What is the name of the Viking settlement in Newfoundland that is now a World Heritage site?

The Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows is located in Newfoundland and is the site identified in the official Discover Canada study guide as the Viking settlement on Canadian soil that is now a World Heritage site. The settlement was built by the Vikings, the Norse seafarers of medieval northern Europe, and what survives at the location today is the physical remains of that early settlement. The site keeps its French name, L'Anse aux Meadows, in every official Canadian heritage record and in the citizenship study materials new Canadians use to prepare for the test.

What makes this settlement particularly important for citizenship candidates is its modern designation as a World Heritage site. World Heritage status is an international recognition reserved for places considered to have outstanding cultural or natural value to humanity as a whole, and it commits the host country to protecting and preserving the site for future generations. For Canada, having a Viking-era location listed in this way ties one of the country's earliest layers of European contact into a globally recognized framework of heritage protection, and it places L'Anse aux Meadows alongside the most historically significant locations on the planet.

For test purposes, the question is built around three linked facts that always travel together: the people who established the settlement (the Vikings), the province where the remains sit (Newfoundland), and the exact name used on the World Heritage list (L'Anse aux Meadows). The Discover Canada guide places this site within its larger account of who Canadians are — a country shaped by Aboriginal peoples, French and British settlers, and many other communities since. The Viking site marks one of the earliest documented chapters of European presence on these lands, long before the Acadians began settling in the Maritime provinces in 1604 and long before any of the later French- and English-speaking civilizations brought the institutions that define modern Canada.

The continued recognition of L'Anse aux Meadows as a World Heritage site connects directly to one of the responsibilities the Discover Canada guide expects every citizen to embrace: protecting and enjoying our heritage. The guide reminds Canadians that every citizen has a role to play in avoiding waste and pollution while protecting the country's natural, cultural and architectural heritage for future generations, and an irreplaceable Viking-era location in Newfoundland is exactly the kind of cultural heritage that responsibility covers. For test takers, this question also matters because it sits in the history section, where the guide carefully builds the larger story of who Canadians are. Knowing that a Viking presence in Newfoundland has been formally preserved as a World Heritage site reinforces just how deep and layered Canadian history is, and it ties into the broader theme that Canada's identity has been built up over a very long span of time on land long inhabited by Aboriginal peoples.