Côte-Nord (, ; ; land area ) is the second-largest administrative region by land area in

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, Canada, after

Nord-du-Québec Nord-du-Québec (; en, Northern Quebec) is the largest, but the least populous, of the seventeen administrative regions of Quebec, Canada. With nearly of land area, and very extensive lakes and rivers, it covers much of the Labrador Peninsu ...

. It covers much of the northern shore of the

Saint Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

and the

Gulf of Saint Lawrence , image = Baie de la Tour.jpg , alt = , caption = Gulf of St. Lawrence from Anticosti National Park, Quebec , image_bathymetry = Golfe Saint-Laurent Depths fr.svg , alt_bathymetry = Bathymetry ...

past

Tadoussac Tadoussac () is a village in Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Saguenay and Saint Lawrence rivers. The indigenous Innu call the place ''Totouskak'' (plural for ''totouswk'' or ''totochak'') meaning "bosom", probably in reference to the tw ...

. While most of the region is in the same time zone as the rest of Quebec, the far eastern portion east of the 63rd meridian, excluding the

Minganie Regional County Municipality Minganie is a regional county municipality in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It includes Anticosti Island. Its seat is Havre-Saint-Pierre. It has an area of according to Quebec's ''Ministère des Affaires municipales, des Régions et ...

, is officially in the Atlantic Time Zone and does not observe daylight saving time.

Population

At the 2016 Canadian Census, the population amounted to 92,518, approximately 1.1% of the province's population, spread across 33 municipalities, various

Indian reserve In Canada, an Indian reserve (french: réserve indienne) is specified by the '' Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." In ...

s and a Naskapi reserved land. The towns of Baie-Comeau and Sept-Îles combined amount to a little more than half of the population of the region.

Geography and economy

Côte-Nord was created as an administrative region in 1966. Important landmarks of Côte-Nord include

Anticosti Island ; moe, Notiskuan; mic, Natigostec , sobriquet = , image_name = RiviereHuileAnticosti.jpg , image_caption = Salmon fisherman on Rivière à l'Huile , image_map ...

, the Mingan Archipelago, and the

Manicouagan Reservoir Manicouagan Reservoir (also Lake Manicouagan) is an annular lake in central Quebec, Canada, covering an area of . The lake island in its centre is known as René-Levasseur Island, and its highest point is Mount Babel. The structure was create ...

. A

territorial dispute A territorial dispute or boundary dispute is a disagreement over the possession or control of land between two or more political entities. Context and definitions Territorial disputes are often related to the possession of natural resources s ...

between

and

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic Canada, Atlantic region. The province comprises t ...

concerning the border between Côte-Nord and Labrador was set on 2 March 1927 by the

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is the highest court of appeal for the Crown Dependencies, the British Overseas Territories, some Commonwealth countries and a few institutions in the United Kingdom. Established on 14 Aug ...

. The boundary was entrenched in the

Canadian constitution The Constitution of Canada (french: Constitution du Canada) is the supreme law in Canada. It outlines Canada's system of government and the civil and human rights of those who are citizens of Canada and non-citizens in Canada. Its contents ar ...

upon Newfoundland joining confederation in 1949. While this border has not been formally accepted by the Quebec government, the Henri Dorion Commission (Commission d'étude sur l'intégrité du territoire du Québec) concluded in the early 1970s that Quebec no longer has a legal claim to Labrador. The region's economy is based on mining (mostly

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

lumbering Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

, aluminum production, and

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

. Côte-Nord's fourteen hydroelectric dams, notably the Manicouagan- Outardes complex, supply Hydro-Québec with over 10,500 megawatts of power.

Administrative divisions

Regional county municipalities The term regional county municipality or RCM (''french: municipalité régionale de comté, MRC'') is used in Quebec, Canada to refer to one of 87 county-like political entities. In some older English translations they were called county r ...

* Caniapiscau Regional County Municipality *

La Haute-Côte-Nord Regional County Municipality La Haute-Côte-Nord is a regional county municipality in northeastern Quebec, Canada, in the Côte-Nord region. It is located on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence where the Saguenay River flows into it. The seat is Les Escoumins. The municipality has a ...

* Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality * Manicouagan Regional County Municipality *

* Sept-Rivières Regional County Municipality

Indian reserves

Essipit Essipit (known as Les Escoumins until 1996) is an Innu Indian reserve in the Canadian province of Quebec, located on the north shore of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in the Côte-Nord region. It belongs to the Innue Essipit First Nation. The reserve ...

* La Romaine * Lac-John *

Maliotenam Maliotenam (Mani-Utenam in Innu-aimun) is a First Nations reserve in Quebec, located adjacent to the city of Sept-Îles. Together with Uashat some distance away, it forms the Innu community of Uashat-Maliotenam. The community is a part of the ...

(part of Uashat-Maliotenam) * Matimekosh *

Mingan Mingan, also known as Ekuanitshit in Innu-aimun, is an Innu First Nations in Canada, First Nations Indian reserve, reserve in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec, at the mouth of the Mingan River on Mingan Bay of t ...

* Nutashkuan * Pessamit * Uashat (part of Uashat-Maliotenam)

Naskapi reserved territory

* Kawawachikamach

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, the Côte-Nord region had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of -4.3% from its 2016 population of 92,518, making it the fastest-decreasing region of Québec. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. The median age is 46.4, as opposed to 41.6 for all of Canada. French was the mother tongue of 84.9% of residents in 2021. The next most common mother tongues were the Cree-Innu languages at 7.8% total, followed by English at 4.5%. 0.6% reported both English and French as their first language. Additionally, there were 0.8% who reported both French and a non-official language as their mother tongue, mostly speakers of Cree-Innu languages. Speakers of Cree-Innu languages mostly live in Pessamit and Uashat-Maliotenam. English speakers mostly live in Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality. As of 2021, Indigenous peoples comprised 16.2% of the population and visible minorities contributed 1.5%. The largest visible minority groups in Côte-Nord are Black (0.7%), Arab (0.2%), and Latin American (0.2%). The region is home to 280 recent immigrants (i.e. those arriving between 2016 and 2021). 130 of them come from various African countries. In 2021, 71.3% of the population identified as

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, while 19.6% said they had no religious affiliation.

Anglicans Anglicanism is a Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia ...

were the largest religious minority, at 1.9% of the population, while

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

were the largest non-Christian religious minority, making up 0.4% of the population. Counting both single and multiple responses, the most commonly identified ethnocultural ancestries were: ''(Percentages may total more than 100% due to rounding and multiple responses).''

Major communities

* Baie-Comeau *

Fermont Fermont () is a town in northeastern Quebec, Canada, near the Quebec-Labrador border about from Labrador City on Route 389, which connects to the Trans-Labrador Highway (Newfoundland and Labrador Route 500). It is the seat of the Regional Cou ...

* Forestville *

Havre-Saint-Pierre Havre-Saint-Pierre is a town on Pointe-aux-Esquimaux, which is on the Quebec north shore (Côte-Nord) of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. Located along Route 138 some east of Sept-Îles, it is the largest town and seat of the Minganie RCM, ...

* Pessamit *

Port-Cartier Port-Cartier is a city in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It is located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River at the mouth of the Aux-Rochers River, exactly southwest of Sept-Îles, Quebec. Port-Cartier had a population of 6,65 ...

* Sept-Îles

Exploration

The Côte-Nord region was gradually explored by French colonists during the centuries with the help of

natives Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

. However it is worth noting the contribution of Henry de Puyjalon (1841-1905), a pioneer in ecology who devoted his life to the exploration of this region.

References

External links

Regional Portal

Côte-Nord Tourism
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