Welcome to Yukon!
The Yukon is one of Canada's three northern territories. It is an area larger than Sweden, but with a population smaller than that of Sweden's 55th largest municipality. It is a wildly beautiful region, with extremely long, warm summer days and extremely short, extremely cold winter days. Exploring this region can be expensive, but very rewarding. Many of the visitors in the Yukon are traveling to Alaska on the Alaska Highway.
Yukon (formerly called Yukon Territory and sometimes referred to as The Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 35,874 people as of the 2016 Census. Whitehorse, the territorial capital, is the largest settlement in any of the three territories. Yukon was split from the North-West Territories in 1898 as the Yukon Territory. The federal government's Yukon Act, which received royal assent on March 27, 2002, established Yukon as the territory's official name, though Yukon Territory is also still popular in usage and Canada Post continues to use the territory's internationally approved postal abbreviation of YT. In 2021, territorial government policy was changed so that “The Yukon” would be recommended for use in official territorial government materials. Though officially bilingual (English and French), the Yukon government also recognizes First Nations languages.
At 5,959 m (19,551 ft), Yukon's Mount Logan, in Kluane National Park and Reserve, is the highest mountain in Canada and the second-highest on the North American continent (after Denali in the U.S. state of Alaska). Most of the Yukon has a subarctic climate, characterized by long, cold winters and brief, warm summers. The Arctic Ocean coast has a tundra climate. Notable rivers include the Yukon River as well as the Pelly, Stewart, Peel, White, and Tatshenshini rivers.