The District of Franklin was a regional administrative district of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

's Northwest Territories

Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...

. The district consisted of the Canadian high Arctic Islands, notably Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, it is considered part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, with Cape Columbia being the most northerly point of land in Canada...

, Baffin Island

Baffin Island

Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut is the largest island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world. Its area is and its population is about 11,000...

, and Victoria Island. The district also contained the mainland Melville Peninsula

Melville Peninsula

Melville Peninsula is a large peninsula in the Canadian Arctic. Since 1999, it has been part of Nunavut. Before that, it was part of the District of Franklin. It's separated from Southampton Island by Frozen Strait. The narrow isthmus connecting the peninsula to the mainland is styled the “Rae...

 and Boothia Peninsula

Boothia Peninsula

Boothia Peninsula is a large peninsula in Nunavut's northern Canadian Arctic, south of Somerset Island. The northern part, Murchison Promontory, is the northernmost point of mainland Canada, and thus North America....

.

English navigators Martin Frobisher

Martin Frobisher

Sir Martin Frobisher was an English seaman who made three voyages to the New World to look for the Northwest Passage...

 and Henry Hudson

Henry Hudson

Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle...

 were the first Europeans known to have visited the area (although Viking sailors, coming from Greenland, may have made occasional landings and hunting treks on Baffin Island in the 11th and 12th centuries). The area was transferred from British colonial authority to the Dominion of Canada in 1894 and named after Sir John Franklin

John Franklin

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic...

 in the following year; however, the northernmost islands were claimed by Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 until the year 1930.

Along with the District of Keewatin

District of Keewatin

The District of Keewatin was a territory of Canada and later an administrative district of the Northwest Territories.The name "Keewatin" comes from Algonquian roots—either kīwēhtin in Cree or giiwedin in Ojibwe—both of which mean north wind in their respective languages...

 and the District of Mackenzie

District of Mackenzie

The District of Mackenzie was a regional administrative district of Canada's Northwest Territories. The district consisted of the portion of the Northwest Territories directly north of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan on Canada's mainland....

, it was one of the three districts of the old Northwest Territories before the formation of Nunavut

Nunavut

Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...

 in 1999, at which point the district ceased to exist, although as an administrative district of the NWT it had ceased to function several years prior to the splitting off of Nunavut. The area of the former District of Franklin was divided between the remaining portion of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. In the process, Victoria Island was divided with approximately two-thirds of its area falling in Nunavut, and several other islands were also divided between the two territories.