Territory in northern Canada made up of several administrative districts, which include all the areas to the north of sixty degrees latitude between Hudson Bay and the Yukon and all the islands in Hudson Bay. Very sparsely populated, these territories make up more than one-third of Canada's total area.
Note: In 1998, Canada carved a homeland for the Inuit people, known as Nunavut (“Our Land”), from the Northwest Territories.
U.S. territory created by Congress in 1787 encompassing the region lying west of Pennsylvania, north of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, and south of the Great Lakes. Virginia, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts had claims to this area, which they ceded to the central government between 1780 and 1800. Land policy and territorial government were established by the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787. Ultimately, five states-Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin-were organized from the territory, and a small part, the land lying between the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers, was incorporated into Minnesota.