24 Facts About Grande Prairie

Grande Prairie is a city in northwest Alberta, Canada within the southern portion of an area known as Peace River Country.

Grande Prairie was the seventh-largest city in Alberta in 2016, with a population of 63,166, and was one of Canada's fastest growing cities between 2001 and 2006.

Grande Prairie area was historically known as Buffalo Plains, after the buffalo who would traverse the large prairie which lies to the north, east, and west of it.

Edson Trail from Edson to Grande Prairie was opened in 1911 as a means for settlers to reach the Grande Prairie area.

Grande Prairie was incorporated as a village by the Province of Alberta in 1914, but it was not until the arrival of the railway in 1916 that farmland quickly expanded as waves of settlers came into the Peace region.

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Grande Prairie's population went from just over 12,000 in the early 1970s to over 24,000 by the time the oil boom went bust in 1981.

The terrain immediately surrounding Grande Prairie is largely flat to gently rolling, but rises gradually to hilly terrain closer to the foothills to the south and southwest.

Grande Prairie has a northern continental climate typical of northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia, classified as humid continental, bordering closely on a subarctic climate with old data under the Koppen climate classification.

Grande Prairie has 314 days with measureable sunshine per year on average, and just above 2,200 hours of bright sunshine or about 46.

Population of the City of Grande Prairie according to its 2015 municipal census was 68,556, a change of 36.

Until recently, Grande Prairie topped the list for the national average for the Crime Severity Index, but in the 2016 report published by Maclean's, the city was in 12th place.

Grande Prairie was 13th on the Violent Crime Severity Index with 139 per 100,000 people versus a 75.

Grande Prairie serves as the economic and transportation hub for a trading area of nearly 290,000 people.

Grande Prairie is on the CANAMEX trade route linking Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

Alberta politics being what it is, Grande Prairie was able to do this by electing a UFA in 1930, a Social Credit candidate in 1935 then consistently electing a rightist candidate in every election from 1940 to the present.

Grande Prairie has a wide range of local music genres, including country ; reggae ; metal ; folk; rock, and more.

Grande Prairie is home to a professional musical theatre company, "Broadway Live Broadway".

Grande Prairie has three 18-hole golf courses, The Dunes Golf and Winter Club, the Bear Creek Golf Club, and the Grande Prairie Golf and Country Club.

Downhill skiing is popular in Grande Prairie, which has a local ski hill called Nitehawk and is located south of the city on the south bank of the Wapiti River.

Grande Prairie Airport is located at the west end of the city and serves the region with daily scheduled flights to Calgary and Edmonton.

The Grande Prairie Airport was originally developed in the 1930s as a grass only strip at its present site.

Grande Prairie Transit is a small public transit system with modern buses and a route system integrated throughout the city.

The short stretch of Highway 2 extending just north and just west of Grande Prairie was renumbered to Highway 43 in the late 1990s to link with the rest of Highway 43 i e : the Yellowhead Highway from Edmonton.

Peace Wapiti School Division No 76 operates three schools in Grande Prairie that serve students of the surrounding County of Grande Prairie No 1.