Canadian Prairies

Canadian Prairies Prairies canadiennes (French)
The Prairies
Region
Farm on the prairies near Hartney, Manitoba
Country	Canada
Provinces	Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba
Highest point
- elevation	3,747 m (12,293 ft)
Lowest point
- elevation	0 m (0 ft)
Area	1,780,650.6 km2 (687,513 sq mi)
Population	5,886,906 (2011)
Map of Prairie Provinces

The Canadian Prairies is a region in western Canada, which may correspond to several different definitions, natural or political. Notably, the Prairie provinces or simply the Prairies comprise the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, as they are partially covered by prairie (grasslands). In a more restricted sense, the term may also refer only to the areas of those provinces covered by prairie; their portions of the physiographic region known as the Interior Plains. Prairie also covers portions of northeastern British Columbia, though that province is typically not included in the region in a political sense.

The prairies in Canada refers to temperate grasslands and shrublands biome, within the prairie ecoregion of Canada and consists of Northern mixed grasslands in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and southern Manitoba. Northern short grasslands in southeastern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan. Northern tall grasslands in southern Manitoba, and Aspen parkland, which covers central Alberta, central Saskatchewan, and southern Manitoba. The Prairie starts from north of Edmonton, it covers the three provinces east to the Manitoba-Minnesota border.

However "the prairies" may also refer to all of the Interior Plains region within Canada, in contrast with the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian Shield, and is a continuation of the Great Plains region of the United States.