Alberta, Canada — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Alberta known for?

The province holds six UNESCO World Heritage sites, among them one of the world's great dinosaur fossil beds, ancient buffalo hunting grounds, historic Indigenous rock art, and the largest protected boreal forest. Skiers come for the mountains. Calgary hosts a famous rodeo each July, two professional ice hockey teams play here, and the ski season is among the longest in the northern hemisphere, while oil has built the towers of Edmonton and Calgary.

Where is Alberta?

Alberta lies in Western Canada, one of the three prairie provinces. It is landlocked, with Saskatchewan, one of only two Canadian provinces without a coast, and it shares its edges with neighbours on every side: British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U.S. state of Montana to the south. No sea reaches it at all.

Fourth-largest of Canada's provinces by area, it covers a broad sweep of the continental interior. The land is big and open. Two great landscapes divide the province.

The Great Plains fill the east, flat and dry grassland running to the horizon, while the Rocky Mountains rise along the western edge on the British Columbia border. Between and beyond them lie forests, including a large protected boreal forest and the world's largest inland delta in the north. The aridity keeps the eastern plains dry, and the rivers that cross them fall from the peaks.

Six of its landscapes are protected as UNESCO World Heritage sites. From prairie to peak, Alberta gathers some of the sharpest scenery contrasts in Canada.

What is Alberta like?

Alberta's culture is split between city and open country. The province is young, and it shows. Most Albertans speak English, with a small francophone community and a large share who grew up with other languages entirely, a mix that fills the young, fast-building cities of Edmonton and Calgary.

The two cities keep up a running rivalry. Both are adding new museums and galleries as they grow, and more than half the province lives in one or the other. New concert halls and libraries rise beside them.

Outside the cities, the culture leans western and outdoors. Sport runs deep here. Calgary's rodeo each July is the best-known event, one of the largest anywhere, while ice hockey and one of the northern hemisphere's longest ski seasons shape the winters.

Older layers run underneath. Indigenous rock art and ancient buffalo hunting grounds mark the plains, and the dinosaur fossil beds carry a past far older still. Oil money built much of what stands, raising new skyscrapers over both Edmonton and Calgary.

From the mountains to the prairie, Alberta wears an outdoors, frontier character that its wealth has modernised but not erased.

What is the history of Alberta?

Alberta became a province in 1905. The land's human story runs far deeper, marked by ancient buffalo hunting grounds and Indigenous rock art across the plains, and its rock holds one of the world's great dinosaur beds from an age before that. After 1905 the province grew, and later oil built the modern cities of Edmonton and Calgary.

Alberta is old ground under a young province.

What is the climate of Alberta?

Alberta has a mostly continental climate, and its dryness makes the temperature swing fast. Cold snaps and warm spells can trade places within a day, especially out on the arid eastern plains. The west is gentler.

There, along the Rocky Mountains, occasional Chinook winds slip down the slopes and lift the winter temperature sharply, easing the swings that the rest of the province feels.

How do you get to Alberta?

Most travellers fly into Calgary or Edmonton. The two cities are the province's gateways, and roads run out from them to the mountains, the plains, and the borders. Alberta is landlocked, so there is no coast to arrive by.

Overland routes cross in from British Columbia over the Rocky Mountains, from Saskatchewan across the plains, and up from Montana on the United States line to the south.