Known as the land of 100,000 lakes, Manitoba lies in the center of Canada, in an area known as the Canadian Shield. Manitoba is one of the three prairie provinces in Canada. A quarter of Manitoba's land is covered in forest with the rest making up land perfect for farming. Home of about a million people, Manitoba's motto is "Glorious and Free."

LOCATION
Manitoba is on of the three Prairie Provinces and is bordered by Ontario, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, Hudson's Bay and the United States and is the geographical center of Canada. It has an area of 650,000 square kilometers and is known as the land of 100,000 lakes.

HISTORY
The first inhabitants of Manitoba were the Assiniboine Indians. Europeans reached Manitoba through Hudson Bay in the early 1600s during their search for the Northwest Passage to the Orient. Early European attention was focused on the fur trade, though by 1812 the first agricultural settlements were established. Manitoba became a province of the Dominion of Canada in 1870, with Winnipeg as its capital.

PEOPLE
Manitoba has 1.1 million people of which two-thirds live in metropolitan Winnipeg. About a quarter of the population has a mother tongue other than English or French. The province has from its early days attracted an ethnically diverse group of immigrants, and even today has 15% visible minorities.