Who Owns All The Land In Canada? Not Its Citizens

Riyaz Patel

Canada is the second largest country in the world by total area, covering approximately 3.85 million square miles and one of the most highly urbanized in a global context.

However, none of its citizens have the right to own physical land in the country.

Why? Because all the land and in Canada is solely owned by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who is also Canada’s head of state.

Canadian law in most of its ten provinces evolved from British common law, so instead of directly owning land, Canadians have what is known as land tenure. That means they can only own an interest in an estate.

Only 9.7 percent of the total land is privately owned, reports worldatlas.com, while the rest is Crown Land, Queen Elizabeth’s land, administered on behalf of the Crown by various agencies or departments making up the government of Canada.