Acadia University, at Wolfville, N.S., Canada; founded 1838; became Acadia Univ. 1891. It has faculties of arts, pure and applied sciences, management and education, and theology. Acadia Divinity College is associated with the university.

Acadia National Park, 48,419 acres (19,603 hectares), SE Maine, on the Atlantic coast; est. 1919. The park occupies a major portion of Mount Desert Island, Isle au Haut and several smaller islands, and the southern tip of Schoodic Peninsula. Almost completely surrounded by the sea, the park is characterized by a rugged, glacier-scoured interior with numerous valleys, lakes, and peaks, and a wave-eroded coastline. A variety of land and sea life, both plant and animal, as well as several museums and nature centers are found in Acadia. See National Parks and Monuments (table).

Acadia, Fr. Acadie, region and former French colony, E Canada, encompassing modern Nova Scotia but also New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and coastal areas of E Maine. After an abortive 1604 settlement of St. Croix (Dochet) Island, in the Saint Croix River, the chief town, Port Royal (now Annapolis Royal, N.S.), was founded by the sieur de Monts in 1605. Acadia was soon involved in the imperial struggle that would end in America with the French and Indian Wars. Destroyed by English colonists under Samuel Argall in 1613, Port Royal was rebuilt, and the colony prospered with farmers on dike-protected fields, fishermen on the shore, and fur traders in the forests. Later, attacks on Port Royal were resumed, and its capture by the British (New Englanders) in 1710 was formalized in the Peace of Utrecht (1713). The British distrusted the Acadians, who, wishing to remain neutral, generally refused to swear allegiance to Great Britain. In 1755 most inhabitants were deported to British colonies along the Atlantic coast south to Georgia; some were sent to the West Indies and Europe. A second expulsion took place in 1758. Many Acadians fled into the interior of what is now New Brunswick, where today they form close to 40% of the population. Others returned later from exile, some establishing themselves on the west ("French") coast of Nova Scotia. Today in Canada, an Acadian (French Acadien) is a French-speaking inhabitant of the Maritime Provinces; the Acadian community is largely integrated into the national culture, and New Brunswick is the most truly bilingual of the Canadian provinces. Of the exiles who did not return the most celebrated are those who settled in "Acadiana" or "Cajun Country," around St. Martinville in S Louisiana, where the Cajuns maintain a distinctive culture. The sufferings of the 1750s expulsion from Acadia are pictured in Longfellow's Evangeline.

Preserve on the coast of Maine, U.S. It has an area of 65 sq mi (168 sq km). Originally established as Sieur de Monts National Monument (1916), it became the first national park in the eastern U.S. as Lafayette National Park (1919) and was renamed Acadia in 1929. It consists mainly of a forested area on Mount Desert Island, dominated by Cadillac Mountain.

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North American possession of France in the 17th–18th century, centred in what is now Nova Scotia. Acadia was probably intended to include the other present Maritime Provinces as well as parts of Maine and Quebec. The first European settlement was founded by Samuel de Champlain and Pierre du Gast in 1604. The area at times was also claimed by the British and was contested often in the 18th-century colonial wars; in 1713 Nova Scotia came under British rule. In 1755 many French-speaking Acadians were deported by the British because of imminent war with France; several thousand settled in French-ruled Louisiana, where their descendants were known as Cajuns. The event was the theme for Henry W. Longfellow's Evangeline.

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