For attractions that also serve as public spaces, tourism statistics are nearly impossible to compile. To avoid confusion, we decided to not count shopping malls, for example, including Toronto's Eaton Centre, the country's busiest shopping center. Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto's "Heart of the City," presents a similar problem. While the surrounding area sees an estimated 52 million annual visitors, the vast majority are workers and local shoppers. One reliable statistic claims one million event-specific visitors in 2007, which alone makes the Square one of Canada's top 25 attractions. With the upcoming opening of the Toronto Life building and the Citytv studios, we can reasonably assume the number will be much higher for 2008.

Created in 1998, Saguenay St. Lawrence encompasses the confluence of the St. Lawrence Estuary and the Saguenay Fjord and is a popular destination for hiking, sea kayaking and diving. It's also one of the best whale-watching sites in the world.

SOURCE: Parks Canada

The Bay of Fundy spans two Canadian provinces, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—about two thirds of the 1.2 million reported visitors come from the New Brunswick side of the bay. The Bay's tides are the highest in the world, rising 50 feet in about six hours, and the area is home to a newly declared UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

SOURCE: Bay of Fundy Tourism Partnership

Canada is known for its wildlife—even in the midst of its biggest city. Toronto's zoo is one of the largest in the world, housing more than 5,000 animals and six miles of walking trails.

SOURCE: Toronto Zoo

The mission of this interactive museum is to "delight, inform and challenge visitors through engaging and thought-provoking experiences in science and technology." Its high-profile visitors have included John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Dr. Jane Goodall—as well as approximately 200,000 students a year.

SOURCE: Ontario Science Center

Covering three manmade islands along the Lake Ontario waterfront, this popular "entertainment parkland" features waterslides, pedal boats, miniature golf courses and an "H20 Generation Station," "the largest outdoor soft play climbing structure in the country."

SOURCE: Ontario Place media relations department

Sprawling along the shores of the Ottawa River across from capital city Ottawa's Parliament buildings, the Canadian Museum of Civilization comprises more than a million square feet and its permanent exhibits include the Native Peoples of the Northwest Coast; and the Canada Hall, which recounts 1,000 years of the country's history. The Museum of Civilization also includes The Canadian Postal Museum and the Canadian Children's Museum; their attendance is included in the 1.26 million total.

SOURCE: Media Relations Department, Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation

The second of two amusement parks to make our list, La Ronde's thrill rides include the Bateau Pirate, which "rocks its passengers from side to side, giving them the impression of being storm-tossed at sea" and the Monstre, "the highest double wooden roller coaster in the world."

SOURCE: La Ronde/Six Flags public relations office

Located on an island across the harbour from the city of Toronto, this 600-acre amusement park features tot-friendly rides like the Log Flume and the Pony Express.

SOURCE: Centreville Amusement Park

This central Toronto landmark and public space hosts more than 175 events each year, and is the favored venue for New Year's revelers. Last fall, the city launched a design competition to revitalize the area—the winning plan, by a Toronto architecture firm, will feature an upper level terrace, a glass pavilion, and an enhanced version of the square's current Peace Garden.

SOURCE: City of Toronto

Grizzly bears, moose and mountain goats roam this northerly national park in the Canadian Rockies. So do approximately two million visitors per year, who come to marvel at attractions like the Columbia Icefield, a mass of snow that feeds eight major surrounding glaciers.

SOURCE: Parks Canada

Located in the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal, Mont Tremblant is a ski resort and village with 625 acres of ski trails and a host of warm-weather activities, like golf and an annual blues festival, that keep tourists coming during the warmer months. It's also a pedestrian-only zone. Visitors park their cars in underground garages and travel around town on foot, skis or a gondola.

SOURCE: Station Mont Tremblant—Intrawest

Recently knocked off its worlds-tallest-building perch by a Dubai skyscraper, Toronto's landmark tower is still a stratospheric attraction at 1,815 feet. Among its features are two unique city-viewing options: the Sky Pod, offering a 360-degree panorama of the Toronto region, and the glass floor, with a 1,122-foot view straight down, below your feet.

SOURCE: CN Tower

Seventy-nine miles north of Vancouver, Whistler is widely regarded as one of the world's best ski resorts. In 2010, Whistler will host the Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Games. During summer months, its thawed slopes beckon to mountain bikers.

SOURCES; Whistler Blackcomb and Media Room

Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (of Central Park fame), Mont Royal Park includes the highest point in the city and is home to a ski slope, a sculpture garden, and the landmark domed St. Joseph's Oratory, a Roman Catholic Basilica with purported healing powers.

SOURCES: Ville de Montreal and Lemon Troyal

 Approximately 4.8 million visitors came to Quebec City last year, and according to the city's tourism office, 63 percent of them headed for Vieux-Quebec. The old town, the only walled city in North America, is encircled by fortified walls left over from French and British regimes from the 17th to 19th centuries. Today the old city is filled with restaurants and shops that beckon from narrow, winding streets.

SOURCE: Quebec City Tourism

This Toronto-area theme park is renowned for its roller coasters, which include the country's longest wooden coaster, The Mighty Canadian Minebuster; Canada's first inverted coaster and its only "flying coaster," Time Warp. Last year, Wonderland unveiled plans for the country's biggest, fastest and tallest roller coaster, the Behemoth.

SOURCE: TEA/ERA Theme Park Attendance Report 2007

Canada's first national park is still its most visited. The 2,500-acre gem in the Canadian Rockies includes myriad mountain attractions, from glaciers to meadows to rock-spire "Hoodoos;" two towns within the park, Lake Louise and Banff, offer museums, galleries and other forms of cultural respite from the expanse of raw nature. Several major ski resorts, including the Lake Louise resort, lie within the park's bounds, and according to a spokesperson for the Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, their attendance is included in the park service's count.

SOURCE: Parks Canada

This 56-acre park in Winnipeg is located at the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red rivers. It was a site of Aboriginal settlement and later a fur-trading and railroad hub. Today The Forks features, among other attractions, Canada's largest urban skateboarding park, and a network of promenades, riverwalks and plazas, drawing four to five million annual visitors.

SOURCES: The Forks North Portage Corporation and Manitoba

Canada's largest urban park, Exhibition Place's 192 acres are situated on the shores of Lake Ontario, near downtown Toronto. In addition to special events and shows like the Canadian National Exhibition, the park's permanent tenants include the Canadian Bureau for the Advancement of Music.

SOURCES: The City of Toronto; The Exhibition Place

This riverfront recreation and cultural center is not to be confused with the neighboring Port of Montreal, where commercial shipping activity now takes place. The Old Port comprises more than 100 acres of landscaped space facing the St. Lawrence River. In the summer it bustles with dance and circus shows; the winter months bring attractions such as the Montreal High Lights festival, when the "Quays" are ablaze with pyrotechnics and a host of exhibitions and performances.

SOURCES: Port of Montreal and Société de développement de Montréal

It has an amazing wilderness feel," says the CTC's Carol Horne of this one-thousand-acre oasis within Vancouver's city limits. "You won't get this kind of temperate rainforest experience inside any other urban center. Not even Central Park." Approximately eight million visitors per year come to wander among the hemlock, cedar and rhododendrons, or to enjoy the many gardens, children's playgrounds and dining venues within its bounds.

SOURCE: City of Vancouver

This former center of sawmilling and slaughterhouses was transformed, in the 1970s, into an enclave of theaters, restaurants, shops and artists' studios. The island's centerpiece is a The Granville Island Public Market, a colorful, covered bazaar that spills over with local fruits of land and sea. Granville's governing body reckons that 71 percent of its estimated 12 million annual visitors come from beyond British Columbia.

SOURCES: City of Vancouver and Granville Island (CHMC)

This 10-acre site on Toronto's waterfront includes shops, restaurants, green space, an ice-skating rink and an extensive boardwalk. Grand ships, such as the 1812 War Privateer of the North Atlantic, dock at the Quay and allow the public aboard for tours. A rich array of arts—from contact improv to Thai Dance—fills the Centre's many performance spaces.

SOURCES: Harbourfront Centre

The legendary falls cracked the top 10 of our U.S. tourist attraction list, and it's no surprise that Niagara Falls ranks as a top Canadian draw as well. The thundering waters straddle the two countries' borders, and it's tricky to parse out which nation's soil the viewers appreciate the Falls from—it's often both (The Niagara Falls Bridge Commission estimates 12 million annual cross-border passages on its bridges). Numbers from Niagara Falls Tourism (Canada) and the City of Niagara Falls, Ontario put the figure, respectively, at 12 and 14 million a year.

SOURCES: City of Niagara Falls and Niagara Falls Tourism