New Brunswick and the Province of Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) to form what is now Canada.
Nova Scotia's capital and largest city is Halifax, which today is home to about 45 percent of the province's population. Halifax is Canada's thirteenth-largest census metropolitan area, the largest city in Atlantic Canada, and Canada's second-largest coastal city after Vancouver.