How many territories does Canada have?

Discover Canada records this in one direct sentence. The guide writes: Canada has ten provinces and three territories. Each province and territory has its own capital city. The number the test wants is therefore three.

The three territories named elsewhere in Discover Canada's expansion timeline are Yukon (admitted in 1898), Northwest Territories (created in 1870), and Nunavut (established in 1999 from the eastern part of the Northwest Territories). Together they cover most of Canada's far north.

Territories work differently from provinces. Discover Canada writes: "In the three territories, the Commissioner represents the federal government and plays a ceremonial role." So while provinces have a Lieutenant Governor representing the Sovereign, territories have a Commissioner representing Ottawa. The political logic is that territories are governed under federal authority — though each has its own elected legislature for territorial laws.

The geographic scale of the three territories is enormous. Discover Canada notes elsewhere that Yukon "holds the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada (-63°C)," that the Northwest Territories has more than half Aboriginal population, and that Nunavut, meaning "our land" in Inuktitut, is about "85% Inuit." Each territory has its own capital city, like every province.

The total of ten provinces plus three territories together gives thirteen units of sub-national government in Canada. Discover Canada tells new citizens directly: "You should know the capital of your province or territory as well as that of Canada." So the country's official-government geography is built around these thirteen units, with the federal capital at Ottawa, chosen as the capital in 1857 by Queen Victoria. Knowing that there are exactly three territories is one of the most basic facts about how Canada is organised.

The question is testing whether new citizens have remembered the basic structure of Canada. Discover Canada commits to three territories, alongside ten provinces.

The wrong answer choices each test the reader. Two would leave out Nunavut (the most recent territory, created in 1999). Four would invent an extra territory Discover Canada does not name. Five would do the same. The right answer is firmly three.