Which are the Maritime provinces?

Discover Canada uses the phrase "the Maritime provinces" in its Acadian history passage. The guide writes: The Acadians are the descendants of French colonists who began settling in what are now the Maritime provinces in 1604. The grouping the test wants — the three traditional Maritime provinces — is therefore Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.

The Maritimes are a sub-set of the larger Atlantic group. Discover Canada separately describes "the Atlantic provinces" as four — Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. The Maritime provinces are three of those four, excluding Newfoundland and Labrador. So all Maritimes are Atlantic, but not all Atlantic provinces are Maritimes.

Each of the three has a distinct profile in Discover Canada. Nova Scotia is one of the four founding provinces of Confederation in 1867 and the first British North American colony to attain full responsible government in 1847–48. New Brunswick was also one of the four founding provinces in 1867; the guide adds that it "is the only officially bilingual province," sits in the Appalachian Range, and was "founded by the United Empire Loyalists." Prince Edward Island joined Canada in 1873.

The Maritimes share Acadian heritage. Discover Canada's sentence is the strongest direct evidence: the Acadians, descendants of French colonists, "began settling in what are now the Maritime provinces in 1604." So when the guide describes the Maritime provinces by name, it is naming the same Maritimes — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island — to which Acadian culture is most closely tied.

The question is testing whether new citizens know which three provinces are the Maritime provinces. Discover Canada ties the term to the Acadian-settlement region — and the three traditional Maritime provinces are Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.

The wrong answer choices each break the three-province set. Newfoundland is part of the Atlantic Provinces but is traditionally not counted as a Maritime province. Quebec and Ontario are central Canadian provinces. The right answer keeps the three Maritime provinces together.