Why do most Canadians live near the US border?

Answer 1

Most people emigrated from England in the 1800s roads and transportation wasint as good as it is today. Cities were built near oceans and rivers b/s they were a sufishent food source allso b/c of trade between Canada and the us

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Climate, arable land and transportation are three major factors why most Canadians choose to live within 100 miles of the US border.

Answer 2

The reason most Canadians live near the US border is because US climate is hotter than Canada's.

Answer 3

Not all Canadians live within 350 kms of the US border.

While the southern part of Canada is more heavily populated than the North is, there are many cities that are more than 350 kms from the border.

Edmonton, Alberta is a good example. At 1 million people, it is 650 kms away from the border. Fort mcMurray, Alberta has a population of 80,000 and is 1100 km from the border.

The northern part of Canada is very rugged territory and a lot of it is inaccessible by road. The weather in the North is also much colder and the growing season is very short.

Answer 4

Farther north than that it becomes very, very cold. As well, by living closer to the US border it makes travel between the two countries easier.

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The answer is, of course, more complicated than that, otherwise the worlds population would be be distributed based on climate alone.

History and politics has played a larger role than climate in deciding the location of Canada's border. The location of our cities and today's populations, particularly those in Eastern Canada, predate the current border.

Canada's border has been determined by the limits placed on American expansionism. They took as much land as they could by any means available. That includes military force, political force, fraud, intimidation, negotiation, and money.

Preventing them from taking all of Northern North America was not Canada, but the power of the British Empire. America would have taken the territory that contains our large population centres but they were British strong holds, and those that did not have permanent British defenses did have large enough populations that taking them would result in a major response from the worlds only global superpower of the time.

It has been the power the British Empire, fear of that power in the United States, that has most Canadians today living within 200kms of the American border.

Answer 5

That region tends to be warmer that regions further to the north, of course. As a result of that and other factors, that is where settlement has historically been most significant and continues to grow to this day.

But perhaps more importantly, it is that the border between the two countries happens to run along or near the middle of a waterway that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to half way across the continent. That wateway is the the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. A significant proportion of the population of both countries is within very close proximity of these waterways. And so, it is because much of the Canadian (and USA) population are near these waterways that a significant proportion of Canadians live near the USA.

If you look west of these waterways, the populations of both countries diverge from the border as the border cuts across the rest of the continent without any waterways as a guide nor to serve as a magnet for settlement. With the exception of Vancouver, western Canadian cities including Winnipeg and Calgary do indeed lie on significant water ways which happen to be distant from the USA/Canada border.

Vancouver is near the border, but again, Vancouver exists where it does because of a significant river delta (think of Cairo and the Nile). Vancouver was not settled because of the proximity of the USA nor has it thrived due to the proximity of the USA. Rather, Vancouver has thrived because of the River Delta. Since the River Delta is near the border, so too is this particular significant proportion of the population. Had the River Delta been further north, the border itself might be been drawn further north when the border was established.

As confirmation of the impact of the shared waterways, check this map on Wikipedia and observe how densely the USA population hugs closely to Canada around the Great Lakes -- leaving vast swaths of the Western half of the USA relatively unpopulated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA-2000-population-density.gif

This map suggests that the question about the Canadian population distribution relative the border might equally be asked of the United Sates population distribution (admittedly, in a slightly modified form: "Why do so very many people in the USA live so close to Canada?"). And the answer to both questions is the same: the shared waterways that lie between the two countries attracted settlement in the past and continue to attract settlement and contribute to growth.

Answer 6

Most people emigrated from England in the 1800s roads and transportation wasint as good as it is today. Cities were built near oceans and rivers b/s they were a sufishent food source allso b/c of trade between Canada and the us

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Climate, arable land and transportation are three major factors why most Canadians choose to live within 100 miles of the US border.

Answer 7

Trade and climate

Answer 8

Because life in the North is really harsh