Canada's Provincial and Territorial Capitals

Discover Canada says it plainly: you should know the capital of your own province or territory, and the capital of Canada. Capitals come up often on the test because they are a clean multiple-choice question, and the wrong options are usually real cities from the same province. This list follows the guide's chapter on Canada's regions, checked on 23 September 2026.

The capital of Canada

Ottawa, on the Ottawa River. It was chosen as the capital in 1857 by Queen Victoria.

The capitals, region by region

The Atlantic Provinces

Province	Capital
Newfoundland and Labrador	St. John's
Prince Edward Island	Charlottetown
Nova Scotia	Halifax
New Brunswick	Fredericton

Central Canada

Province	Capital
Quebec	Québec City
Ontario	Toronto

The Prairie Provinces

Province	Capital
Manitoba	Winnipeg
Saskatchewan	Regina
Alberta	Edmonton

The West Coast

Province	Capital
British Columbia	Victoria

The Northern Territories

Territory	Capital
Yukon	Whitehorse
Northwest Territories	Yellowknife
Nunavut	Iqaluit

The traps

The test's wrong options are often the largest city rather than the capital. Four to watch:

• British Columbia: the capital is Victoria, not Vancouver.
• Alberta: the capital is Edmonton, not Calgary.
• Saskatchewan: the capital is Regina, not Saskatoon, which is the largest city.
• New Brunswick: the capital is Fredericton, not Saint John, which is the largest city.

Two more are easy to mix up: St. John's is the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador, while Saint John is a city in New Brunswick. And Québec City is the capital of Quebec, not Montreal.

Facts that help them stick

Discover Canada attaches a detail to several capitals, and a detail is easier to remember than a bare name:

• Halifax is Canada's largest east coast port, deep-water and ice-free, and home to its largest naval base.
• Fredericton is New Brunswick's historic capital, while Saint John is its largest city and port.
• Winnipeg has Portage and Main, the most famous street intersection in Canada, and a French quarter, St. Boniface.
• Regina is home to the RCMP's training academy.
• Victoria is a tourist centre and the headquarters of the navy's Pacific fleet.
• Yellowknife is called the "diamond capital of North America".
• Iqaluit was formerly Frobisher Bay, named after the explorer Martin Frobisher.
• Ottawa is Canada's fourth largest metropolitan area.

A simple way to learn them

Learn them by region rather than alphabetically, because the region is how the guide organises them and how you will picture the map. Start with the four traps above, then fill in the rest. Our study notes on Canada's regions cover the chapter, and the practice questions include capitals.