The Calgary–Edmonton Corridor is a geographical region of the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

. It is the most urbanized area in Alberta and is one of Canada's four most populated urban regions. It consists of

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

Alberta census divisions No. 11, No. 8, and No. 6. Measured from north to south, the region covers a distance of approximately . As of the designations in the Canada 2021 Census of

census metropolitan area The census geographic units of Canada are the census subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's quinquennial census. These areas exist solely for the purposes of stat ...

s (CMAs) and census agglomerations (CAs) in Alberta, the corridor includes three of the province's four CMAs (

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

and

Red Deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or Hart (deer), hart, and a female is called a doe or hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Ir ...

) and two CAs ( Lacombe and Sylvan Lake), in addition to four other CAs already included in the Calgary and Edmonton CMAs. The corridor is bordered by Edmonton and the surrounding area to the north,

in the middle, and

and the surrounding area to the south.

Transportation

Alberta Highway 2, also known as the Queen Elizabeth II Highway or QE2, is the busiest highway in Alberta and forms the central spine of the corridor. A Canadian Pacific Kansas City rail line, originally built by the Calgary and Edmonton Railway in 1891, roughly parallels the highway. The line has been used exclusively by freight trains since 1985, when

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...

discontinued its Calgary–South Edmonton train service. There have been several proposal and studies for high-speed rail through the region. The corridor has two of Canada's five busiest airports: Calgary International and Edmonton International. The number of daily flights between these two airports number into the dozens, making it one of Canada's busiest commuter flight routes.

Demographics

In the

Canada 2001 Census The 2001 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population. Census day was May 15, 2001. On that day, Statistics Canada attempted to count every person in Canada. The total population count of Canada was 30,007,094. This w ...

, the population of the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor was 2,149,586, representing 72.3% of Alberta's population. In the

Canada 2011 Census The 2011 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population on May 10, 2011. Statistics Canada, an agency of the Canadian government, conducts a nationwide census every five years. In 2011, it consisted of a mandatory short for ...

, the corridor's population had increased to 2,703,380 or 74.2% of the province's population. The population as of the

Canada 2021 Census The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canada, Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, whic ...

was 3,230,150. The following presents the historic population growth of the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor between 1996 and 2021 by its three census divisions.

Growth

The Calgary–Edmonton Corridor is one of the fastest growing regions and wealthiest regions in Canada. A 2003 study by TD Bank Financial Group found the

GDP per capita This is a list of countries by nominal GDP per capita. GDP per capita is the total value of a country's finished goods and services (gross domestic product) divided by its total population (per capita). Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is ...

in the corridor is 10% above average compared to U.S. metropolitan areas and 40% above average compared to other Canadian cities. Much of this is because of large oil revenues due to the growing cost of oil since 2003.

Census subdivisions

The following are lists of the

census subdivision The census geographic units of Canada are the census subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's quinquennial census. These areas exist solely for the purposes of st ...

s within the Calgary Metropolitan Region and Edmonton Metropolitan Region portions of the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. The Edmonton Metropolitan Region's eight summer villages are not listed. * Calgary Metropolitan Region ** Airdrie ** Beiseker **

** Chestermere ** Cochrane ** Crossfield ** Diamond Valley ** Eden Valley 216 ( Stoney First Nation) ** Foothills County ** High River ** Irricana ** Longview ** Okotoks ** Rocky View County ** Tsuu T'ina Nation 145 ( Tsuu T'ina Nation) * Edmonton Metropolitan Region ** Alexander 134 ( Alexander First Nation) ** Beaumont ** Bon Accord ** Bruderheim ** Calmar **

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

** Enoch Cree Nation 135 ( Enoch Cree Nation) ** Fort Saskatchewan ** Gibbons ** Leduc ** Leduc County **

Legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

** Morinville ** Parkland County ** Redwater ** Spring Lake ** Spruce Grove ** St. Albert ** Stony Plain ** Strathcona County ** Sturgeon County ** Thorsby ** Wabamun ** Warburg **

Wetaskiwin Wetaskiwin ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. The city is located south of the provincial capital of Edmonton. The city name comes from the Cree word , meaning "the hills where peace was made". Wetaskiwin is home to the Reyn ...

** Wabamun 133A & 133B (Paul First Nation)

Gallery

File:Calgary-2387396 1280.jpg,

, the largest city in Alberta File:Downtown edmonton.jpg,

, the capital and the second largest city in Alberta File:Red Deer - Aerial - downtown bridges.jpg, The

Red Deer River The Red Deer River is a river in Alberta and a small portion of Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a major tributary of the South Saskatchewan River and is part of the larger Saskatchewan / Nelson River, Nelson system that empties into Hudson Bay. T ...

flows through the city of Red Deer, AB, situated south of Edmonton and north of Calgary, approx. 150 km (93 miles, or 90 minutes‘ drive) each way.

References

External links

Statistics Canada Information

{{DEFAULTSORT:Calgary-Edmonton Corridor Geographic regions of Alberta Transport corridors