Rupert's Land, or Prince Rupert's Land, was a territory in British North America, consisting of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, which was nominally owned by the Hudson's Bay Company for 200 years from 1670 to 1870, although numerous aboriginal groups lived in the same territory and disputed the sovereignty of the area. The area once known as Rupert's Land is now mainly a part of Canada, but a small portion is now in the United States of America. It was named after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a nephew of Charles I and the first Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. In December 1821 the HBC monopoly was extended from Rupert's Land to the Pacific coast.

Areas belonging to Rupert's Land were mostly in present-day Canada and included the whole of Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southern Nunavut, and northern parts of Ontario and Quebec. It also included present-day United States territory, including parts of the states of Minnesota and North Dakota and very small parts of Montana and South Dakota. The southern border west of Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains was the height of land between the Mississippi and Saskatchewan watersheds until the London Convention of 1818 substituted the 49th Parallel.

Hudson's Bay Company's surrender of its charter to the Crown

In 1869–1870, the Hudson's Bay Company surrendered its charter to the British Crown, receiving £300,000 in compensation. While it is often said that Hudson's Bay "sold" Rupert's Land as well as the North-Western Territory, the company had no land to sell: its Charter was essentially for a trading monopoly enforceable on British subjects. Control was originally planned to be transferred on 1 December 1869, but due to the premature action of the new lieutenant governor, Sir William McDougall, the people of Red River formed a provisional government that took control until arrangements could be negotiated by leaders of what is known as the Red River Resistance and the newly formed Government of Canada. As a result of the negotiations, Canada asserted control on 15 July 1870.

However, Canada still did not have legal control because the Imperial Crown had made the transfer subject to treaties being entered into with the indigenous nations. While Canada did pass legislation in 1870 purporting to create the "Province of Manitoba, the absence of the treaties was soon noted, and it was decided in 1873 to pass a second Manitoba Act which would have legal certainty." Other "numbered treaties" followed, and treaty-making extended to the North-Western Territory, which comprised the regions northwest of Rupert's Land and to the north of the Colony of British Columbia.

The transaction was three-cornered. On November 19, 1869, the company surrendered its charter under its letters patent to the British Crown, which was authorized to accept the surrender by the Rupert's Land Act. By order-in-council dated June 23, 1870,[8] the British government admitted the territory to Canada, under s. 146 of the Constitution Act, 1867,[9] effective July 15, 1870, subject to the making of treaties with the sovereign indigenous nations to provide their consent to the Imperial Crown to exercise its sovereignty pursuant to the limitations and conditions of the Rupert's Land documents and the treaties. Lastly, the Government of Canada compensated the Hudson's Bay Company £300,000 ($1.5 million) for the surrender of its charter on the terms set out in the order-in-council.

The company retained its most successful trading posts and one-twentieth of the lands surveyed for immigration and settlement.