What country is north of the United States?

The country north of the United States is Canada, the second largest country in the world by area at about 3.85 million square miles, sharing the longest international border in the world with the United States at 5,525 miles, including the 1,538 mile border with Alaska. Canada is bordered by the United States along the northern frontier of 13 states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania (briefly across Lake Erie), Ohio (across Lake Erie), Michigan (across the Great Lakes), Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Alaska.

Most of the border runs along the 49th parallel from Lake of the Woods west to the Pacific coast, established by the Convention of 1818 (with Britain) for the eastern portion and the Oregon Treaty of June 15, 1846 for the western portion. The Great Lakes form much of the eastern boundary.

Canada has a population of about 40 million in 2024, ranking 38th in the world. The capital is Ottawa, but the largest cities are Toronto (about 6.4 million metropolitan population), Montreal (4.3 million), Vancouver (2.7 million), and Calgary (1.6 million). About 90 percent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S. border because the northern interior is sparsely populated due to harsh climate.

Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with King Charles III as the head of state, represented in Canada by a Governor General. Canada is bilingual, with English and French as official languages; Quebec is predominantly French-speaking. Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) make up about 5 percent of the population.

The British Empire formed Canada through the British North America Act of 1867 (now called the Constitution Act, 1867), which united the United Province of Canada (today Ontario and Quebec), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Other provinces and territories were added over the next century, with Newfoundland and Labrador joining most recently in 1949. The Constitution Act of 1982 patriated the Canadian Constitution from Britain and added the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Canada and the United States are major trading partners, with trade volume of about 800 billion dollars per year, originally under the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement of 1988, then NAFTA effective January 1, 1994, and now the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement effective July 1, 2020. The two countries share defense responsibilities through NORAD founded May 12, 1958. American and Canadian forces have served together in both World Wars, the Korean War, the Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan, and many other conflicts. About 1 million Americans live in Canada and about 800,000 Canadians live in the United States.