Quebec ( or /kəˈbɛk/), in French, Québec ( )According to the Canadian government, Québec (with the acute accent) is the official name in French and Quebec (without the accent) is the province's official name in English; the name is one of 81 locales of pan-Canadian significance with official forms in both languages. In this system, the official name of the capital is Québec in both official languages. The Quebec government renders both names as Québec in both languages. is a province in the central part of Canada.Quebec is located in the Eastern half of Canada, but is historically and politically considered to be part of Central Canada It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level. Other elements of French tradition, such as the civil law legal system, also remain strong in Quebec.

Nationalism plays a large role in the politics of the province, with all three major provincial political parties seeking greater autonomy and recognition of the Quebec people as a nation. Sovereigntist governments held referendums on independence in 1980 and 1995, and the Canadian House of Commons passed a symbolic motion recognizing the "Québécois as a nation within Canada".

Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. It is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario, James Bay and Hudson Bay, to the north by Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay, to the east by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick. It is bordered on the south by the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. It also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.

Quebec is the second most populated province, after Ontario. Most inhabitants live in urban areas near the Saint Lawrence River between Montreal, the largest city, and Quebec City, the capital. English-speaking communities and English-language institutions are concentrated in Montreal but are also significantly present in the Outaouais, the Eastern Townships, and Gaspé regions. The central and northern portion of the province is sparsely populated and inhabited primarily by Aboriginal peoples.

While the province's substantial natural resources have long been the mainstay of its economy, sectors of the knowledge economy such as aerospace, information and communication technologies, biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry also play leading roles.

Etymology and boundary changes