New Brunswick

New Brunswick (French: Nouveau-Brunswick) is one of Canada's provinces, and the only officially bilingual province (French and English). Its capital is Fredericton. Its population is slowly growing, and now exceeds 750,000 (New Brunswickers).

The aboriginal nations of New Brunswick include the Mi'kmaq (Micmac), Maliseet and Passamaquoddy. The population is majority English-speaking but with a substantial (35%) French-speaking minority Acadians from Acadia, from the former name of this region during the French colonial period during which large numbers of colonists migrated from the Vienne area of France. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in the country.

The colony of New Brunswick was created in 1784, when recently-arrived Loyalist refugees from the United States, who resented being governed from distant Halifax, Nova Scotia, petitioned the British Government to allow them to form a separate province out of Sunbury County which consisted of the portion of Nova Scotia west of the Isthmus of Chignecto and north of the Bay of Fundy.

New Brunswick was named in honour of the British monarch, King George III, who was descended from the House of Brunswick. Fredericton, the capital city, was likewise named for George III's second son, Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke of York. New Brunswick was one of the four originally provinces of Canada formed with Confederation in 1867.