Regina
City
City of Regina
From top, left to right: Downtown Regina skyline, Victoria Park, Saskatchewan Legislative Building, Prince Edward Building, Dr. John Archer Library the Royal Saskatchewan Museum.
Flag Coat of arms Logo
Nicknames:  "The Queen City"[1]
Motto(s):  Floreat Regina ("May Regina Flourish")[2]
Regina Location within Saskatchewan Show map of Saskatchewan Regina Location within Canada Show map of Canada
Coordinates: 50°27′17″N 104°36′24″W / 50.45472°N 104.60667°W / 50.45472; -104.60667[3]
Country	Canada
Province	Saskatchewan
Rural municipality	Sherwood
Established	1882
Named for	Latin for "queen", named for Queen Victoria
Government
• City Mayor	Sandra Masters[4]
• Governing body	Regina City Council List of City Councillors Cheryl Stadnichuk, Ward 1 Bob Hawkins, Ward 2 Andrew Stevens, Ward 3 Lori Bresciani, Ward 4 John Findura, Ward 5 Daniel LeBlanc, Ward 6 Terina Nelson, Ward 7 Shanon Zachidniak, Ward 8 Jason Mancinelli, Ward 9 Landon Mohl, Ward 10
• MPs	List of MPs Michael Kram (CPC) Andrew Scheer (CPC) Warren Steinley (CPC)
• MLAs	List of MLAs Carla Beck (NDP) Noor Burki (NDP) Jared Clarke (NDP) Meara Conway (NDP) Muhammad Fiaz (SKP) Gary Grewal (SKP) Gene Makowsky (SKP) Laura Ross (SKP) Nicole Sarauer (NDP) Christine Tell (SKP) Trent Wotherspoon (NDP) Aleana Young (NDP)
Area
• City	178.81 km2 (69.04 sq mi)
• Metro	4,323.66 km2 (1,669.37 sq mi)
Elevation	577 m (1,893 ft)
Population  (2021)
• City	226,404 (ranked 24th)
• Density	1,266.2/km2 (3,279.32/sq mi)
• Metro	249,217 (ranked 18th)
• Metro density	57.6/km2 (149.3/sq mi)
Demonym	Reginan
Gross Metropolitan Product
• Regina CMA	CA$17.5 billion (2020)[6]
Time zone	UTC−06:00 (CST)
Forward sortation area	S4K – S4Z
Area code(s)	306, 639, and 474
NTS Map	72I7 Regina
GNBC Code	HAIMP[7]
Website	regina.ca

Regina (/rɪˈdʒaɪnə/ ri-JEYE-nə) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, after Saskatoon, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 census, Regina had a city population of 226,404, and a metropolitan area population of 249,217.^[8][9] It is governed by Regina City Council. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Sherwood No. 159.

Regina was previously the seat of government of the North-West Territories, of which the current provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta originally formed part, and of the District of Assiniboia. The site was previously called Wascana (from Cree: ᐅᐢᑲᓇ, romanized: Oskana "Buffalo Bones"), but was renamed to Regina (Latin for "Queen") in 1882 in honour of Queen Victoria. This decision was made by Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Louise, who was the wife of the Governor General of Canada, the Marquess of Lorne.^[10]

Unlike other planned cities in the Canadian West, on its treeless flat plain Regina has few topographical features other than the small spring run-off, Wascana Creek. Early planners took advantage of such opportunity by damming the creek to create a decorative lake to the south of the central business district with a dam a block and a half west of the later elaborate 260 m (850 ft) long Albert Street Bridge^[11] across the new lake. Regina's importance was further secured when the new province of Saskatchewan designated the city its capital in 1906.^[12] Wascana Centre, created around the focal point of Wascana Lake, remains one of Regina's attractions and contains the Provincial Legislative Building, both campuses of the University of Regina, First Nations University of Canada, the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, the Regina Conservatory (in the original Regina College buildings), the Saskatchewan Science Centre,^[13] the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts.

Residential neighbourhoods include precincts beyond the historic city centre are historically or socially noteworthy neighbourhoods – namely Lakeview and The Crescents, both of which lie directly south of downtown. Immediately to the north of the central business district is the old warehouse district, increasingly the focus of shopping, nightclubs and residential development;^[14] as in other western cities of North America, the periphery contains shopping malls and big box stores.

In 1912, the Regina Cyclone destroyed much of the town;^[15] in the 1930s, the Regina Riot brought further attention and, in the midst of the 1930s drought and Great Depression, which hit the Canadian Prairies particularly hard with their economic focus on dry land grain farming.^[16] The CCF (now the NDP, a major left-wing political party in Canada), formulated its foundation Regina Manifesto of 1933 in Regina.^[17] In 2007 Saskatchewan's agricultural and mineral resources came into new demand, and Saskatchewan was described as entering a new period of strong economic growth.^[18]

History

Early history (1882–1945)

Regina was established as the territorial seat of government in 1882 when Edgar Dewdney, the lieutenant-governor of the North-West Territories, insisted on the site over the better developed Battleford, Troy and Fort Qu'Appelle (the latter some 48 km (30 mi) to the east, one on rolling plains and the other in the Qu'Appelle Valley between two lakes). These communities were considered better locations for what was anticipated to be a metropole for the Canadian plains. These locations had ample access to water and resided on treed rolling parklands. "Pile-of-Bones", as the site for Regina was then called (or, in Cree, ᐅᐢᑲᓇ ᑳᐊᓵᐢᑌᑭ Oskana kâ-asastêki),^[19][20][21] was by contrast located in arid and featureless grassland.

Lieutenant-Governor Dewdney had acquired land adjacent to the route of the future CPR line at Pile-of-Bones, which was distinguished only by collections of bison bones near a small spring run-off creek, some few kilometres downstream from its origin in the midst of what are now wheat fields. There was an "obvious conflict of interest" in Dewdney's choosing the site of Pile-of-Bones as the territorial seat of government^[22] and it was a national scandal at the time.^[23] But until 1897, when responsible government was accomplished in the Territories,^[24] the lieutenant-governor and council governed by fiat and there was little legitimate means of challenging such decisions outside the federal capital of Ottawa. There, the Territories were remote and of little concern. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, wife of the then Governor General of Canada, named the new community Regina, in honour of her mother, Queen Victoria.^[25]

Commercial considerations prevailed and the town's authentic development soon began as a collection of wooden shanties and tent shacks clustered around the site designated by the CPR for its future station, some 3.2 km (2 mi) to the east of where Dewdney had reserved substantial landholdings for himself and where he sited the Territorial (now the Saskatchewan) Government House.^[26]

Regina attained national prominence in 1885 during the North-West Rebellion when troops were mostly able to be transported by train on the CPR from eastern Canada as far as Qu'Appelle Station,^[27] before marching to the battlefield in the further Northwest – Qu'Appelle having been the major debarkation and distribution centre until 1890 when the completion of the Qu’Appelle, Long Lake, and Saskatchewan Railway linked Regina with Saskatoon and Prince Albert.^[28] Subsequently, the rebellion's leader, Louis Riel, was tried and hanged in Regina – giving the infant community increased and, at the time, not unwelcome national attention in connection with a figure who was generally at the time considered an unalloyed villain in anglophone Canada.^[29] The episode, including Riel's imprisonment, trial and execution, brought the new Regina Leader (later the Leader-Post) to national prominence.

Regina was incorporated as a city on 19 June 1903, with the MLA who introduced the charter bill, James Hawkes, declaring, "Regina has the brightest future before it of any place in the North West Territories".^[30] Several years later the city was proclaimed the capital of the 1905 province of Saskatchewan on 23 May 1906, by the first provincial government, led by Premier Walter Scott; the monumental Saskatchewan Legislative Building was built between 1908 and 1912.

The "Regina Cyclone" was a tornado that devastated the city on 30 June 1912 and remains the deadliest tornado in Canadian history, with a total of 28 fatalities, the population of the city having been 30,213 in 1911. Green funnel clouds formed and touched down south of the city, tearing a swath through the residential area between Wascana Lake and Victoria Avenue, continuing through the downtown business district, rail yards, warehouse district, and northern residential area.

From 1920 to 1926 Regina used Single transferable vote (STV), a form of proportional representation, to elect its councillors. Councillors were elected in one at-large district. Each voter cast just a single vote, using a ranked transferable ballot.^[31]

Regina grew rapidly until the beginning of the Great Depression, in 1929, though only to a small fraction of the originally anticipated population explosion as population centre of the new province. By this time, Saskatchewan was considered the third province of Canada^[32] in both population and economic indicators. Thereafter, Saskatchewan never recovered its early promise and Regina's growth slowed and at times reversed.^{[citation needed]}

In 1933, Regina hosted the first national convention Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (predecessor of the NDP). At the convention, the CCF adopted a programme known as the Regina Manifesto, which set out the new party's goals.^[33] In 1935, Regina gained notoriety for the Regina Riot, an incident of the On-to-Ottawa Trek. (See The Depression, the CCF and the Regina Riot.) Beginning in the 1930s, Regina became known as a centre of considerable political activism and experimentation as its people sought to adjust to new, reduced economic realities, including the co-operative movement and medicare.

Modern history (1945–present)

The disappearance of the Simpson's, Eaton's and Army & Navy retail department stores in or near the central business district^[34] and Simpsons-Sears to the north on Broad Street, left only the Hudson's Bay Company as a large department store in Regina-centre. This, with the proliferation of shopping malls beginning in the 1960s and "big box stores" in the 1990s on the periphery, together with a corresponding drift of entertainment venues (and all but one downtown cinema) to the city outskirts, had depleted the city centre. The former Hudson's Bay Company department store (previously the site of the Regina Theatre though long vacant after that burned to the ground) has been converted into offices; Globe Theatre, located in the old Post Office building at 11th Avenue and Scarth Street, Casino Regina and its show lounge in the former CPR train station, the Cornwall Centre and downtown restaurants now draw people downtown again.

Many buildings of significance and value were lost during the period from 1945 through approximately 1970: Knox United Church was demolished in 1951; the Romanesque Revival city hall in 1964 (the failed shopping mall which replaced it is now office space for the Government of Canada^[35]) and the 1894 Supreme Court of the North-West Territories building at Hamilton Street and Victoria Avenue in 1965.

In 1962 Wascana Centre Authority was established to govern the sprawling 50-year-old, 930 ha (2,300 acres) urban park and legislative grounds. A 100-year plan was developed by World Trade Centre Architect Minoru Yamasaki^[36] and landscape architect Thomas Church, as part of developing a new University of Saskatchewan campus in the southeast end of the park. The master plan has been subsequently revised every five to seven years since, most recently in 2016.^[37] Wascana Centre has made Regina as enjoyable and fulfilling for residents as it had long been the "metropole" for farmers and residents of small neighbouring towns. Despite the setting, improbable though it always was compared with other more likely sites for the capitol, the efforts' results were favourable.^{[citation needed]}

The long-imperilled Government House was saved in 1981 after decades of neglect and returned to viceregal use,^[38] the former Anglican diocesan property at Broad Street and College Avenue is being redeveloped with strict covenants to maintain the integrity of the diocesan buildings and St Chad's School^[39] and the former Sacred Heart Academy building^[40] immediately adjacent to the Roman Catholic Cathedral has been converted into townhouses.

Recently older buildings have been put to new uses, including the old Normal School on the Regina College campus of the University of Regina (now the Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios) and the old Post Office on the Scarth Street Mall. The Warehouse District, immediately adjacent to the central business district to the north of the CPR line, has become a desirable commercial and residential precinct as historic warehouses have been converted to retail, nightclubs and residential use.

Geography

The city is situated on a broad, flat, treeless plain. There is an abundance of parks and greenspaces: all of its trees — some 300,000^[41] — shrubs and other plants were hand-planted.^[42] As in other prairie cities, American elms were planted in front yards in residential neighbourhoods and on boulevards along major traffic arteries and are the dominant species in the urban forest.

In recent years the pattern of primary and high school grounds being acreages of prairie sports grounds has been re-thought and such grounds have been landscaped with artificial hills and parks. Newer residential subdivisions in the northwest and southeast have, instead of spring runoff storm sewers, decorative landscaped lagoons.

The streetscape is now endangered by Dutch elm disease, which has spread through North America from the eastern seaboard and has now reached the Canadian prairies; for the time being it is controlled by pest management programs and species not susceptible to the disease are being planted; the disease has the potential to wipe out Regina's elm population.^[43][44]

Climate

Regina experiences a warm summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb), with more than 70% of average annual precipitation in the warmest six months, and is in the NRC Plant Hardiness Zone 3b.^[45] Regina has warm summers and cold, dry winters, prone to extremes at all times of the year. Average annual precipitation is 389.7 mm (15.34 in) and is heaviest from May through August, with June being the wettest month with an average of 75 mm (2.95 in) of precipitation. The average daily temperature for the year is 3.1 °C (37.6 °F). The lowest temperature ever recorded was −50.0 °C (−58 °F) on 1 January 1885, while the highest recorded temperature was 43.9 °C (111 °F) on 5 July 1937.^[46]