Geographic locations

Abbreviations

Spell out the names of provinces, territories, countries and states in running text, with the exception of BC, NWT and PEI, which are acceptable in running text for second and subsequent references to British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and Prince Edward Island.

Abbreviations may be used in lists and tables. When doing so, format abbreviations of provinces and territories according to Canada Post standards.

AB, BC, MB, NB, NL, NS, NT, NU, ON, PE, QC, SK, YT

Capitalization

Capitalize regions but not their derivatives. Use lower case to indicate mere direction or position.

the West (region of Canada), Western Canada, western BC

the Interior, the Cariboo, the Shuswap, the Thompson Nicola Cariboo Region
the Secwépemc territory, Secwepemcúlucw
the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, the island

French place names in Canada

Only two municipalities in Canada have two official forms of their names, one in French and one in English: Grand Falls and Caissie Cape (Grand-Sault and Cape-de-Caissie) in New Brunswick. All other municipalities have one authorized form. Montréal and Québec City retain their accents in English.

For a list of official geographic names in Canada, please refer to Natural Resource Canada’s Geographical Names Search.

Foreign spellings

Please refer to the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) GEOnet Names Server for a complete listing of countries and their accepted spellings.