What is the national symbol of Canada?

The maple leaf is the most iconic national symbol of Canada and the central element on the country's flag, coat of arms, military insignia, sports uniforms, and currency. The leaf has represented Canada since the early nineteenth century, when French Canadians along the St. Lawrence adopted it as an emblem of belonging to the northern landscape that distinguished them from the Old World.

The maple leaf appeared in print as a Canadian symbol in 1834, when the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal selected it for its founding ceremony. Toronto's first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, used the maple leaf on a banner in the 1837 Rebellion. By 1860 the maple leaf was placed on the badges of Canadian volunteer regiments raised for the visit of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, and was worn by Canadian soldiers in both world wars.

The species depicted is the sugar maple (Acer saccharum), Canada's most widely tapped maple for syrup, though the design on the 1965 flag is a stylised composite rather than a botanical likeness. Eleven points and a single straight stem set the national leaf apart from any one species. The leaf appears on the penny from 1937 until its discontinuation in 2013, on the reverse of the Canadian one-cent coin designed by George Edward Kruger Gray, and on the obverse of the Royal Canadian Mint's Maple Leaf bullion coins issued since 1979.

Beyond official use, the maple leaf is the logo of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team (1927), the emblem worn by Canadian Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and the single image most widely used by Canadians abroad to identify themselves.