Canadian maritime provinces are a concept of Canadian geography. The area is made up of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The three maritime provinces are located on the west coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and later joined the Canadian Commonwealth of Newfoundland and Labrador to form a larger Atlantic province of Canada. The main cities in the area are Halifax, St. John and Charlottetown. As of 2008, there were 1,826,896 people in the Canadian maritime provinces.