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Ontario is the most populous and second-largest in area of Canada's ten provinces. It is found in east-central Canada. Its capital is Toronto. Ottawa, the capital of Canada, is also located in Ontario. As of July 1, 2005 there are 12,541,410 Ontarians (residents of Ontario), representing approximately 37.9% of the total Canadian population and an area of 1,076,395 km² (415,598 sq. mi.). Ontario is bounded on the north by Hudson Bay and James Bay, on the east by Quebec, on the west by Manitoba, and on the south by the American states of Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Ontario's long American border is formed almost entirely by lakes and rivers, starting in Lake of the Woods and continuing to the Saint Lawrence River near Cornwall; it passes through the four Great Lakes on which Ontario has coastline, namely Lakes Superior, Huron (which includes Georgian Bay), Erie, and Ontario (for which the province is named; the name Ontario itself is a corruption of the Iroquois word "Onitariio" meaning "beautiful lake" or "Kanadario", variously translated as "beautiful water"). There are approximately 250,000 lakes and over 100,000 kilometres (62,000 mi) of rivers in the province.The province consists of three main geographical regions: the thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, a mainly infertile area rich in minerals and studded with lakes and rivers; sub-regions are Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. the mostly unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the extreme north and northeast, mainly swampy and sparsely forested; and the temperate, and therefore most populous region, the fertile Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Valley in the south where agriculture and industry are concentrated. Southern Ontario is further sub-divided into four regions; Western Ontario (often called Southwestern Ontario), Golden Horseshoe, Central Ontario and Eastern Ontario.
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