Port Royal

Port Royal was once the capital of Acadia / Nova Scotia and is now a small rural community in the western part of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Initially Port Royal was located on the north shore of the Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia, where there is currently the reconstruction of the original Habitation at Port-Royal. After its destruction (1613), Port Royal was re-established on the south shore of the basin. The British renamed the settlement Annapolis Royal after their conquest of Acadia (1710).

Port Royal was founded by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons and Samuel de Champlain in 1605. The village was the first permanent European settlement north of St. Augustine, Florida. (Two years later, the English made their first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia.)

Approximately seventy-five years after Port Royal was founded, Acadians migrated from the capital and established what would become the other major Acadian settlements before the Expulsion of the Acadians: Grand Pré, Beaubassin, Cobequid and Piziquid.

Including the raid that happened during the American Revolution, Port Royal / Annapolis Royal faced a total of thirteen attacks, more than any other place in North America.