Geography
Québec nowQuébec from the ground up
A little geographyLocated at the northeastern tip of North America, Québec covers 1,667,926 km2 (643,819 sq. mi.). That’s three times the size of France, 40 times the size of Switzerland and 50 times the size of Belgium. Its territory extends nearly 2,000 km (1,242 mi.) from the U.S. border to the Arctic Ocean, between Ontario to the west and New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador to the east.
A land of contrasts
With its entire southern portion dissected by the St. Lawrence, one of the largest rivers in the world, Québec is graced with an incredible variety of landscapes: a fertile fluvial plain between the Canadian Shield to the north and the Appalachian Mountains to the south, wide swaths of forest, taiga and tundra, all of which share over a million lakes and thousands of rivers, or some 180,000 km2 (69,480 sq. mi.) of fresh water. The highest peaks in Québec are Mont D’Iberville (1,622 m / 5,321 ft.), located in Nunavik’s Torngat mountains, and Mont Jacques-Cartier (1,268 m / 4,160 ft.), part of the Chic-Chocs mountain range in the Gaspésie.Weatherwise
Québec has three types of climate:
- humid continental south of the 50th parallel
- subarctic between the 50th and 58th parallels
- arctic above the 58th parallel
Southern Québec enjoys four very different seasons, characterized by significant temperature variations. A rigorous, snowy winter—the average snowfall for Québec City is over three metres, or ten feet—is followed by a lush, exhilarating spring, then a warm summer that segues into a flamboyant fall. In essence, Québecers owe their legendary warmth and vitality to these astonishing climatic variations!
