ABOUT NEW BRUNSWICK
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces (together with Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia) and is the only constitutionally bilingual (English–French) province. It was created as a result of the partitioning of the British colony of Nova Scotia in 1784.
Fredericton is the capital, Moncton is the largest metropolitan (CMA) area and Saint John is the most populous city. In the 2011 nationwide census, Statistics Canada estimated the provincial population to have been 751,171, being on an area of almost 73,000 km2. The majority of the population is English-speaking, but there is also a large Francophone minority (33%), chiefly of
Acadian origin. The provincial flag features a ship superimposed on a yellow background with a yellow lion passant guardant on red pennon above it. The province is named for the city of Braunschweig, known in English as Brunswick, located in modern-day Lower Saxony in northern Germany (and also the former duchy of the same name). The then-colony was named in 1784 to honour the reigning British monarch, George III, who was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Braunschweig is the ancestral home of the British monarch George I and his successors (the House of Hanover).
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​Public education in the province is administered by the Department of Education, a department of the Government of New Brunswick, according to a forest of legislation because of segmentation by age and purpose. Private education, apprenticeships and occupational training in the province are also strictly regulated, to the extent that it constitutes a provincial offence to offer courses with no licence.
New Brunswick has a comprehensive parallel system of Anglophone and Francophone public schools providing education to both the primary and secondary levels. These schools are segregated by government decree. The English system developed out of a mixture of the British and American systems, reflecting the Loyalist background of so many early settlers. There are also secular and religious private schools in the province.
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The New Brunswick Community College system has campuses in all regions of the province. Although they are legislated separately by official language, this comprehensive trade school system offers roughly parallel programs in various campuses. Anglophone students from the northern part of the province must travel south to obtain education, whereas Francophone students have no courses offered in the southwest. Each campus, however, tends to have areas of concentration to allow for specialization. There are also a number of private colleges for specialized training in the province, such as the Moncton Flight College, one of the top pilot-training academies in Canada.
There are four publicly funded secular universities and four private degree-granting institutions with religious affiliation in the province. The two comprehensive provincial universities are the University of New Brunswick and the Université de Moncton. These institutions have extensive postgraduate programs and Schools of Law. Medical education programs have also been established at both the Université de Moncton and at UNBSJ in Saint John (although affiliated with Université de Sherbrooke and Dalhousie University respectively). Mount Allison University in Sackville is currently ranked as the best undergraduate liberal arts university in Canada and has produced Rhodes Scholars, more than any other liberal arts university in the Commonwealth.
New Brunswick is divided into five scenic drives: Fundy Coastal Drive, Acadian Coastal Drive, River Valley Scenic Drive, Miramichi River Route and Appalachian Range Route. Provincial and Municipal Visitor Information Centres are located throughout each drive.
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Aside from Saint John's large tourism industry from cruise ships, some of the province's tourist attractions include the New Brunswick Museum, Minister's Island, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Grand Manan Island, Kings Landing Historical Settlement, Village Historique Acadien, Les Jardins de la République, Hopewell Rocks, La Dune de Bouctouche, Saint John Reversing Falls, Magnetic Hill and the Magnetic Hill Zoo, Magic Mountain, Casino New Brunswick, Cape Jourimain National Wildlife Preserve, Sackville Waterfowl Park, and the 41 km (25 mi) Fundy Hiking Trail.
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