Atlas of Canada - Major Drainage Areas of Canada

Major Drainage Areas (MDA), as portrayed in this map, are part of the Standard Drainage Area Classification (SDAC) which was developed by Natural Resources Canada, in partnership with Statistics Canada, and Environment and Climate Change Canada.

A drainage area, as opposed to a drainage basin or watershed, is a unit of statistical aggregation used for reporting purposes based upon drainage patterns and the underlying basins, delimited by a drainage divide.

A drainage basin, sometimes called a watershed, is an area where all surface water shares the same drainage outlet. Surface water consists of water flowing on the surface of the earth that develops into larger streams and eventually combines to form a river.

The 11 MDAs presented in this map comprise the uppermost level in the drainage area classification system which then divides into 164 sub-drainage areas, and then is further divided into 974 sub-sub-drainage areas.

Relief was derived from the merging of two raster data sets, both resampled to 804 metre resolution:

• High Resolution Digital Elevation Model (HRDEM) – CanElevation Series

• Canadian Digital Elevation Model, 1945-2011

Further information on all these maps can be found on the Atlas of Canada web site atlas.gc.ca.

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• Digital elevation data
• Drainage
• Drainage Basins
• Elevation
• Form Descriptors
• Maps
• Nature and Environment
• Watersheds

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (54%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:00 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:00 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Elevation, Inland Waters
Title Title for the Dataset.	Atlas of Canada - Major Drainage Areas of Canada
Description A description of the dataset.	Major Drainage Areas (MDA), as portrayed in this map, are part of the Standard Drainage Area Classification (SDAC) which was developed by Natural Resources Canada, in partnership with Statistics Canada, and Environment and Climate Change Canada. A drainage area, as opposed to a drainage basin or watershed, is a unit of statistical aggregation used for reporting purposes based upon drainage patterns and the underlying basins, delimited by a drainage divide. A drainage basin, sometimes called a watershed, is an area where all surface water shares the same drainage outlet. Surface water consists of water flowing on the surface of the earth that develops into larger streams and eventually combines to form a river. The 11 MDAs presented in this map comprise the uppermost level in the drainage area classification system which then divides into 164 sub-drainage areas, and then is further divided into 974 sub-sub-drainage areas. Relief was derived from the merging of two raster data sets, both resampled to 804 metre resolution: High Resolution Digital Elevation Model (HRDEM) – CanElevation Series Canadian Digital Elevation Model, 1945-2011 Further information on all these maps can be found on the Atlas of Canada web site atlas.gc.ca.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Digital elevation data Drainage Drainage Basins Elevation Form Descriptors Maps Nature and Environment Watersheds
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2024-11-18
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/74eb52a9-c088-401c-bfb3-f08a18899e7b
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Natural Resources Canada | Ressources naturelles Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Government of Canada;Natural Resources Canada;Geoscience and Earth Monitoring Sector, Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, GeoDiscovery, [email protected]
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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