Quebec Geography & Climate

The St. Lawrence River is Quebec's defining geographic feature, running the length of the settled south of the province and historically shaping where its cities and towns were built -- Montreal, Quebec City, and Trois-Rivières all sit directly on it.

North of the river, the Canadian Shield covers roughly two-thirds of the province -- a vast expanse of exposed bedrock, boreal forest, and lakes that becomes progressively more remote and sparsely populated moving north toward Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay.

The Laurentian Mountains, an ancient and heavily eroded range north of Montreal, hold the province's main ski country, including resort towns like Mont-Tremblant.

East of Quebec City, the Charlevoix region's dramatic coastal terrain gives way to the Gaspé Peninsula, which juts into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and ends at the sea stack of Percé Rock.

Southern Quebec, including Montreal and Quebec City, has a humid continental climate with four clearly defined seasons -- cold, snowy winters and warm, humid summers.

Quebec City is one of the snowiest major cities in North America, regularly receiving more than 3 meters (about 10 feet) of snow over a winter season, with average January temperatures well below freezing.

Moving north into the Canadian Shield, the climate shifts toward subarctic and eventually arctic conditions, with a much shorter growing season and permafrost present in the province's far north.

Fall foliage is driven by the province's abundant sugar maples and typically peaks in late September in the north and the Laurentians, moving to early-to-mid October around Montreal and Quebec City.