The Maritime Peninsula is a region of eastern North America that extends from the

Kennebec River The Kennebec River (Abenaki language, Abenaki: ''Kinəpékʷihtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 30, 2011 natural river within the U.S. state of Ma ...

in the U.S. state of

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

northeast to the

Maritime provinces The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of ...

of Canada (

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island is an island Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. While it is the smallest province by land area and population, it is the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

, and

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

) and Quebec's

Gaspé Peninsula The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (, ; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick on it ...

. It is bounded by the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the north and the

Gulf of Maine The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northea ...

to the south. The region has been inhabited for about 11,000 years, beginning in the

Paleo-Indian Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas towards the end of the Late Pleistocene period. The prefix ''paleo-'' comes from . The term ''Paleo-Indians'' applies specifically to the lithic period in ...

period. Contact between native populations and Europeans occurred as early as 1600 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Indigenous peoples at the time of European contact included the ancestors of the modern St. Francis (

Odanak Odanak is an Abenaki First Nations reserve in the Central Quebec region, Quebec, Canada. The mostly First Nations population as of the 2021 Canadian census was 481. The territory is located near the mouth of the Saint-François River at its co ...

Penobscot The Penobscot (Abenaki: ''Pαnawάhpskewi'') are an Indigenous people in North America from the Northeastern Woodlands region. They are organized as a federally recognized tribe in Maine and as a First Nations band government in the Atlantic p ...

Passamaquoddy The Passamaquoddy (Maliseet-Passamaquoddy language, Passamaquoddy: ''Peskotomuhkati'', Plural: ''Peskotomuhkatiyik'') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American/First Nations in Canada, First Nations people who live in northea ...

Maliseet The Wolastoqiyik, (, also known as the Maliseet or Malecite () are an Algonquian-speaking First Nation of the Wabanaki Confederacy. They are the Indigenous people of the Wolastoq ( Saint John River) valley and its tributaries. Their terri ...

, and

Miꞌkmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Mi'kmaw'' or ''Mi'gmaw''; ; , and formerly Micmac) are an Indigenous group of people of the Northeastern Woodlands, native to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Bru ...

peoples, along with other Algonquian speakers referred to by French explorers as

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pred ...

, Etchemin, and Souriquois. The French colony of

Acadia Acadia (; ) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the The Maritimes, Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. The population of Acadia included the various ...

occupied roughly the same area.

References

{{Coord, 46, 30, N, 66, 0, W, type:landform, display=title Geography of North America Peninsulas of North America

See also

References