Alberta is one of Canada's provinces. It celebrated One c years as a province around 2005 on September 1st. When a portion of a Centenary celebration, Queen Elizabeth II & Prince Philip visited the province from either May 23 to May 25, 2005.

Alberta's capital is the city of Edmonton. Its virtually all thickly settled city & area, Calgary, is Alberta's economic hub and is in the southern vicinity of the province. More major cities & towns include Banff, Camrose, Wetaskiwin, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Jasper, Lethbridge, Lloydminster, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer. View likewise: List of communities in Alberta.

A Premier of the province is Ralph Klein. Look at besides List of Alberta Premiers.

Alberta is known as when Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848-1939), the 4th girl of Queen Victoria. Princess Louise was besides a married woman of Sir John Campbell, who was the Governor General of Canada from 1878-1883. Lake Louise was also known as within honour of Princess Louise.

Geography

Independent article: Geography of Alberta

Alberta is within american Canada, using an region of 661,190 km² (260,000 mi²). These are bounded in the south per United States boundary line, 49° north. Eastward at 110° west it borders a province of Saskatchewan. At 60° n these are separated from either a Northwest Territories. To the west, its border by owning British Columbia follows the line of peaks of the Rocky Mountains range along the Continental Divide, which runs northwesterly, until it reaches 120° west, at which point a border follows this meridian to 60° northward.

Sustaining a exception of a southern division, the province can become said to be ground water. Alberta contains 12 of streams, streams, lakes, and wells throughout, & wells throughout and lakes ideal for swimming, water skiing, fishing and a fully range of more water sports. There are the people of clean-a lake streams, lakes, and wells throughout to each one less than 260 km² placed around Alberta, & deuce-ace of further considerable size. Which are actually Lake Athabasca, 7898 km², part of which is in the province of Saskatchewan, Lake Claire, 1436 km², and Lesser Slave Lake, 1168 km².

When Alberta extends for 1200 kilometre from either northerly to south, & astir 600 klick wide at its greatest east-west extent, these are natural that a climate should deviate well between parallels of 49° & 60° northerly & besides between 110° & 120° west. These are besides farther influenced per different altitudes above sea level of the different area of the province.

Northern Alberta has fewer frost-absolutely free! times than southern Alberta, which is all but desert-such as inside its summertime heat & want of rain. American Alberta is protected per mountains, & enjoys a warmth brought by wintertime chinook winds, while eastern Alberta is flat, dry prairie, in which temperatures could range from either super cold (−35°C (−31°F) in the wintertime) to super hot (+35°C (+95°F) in the summertime). Central & southern Alberta come a virtually all probably site within Canada to personal experience tornadoes because of the summertime heat, & violent summer thunderstorms are common in the eastern half of the province.

Alberta's capital city, Edmonton, is located well-nigh exactly in the centre of the province, & virtually all of Alberta's oil is refined here. Southern Alberta, in which Calgary is placed, is known for its ranching, and kine begin loose through the whole winter. Very much of the unforested section of Alberta is given terminated either to grain or even to dairy farming, with ranching preponderantly the southern Alberta industry.

Within southeastern Alberta, in which a Red Deer River traverses a flat prairie & farmland, come the Alberta badlands with deep gorges and striking landforms. Dinosaur Provincial Park, near Drumheller, Alberta, showcases the badlands terrain, desert flora, and remnants from either Alberta's past once dinosaurs roamed the so soaker landscape.

Overall, Albertthe has cool winters, by owning a daytime norm of astir −10°C (14°F) south to −24°C (−12°F) northward. In a summertime the temperature averages just about 13°C (55°F) in the Rocky Mountains & 18°C (64°F) in the dry prairie in the south-east.

Largest municipalities by population

Municipality	2005	2001	1996
Census Metropolitan Areas:
Calgary CMA	1,037,100**	951,395	821,628
Edmonton CMA	1,014,000***	937,845	862,597
Cities (Ten Big):
Calgary	956,078	878,866	768,082
Edmonton	712,391	666,104	616,306
Red Deer	79,082	67,707	60,080
Lethbridge	77,202	67,374	63,053
St. Albert	56,318	53,081	46,888
Medicine Hat	56,048	51,249	46,783
Grande Prairie	44,631	36,983	31,353
Airdrie	27,069	20,382	15,946
Spruce Grove	18,405	15,983	14,271
Camrose	15,850	14,854	13,728
Dominion (Tierce Big):
Strathcona County	80,232	71,986	64,176
Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo	73,176	41,466	35,213
Municipality of Rocky View	30,688*	28,441	23,326

Sources: 100% 2005 numbers come according to official 2005 nosecount information from either municipalities. In which there is no 2005 information is available, (*) indicates a virtually all recent official information from a municipality or even a 2001 Statistics Canada federal census. A lot information for 2001 & 1996 is from either a various federal nose count. CMA information is from either a virtually all recent Numbers Canada estimate.

(**) indicates 2004 CMA estimates according to [http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo05a.htm Statistics Canada - Population of Census Metropolitan Areas]

(***) indicates 2005 estimate based on data from a City of Edmonton [http://www.edmonton.ca/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_690414_0_0_18/demographic].

Industry

Independent article: Industry in Alberta

Alberta is the big producer of conventional crude oil, synthetic crude, natural gas and gas products in the united states. Both of the big producers of petrochemicals in North America are located in central and northwards central Alberta. Inside each Red Deer and Edmonton, world class polyethylene and vinyl manufacturers produce products shipped everthing across the world, & Edmonton's oil refineries provide the raw materials for the big petrochemical industry to the east of Edmonton.

A Athabasca Oil Sands (previously called a Athabasca Tar Sands) have figured oil reserves in excess of that of the rest of the gloexist as, approximated to be I.6 trillion barrels (254 km³). By owning a advancement of extraction methods, bitumen & economic synthetic rock oil oil come produced at costs nearing that of conventional crude. This technology is Alberta grown & developed. Several corporations use each conventional strip mining and non-conventional methods to extract the bitumen from the Athabasca dump. Sustaining todays technology, merely 315 billion barrels (L km³) come recoverable. Fort McMurray, one of Canada's youngest & liveliest cities, has grown higher completely because of the big multinational corporations which have taken on the project of boring.

An additional factor determining a viability of oil extraction from either a Tar Sands is the price of oil. Inside 2005, record oil numbers own mass produced it extrthe than profitable to extract this oil, which it used to be that would give little profits or a loss.

When Edmonton is considered the pipeline junction, manufacturing, chemical processing, the food & drug administration and refinement centre of the province, Calgary is known for its senior and junior oil company head agents (unlike Edmonton, Calgary is non approximately any big sources of oil).

By having combined effort & trend lines from either a provincial government, many high-hi-tech industries develop obtained their birth within Alberta, notably a invention & perfection of liquid crystal display systems. By having the growing economy, Alberta has many financial institutions treating by having many civil & personal funds.

Agriculture and forestry
Agriculture has a important position in the province's economy. Across Five million cattle are residents of the province at one time or another, & Albertthe beef has a fit worldwide market. About a single half of a lot American beef is produced around Alberta. Alberta is one of a prime producers of plains buffalo (bison) for the consumer market. Sheep for wool and mutton are also raised. Wheat and canola are primary farm crops, by using Alberta leading a provinces inside spring wheat production, by owning more grains also large. Very much of the farming is dryland farming, typically by using fallow seasons interspersed by owning cultivation. Continuous cropping (where no fallow year) is step by step becoming the further park mode of production because of increased gains & the reduction of soil erosion. Through a province, a it used to be that most common grain elevator is slowly being wasted when railway line come decreased & farmers currently truck a grain to central points.

Alberta is the leading beekeeping province of Canada, with a select few apiarist wintering hives indoors withinside specially intentional barns in southern Alberta, so migrating northward when you took a summertime into a Peace River valley where a year is short however a working times come hanker for honeybees to produce honey from either clover and fireweed. Hybrid canola also requires bee pollination, and a select few apiculturist service this require.

A huge northern forest reserves of softwood allow Alberta to produce big quantities of lumber and plywood, and many northern Alberta plants supply North America and the Pacific Rim nations with bleached wood pulp and newsprint.

Government

View as well: Politics of Alberta

The food and drug administration of Alberta occurs as parliamentary democracy. A unicameral provincial parliament -- the Legislative Assembly -- consists of 83 members. The food and drug administration is headed per Premier, Ralph Klein, and a city of Edmonton is Alberta's government seat. A province's revenue comes principally from either a taxation of oil, gas, beef, softwood lumber, & wheat, however as well includes grants from a federal government primarily for infrastructure projects. Albertans come a lowest-taxed people within Canada, and Albertthe is the merely province within Canada forswearing a provincial sales tax (though residents are however subject to a federal sales taxation, the GST). Alberta's municipalities have their own governments which (commonly) act within co-operation by owning a provincial government.

Alberta's politics are much further conservative than victims of more American provinces. Alberta has traditionally experienced leash political parties, a Progressive Conservatives ("Conservatives" or "Tories"), a middle-of-the-road Liberals, and a social popular New Democrats. a 4th person, the strongly conservative Social Credit Party, was a power around Alberta for numbers of decades, but fell from either a political map when a Progressive Conservatives come to power in the early 1970s. Since that period, there are no more political person has governed Alberta.

In the 2004 provincial election, held in November, a Alberta Alliance Party, running to the right of the Conservatives, won 1 seat in this election.

Look at as well: List of Alberta Premiers, List of Alberta general elections

Education
When sustaining any American province, a Alberta government is a greatest authority around education, creating & regulating the board of education, public colleges, universities, & more education isntitutions.

K-12
A immense majority of Alberta's schools come redo by publicly funded board of education (apiece by owning its have district of authority). A largest come English language Public board of education. Albertthe as well has English Separate Catholic boards throughout a province, which help a real minority of students. There exists of these protestant board of education inside section of the province. In which figures warrant, there are francophone school boards (Public & Separate Catholic). A lot 5 one types of boards come fully publicly funded (forgoing tuitiin) by local l& tax and provincial grants given on an match per student basis by the province (sustaining a bit of adjustments). a different types of board of education come a necessity under a American constitution, which guarantees the francophones & Catholic communities two the right to their have schools, & the right to administer the children.

Another American provinces keep around reformed their school systems in non-religious lines, by looking the constitutional amendment, however Alberta has non. Typically the guide to attend a single technique or even an additional is non according to religion, however a parent's belief of which patterns will bring the better education.

Starting inside 1994, the province has allowed a select few chartered schools to operate, independently of any territory board of education, reportage directly to the province. Homeschooling is officially recognized & partly funded from either in a Alberta school models.

Originally inside Alberta, board of education experienced a power to levy land tax within their various territorial dominion. But, this intended dominion by owning a moo taxation base were underfunded, therefore the province moved to a patterns that pools the education l& tax, & distributes it according to student people and want.

Post-secondary
A big deuce universities within Alberta come a University of Calgary and Edmonton's University of Alberta. There exists likewise Athabasca University, which focuses on few feet away learning, & a University of Lethbridge. There are Xv colleges that receive directly public funding, along by having deuce technical indicator institutes[http://www.advancededucation.gov.ab.ca/college/postsecsystem/postsecinst/postsecinst.asp]. Students can too receive government loans & grants when attending selected personal institutions.

Transportation

Alberta has across 180,000 klick of highways and roads, of which about 50,000 kilometer come paved. A independent northerly-south corridor is Highway 2, which begins south of Cardston at the Carway border crossing. Highway Four, which profits extends U.S. Interstate Highway 15 into Alberta and is the busiest U.S. gateway to a province, begins at the Coutts border crossing and ceases at Lethbridge. Highway 3 joins Lethbridge to Fort Macleod and links Highway 4 to Highway Two. Highway Two travels northbound across Fort Macleod, Calgary, Red Deer, and Edmonton before dividing into two main road. A single continues northwest when Highway 43 into Grande Prairie and the Peace River country; the more (Highway 63) travels nor'-east to Fort McMurray, the location of the Athabasca Oil Sands. main road Deuce is supplimented by two other main road that dog parallel to that: main road Twenty-two, west of highway 2, referred to as 'a cowboy trail', & main road Twenty-one, east of main road Ii.

Alberta has ii independent east-west corridors. A southern corridor, a share of the Trans-Canada Highway system, enters the province touching Medicine Hat, runs westward across Calgary, & leaves Alberta across Banff National Park. A northern corridor, too section of a Trans-Canada network however known instead when the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16), runs west from either Lloydminster in eastern Alberta, through Edmonton & Jasper National Park into British Columbia. In a sunny spring or even fall day, one of a virtually all scenic causes in the globe is along the Icefields Parkway, which runs a select few 300 kilometre between Jasper & Banff, by having range of mountains & glaciers in either side of its entire length.

Urban stretches of Alberta's major main road & freeways are typically known as trails. E.g., Highway Two is Deerfoot Trail when it lives across Calgary, Calgary Trail when it leaves Edmonton southward, & St. Albert Trail when it leaves Edmonton northward toward a city of St. Albert. Visitant from either outside Albertthe typically locate this upsetting, customary when it is to the notion that a trail is an unpaved route primarily for pedestrians.

Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, & Lethbridge use material mass transit systems. Edmonton & Calgary too work lightly rail vehicles.

Alberta is easily-socially connected by air, by owning international airports at both Edmonton & Calgary. Calgary's aerodrome is a larger of the 2, & is besides the third occupy inside Canada. These are the hub drome for the important proportion of the copulative trans-border & international flights into & away from Alberta. There are assibilate 9000 klick of operating mainline railway, & numerous tourer view Alberta aboard Via Rail or Rocky Mountain Railtours.

Culture

Independent article: Culture of Alberta

Alberta is easily known for its warmly & forthcoming friendliness & frontier spirit.

Summer will bring several festivals to the province. Edmonton's Fringe Festival is the globe's 2nd big fallowing Edinburgh's. Alberta too hosts a bit of of Canada's big folk festivals, multicultural festivals, & heritage times (to title two or three). Calgary is besides personal to Carifest, the 2nd big Caribbean festival in the nation (fallowing Caribana in Toronto). These cases highlight a province's ethnical diversity & love of amusement. Virtually all of a major cities keep around many performing theatre corporations world health organization email within venues when diverse when a Arts Barns & the Francis Winspear Centre.

Albertthe besides has a big ethnic people. Two a Chinese & East Indian communities come important. Based on data from Statistics Canada, Alberta is home to the 2nd greatest proportion (both percent) of Francophones around american Canada (when Manitoba). Numerous of Alberta's French-speaking residents sleep in a central & northwestern regions of the province. Equally reported in a 2001 nosecount, the Chinese represented nearly 4 percent of Alberta's people & East Indians represented better than two percent. Each Edmonton & Calgary keep close at hand Chinatowns and Calgary's is Canada's third big. Aboriginal Albertans make up more or less 3 percent of the people.

A major contributors to Alberta's ethnic diversity own been a European nations. Forty-4 percent of Albertans come of British and Irish descent, and there are likewise big many Germans, Ukrainians, and Scandinavians.

Two cities heavy trend lines foremost-class Canadian Football League and National Hockey League teams. Soccer, rugby union and lacrosse are also played professionally inside Alberta.

Tourism is also important to Albertans. The million visitant are to Alberta every season upright for Calgary's globe-famous Stampede and for Edmonton's Klondike Days. Edmonton was a gateway to the single a lot-American route to the Yukon gold fields, & a single route which did non need gold-seekers to travel a exhausting and unsafe Chilkoot Pass.

Visitant concourse to Calgary for x years each July for the taste of "Stampede Fever". As a celebration of Canada's have Wild West and a oxen ranching industry, the Stampede welcomes around I.Two million humans both month. Sole an hour's cause from either a Rocky Mountains, Calgary also makes the visit to holidaymaker attractions such as Banff National Park something which can easy exist as neutralise the day. Calgary & Banff for each one carrier about Five million tourer annually.

Alberta is an significant destination for tourer world health organization love to ski and hike; Alberta boasts several globe-class ski resorts. Hunters & fishermen from either around the world come respire to choose at home telling trophies and tall tales from their experiences around Alberta's woods.

Demographics

Albertthe has enjoyed a comparatively high rate of incubation inside recent years, due around prominent a share to its burgeoning economy. Between 2003 & 2004, a province saw high fertility (in par using occasionally big provinces like British Columbia), relatively high immigration, & the high rate of interprovincial migration whenever in comparison more provinces [http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo33c.htm]. When of 2004, the people of the province was 3,183,312 (Albertans). 81% of this people sleep in populated area & 19% is rural. A Calgary-Edmonton Corridor is a most urbanised vicinity within the province & one of the densest in Canada. Numbers of of Alberta's cities & towns use at times likewise had super high rates of incubation within recent history.

Racially & ethnically, a province is predominately Caucasian. 88.8% of the people is either whiten or even Aboriginal (Aboriginals represent the fairly little proportion of this percentage, yet). This total is significantly little around numbers of of the cities, particularly Calgary and Edmonton which are home to the lot battalion of seeable minorities.

Seeable Minorities 3.3% Chinese 2.3% Asian 1.1% Black 1.1% Filipino

Virtually all Albertans identify when Christians. All the same, numerous population in the province watch more faiths or even don't profess to the religion in the least. Albertthe has a somewhat higher percentage of evangelical Christians than do more provinces.

A Mormons of Alberta reside primarily in the extreme south of the province. There are temples in both Cardston & Edmonton. Several Alberta Mormons descend from either Mormon pioneers who emigrated from Utah around the turn of the 20th century. Albertthe too has a big Hutterite population, a communal Anabaptist sect similar to the Mennonites, and the important people of Seventh-day Adventists in and about a Lacombe area due to the presence of the Canadian University College.

Numerous humans of the Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim faiths also produce Alberta their page; one of a big Sikh temples in Canada is located good outside of Edmonton.

Religion Protestant: 38.9% Roman Catholic: 26.7% Christian Orthodox: 1.5% other Christian: Quadruplet.1% Muslim: I.5% Buddhist: Ace.1%

History

Independent article: History of Alberta

the present province of Alberta when far northward when astir 53° in the north latitude was a a share of Rupert's Land from the time of the incorporation of the Hudson's Bay Company (1670). Fallowing a arrival in the N-West of the French as much as 1731 they settled the prairies of the west, establishing communities like Lac La Biche & Bonnyville. Fort La Jonquière was established touching what is at present Calgary within (1752). A North-West Company of Montreal occupied a northern a portion of Alberta territory prior to the Hudson's Bay Company arrived from either Hudson Bay to require possession of it. A 1st explorer of the Athabasca region was Peter Pond, who, in behalf of the Northward-West Company of Montreal, built Fort Athabasca on Lac La Biche in 1778. Roderick Mackenzie built Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca ten years later inside 1788. His first cousin, Sir Alexander Mackenzie followed the North Saskatchewan River to its northernmost point touching Edmontin, so setting northbound on foot, trekked to the Athabasca River, which he followed to Lake Athabasca. It was there he found a right outflow flow of any stream which bears his title -- a Mackenzie River -- which he followed to its outlet in the Arctic Ocean. Giving to Lake Athabasca, he followed the Peace River upstream, eventually reaching a Pacific Ocean, and so existence a number one white human to cross a Northerly Our contries continent n of Mexico.

A district of Alberta wwhen created as a share of the N-West Territories inside 1882. When class action settlement increased, local representatives to the N-West Legislative Assembly were added. When an extended campaign for autonomy, around 1905 the district of Alberta was enlarged and given provincial status.

People of Alberta since 1901

Fauna and flora

Fauna
A deuce-ace climatical regions (alpine, forest, and prairie) of Alberta are house to numbers of different coinage of fauna. A south & central prairie was a l& of the bison, its grasses providing a great pasture and breeding ground for hundreds to thousands of buffalo. It were virtually destroyed by early whiten settlers, partly for sport, partly for the warmly buffalo fur, which was used to produce coats, and part when of these means of destroying a culture of the native people. A whiten settlers felt that a better way to "civilize" the indigene was to make a point that it thought & behaved such as a white men, & by removing a buffalo, a critical element of native culture, thought it may launder therefore. Since so, buffalo develop manufactured a hard comeback, & thrive inside farms & in parks 100% above Alberta, & the native culture is too growing stronger once again.

Alberta is residence to numerous big carnivores. Among a two come the grizzly and black bears, which are incurred in the mountains & wooded regions. Little carnivores of the dog and cat families include coyotes, wolves, fox, lynx, bobcat and mountain lion (cougar).

Herbivorous, or plant-phytophagous creature, come uncovered throughout a province. Moose and deer (both mule & white-whitetail deer varieties) are found in the wooded regions, & pronghorn antelope can be found in the prairies of southern Alberta. Bighorn sheep and mountain goats live in a Rocky Mountains. Rabbits, porcupines, skunks, squirrels, & numbers of metal money of gnawer and reptilian sleep in each corner of the province. Alberta is fortunate therein these are house to simply a single kind of venomous snake, a prairie rattlesnake.

Telephone exchange & northern Alberta & a region farther n is the incubation-ground of the migrant birds. Huge many ducks, geese, swans, and pelicans arrive in Alberta each spring & nest in or even touching one of a hundreds of little streams, lakes, and wells throughout that dot northern Alberta. Eagles, hawks, owls, and crows are plentiful, & the immense kind of little seed & insect-eating birds may be incurred. Alberta, prefer more temperate regions, is home to mosquitoes, flies, wasps, and bees. streams, lakes, and wells throughout & lakes come swell stocked pike, walleye, white fish, rainbow, speckled, and brown trout, and potentially sturgeon. Turtles are incurred around occasionally a stream bodies in the southern section of the province. Frogs and salamanders are a few of the amphibians that make their homes in Alberta.

Flora

Around central & northern Alberta a arrival of spring will bring a prairie anemone, a avens, crocuses, and more early flowers. A forward-moving summertime introduces numerous flowers of the sunflower family, until in August a plains come 1 blaze of yellowness & purple. a southern section of Alberta is covered by a short grass, super alimental, however prohibitionist higher when summertime lengthens, to become replaced by healthy perennials like the buffalo bean, fleabane, and sage. Two yellowness & purple clover fill a roadways & the ditches sustaining their beauty & redolent scents. A trees within the park area of the province develop in clumps & belts on the hillsides. Which are actually largely deciduous, typically birch, poplar, and tamarack. Several mintage of willow and other bush develop within virtually any terrain. On the northward side of the N Saskatchewan Flow of any stream evergreen plant forests prevail for hundreds of thousands of square klick. Aspen poplar, balsam poplar (or cottonwood), and paper birch are the primary big deciduous metal money. Conifers include Jack pine, Rocky Mountain pine, Lodgepole pine, both white & black spruce, and a needle-shedding larix laricina.