Canada's Ecosystems

An ecosystem is a system in nature contain living things (including people), their physical environment (land, water, climate) and the life processes that enables the system to sustain itself and evolve.

Canada is an ecologically diverse country. One way to represent that diversity through an ecosystem framework. An ecosystem framework can help us understand what makes one ecosystem special, how ecosystems differ from one another and how they are distributed. An ecosystem framework can also help us understand the relationship between people and the environment in an more holistic manner.

Canada has defined a hierarchical system of ecosystems. At a simple level there are 20 ecozones, consisting of 15 terrestrial and 5 marine units. The terrestrial part of Canada is further subdivided into 53 ecoprovinces and 194 ecoregions. More detailed levels have been mapped but are not presented here. Lines dividing ecosystems on a map often represent general areas where one ecosystem unit merges with another.

The ecoregion level is the foundation of this EcoMAP Web site. Most of the thematic layers on this EcoMAP site are presented as maps according to Canada's 194 ecoregions, rather than by other geographic frameworks such as provinces/territories, although that political framework is superimposed on these maps for reference purposes. EcoMAP is designed to help users understand ecological diversity according to the natural divisions of Canada rather than human made divisions.