Port-Royal (Acadia) in the context of "Lordship of Port-Royal"

Acadia (French: Acadie) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. Settlers primarily came from the southwestern regions of France, including Poitou-Charentes and the Aquitaine region (now known as Nouvelle-Aquitaine), as well as Poitou and Anjou. The territory was originally inhabited by various First Nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy who referred to the region as Dawnland.

The first capital of Acadia was established in 1605 as Port-Royal. Soon after, English forces of Captain Argall, an English ship's captain employed by the Virginia Company of London attacked and burned down the fortified habitation in 1613. A new centre for Port-Royal was established nearby, and it remained the longest-serving capital of French Acadia until the British siege of Port Royal in 1710. There were six colonial wars in a 74-year period in which British interests tried to capture Acadia, starting with King William's War in 1689.

A number of states and polities formerly claimed colonies and territories in Canada prior to the evolution of the current provinces and territories under the federal system. North America prior to colonization was occupied by a variety of indigenous groups consisting of band societies typical of the sparsely populated North, to loose confederacies made up of numerous hunting bands from a variety of ethnic groups (Plains region), to more structured confederacies of sedentary farming villages (Great Lakes region), to stratified hereditary structures centred on a fishing economy (Plateau and Pacific Coast regions). The colonization of Canada by Europeans began in the 10th century, when Norsemen explored and, ultimately unsuccessfully, attempted to settle areas of the northeastern fringes of North America. Early permanent European settlements in what is now Canada included the late 16th and 17th century French colonies of Acadia and Canada (New France), the English colonies of Newfoundland and Rupert's Land, the Scottish colonies of Nova Scotia and Port Royal.

France lost nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War to the British Empire. Britain's imperial government over a century later then ceded the land to Canadian control in 1867 after confederation. Since then, Canada's external borders have changed several times, and had grown from four initial provinces to ten provinces and three territories by 1999.

Port-Royal National Historic Site is a National Historic Site located on the north bank of the Annapolis Basin in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia, Canada. The site is the location of the Habitation at Port-Royal, which was the centre of activity for the New France colony of Port Royal in Acadia from 1605 to 1613, when it was destroyed by English forces from the Colony of Virginia.

The siege of Port Royal (5–13 October 1710), also known as the Conquest of Acadia, was a military siege conducted by British regular and provincial forces under the command of Francis Nicholson against a French Acadian garrison and the Wabanaki Confederacy under the command of Daniel d'Auger de Subercase, at the Acadian capital, Port Royal. The successful British siege marked the beginning of permanent British control over the peninsular portion of Acadia, which had been referred to as Nova Scotia by the British since 1621. It was the first time the British permanently took and held a French colonial possession. After the French surrender, the British occupied the fort in the capital with all the pomp and ceremony of having captured one of the great fortresses of Europe, and renamed it Annapolis Royal.

The siege was the third British attempt during Queen Anne's War to capture the Acadian capital, and it had profound consequences over the next 50 years. The conquest was a key element in the framing of the North American issues in French-British treaty negotiations of 1711–1713. It resulted in the creation of a new colony—Nova Scotia—and introduced significant questions concerning the fate of both the Acadians and the Mi'kmaq who continued to occupy Acadia. The Conquest of Acadia was a foundational moment in the history of the Canadian state—it was a precursor to the British conquest of New France in the middle of the century.