Nova Scotia is one of Canada’s three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province of the four in Atlantic Canada. Located almost exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole, its provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest province in Canada with an area of 55,284 square kilometres (21,300 sq mi), including Cape Breton and some 3,800 coastal islands. As of 2011, the population was 921,727, making Nova Scotia the second-most-densely populated province in Canada.
Nova Scotia was already home to the Mi’kmaq people when French colonists established Port Royal, Nova Scotia, the first permanent European settlement in North America north of Florida in 1605. Almost one hundred and fifty years later, the first English and German settlers arrived with the founding of Halifax (1749). The first Scottish migration was on the Hector (1773) and then the first Black migration happened after the American Revolution (1783). Despite the diversity of the cultural heritage of Nova Scotia, much of the twentieth-century tourism efforts focused primarily on all things Scottish. Many recent tourism efforts embrace and showcase Nova Scotia’s diversity.
In 1867 Nova Scotia was one of the three founding provinces of the Canadian Confederation.