II.

City Landscape

Calgary has the most striking setting of all of Canada’s prairie cities. It lies at the very edge of the high plains, where they rise into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, on a site deeply carved by the Bow and Elbow rivers.

The river valleys are natural corridors for roads and railways and have had a strong influence on Calgary’s layout. In the eastern sector of the city the valleys are largely used for industry, but elsewhere they provide attractive sites for homes, parks, and recreation facilities. These include Heritage Park, a reconstructed pioneer village; Canada Olympic Park, which was built for the Winter Olympics in 1988; and the Calgary Zoo, with its botanical garden and its Prehistoric Park, which displays life-size models of the dinosaurs that once lived in Alberta.

The downtown district sits on the widest part of the valley floor. It stands out as a dense clump of tall, modern office buildings, connected to one another through an elevated network of pedestrian bridges called the Plus 15 System. Many of Calgary’s public and cultural facilities are also located downtown. Among them are Stephen Avenue Mall, a pedestrian street lined with historic buildings; Devonian Gardens, a rooftop conservatory; the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, an internationally famous museum and archive; the Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts, where the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the city’s leading theater companies are based; and Olympic Plaza, the main downtown square. Petro Canada Tower, the city’s tallest structure at 55 stories, is one of several tall buildings that dominate downtown. Also nearby are the Alberta Science Centre/Centennial Planetarium; the Fort Calgary interpretive center, which provides information on the city’s origins; and Stampede Park, where Calgary’s world-famous livestock exhibition and rodeo, the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede (commonly called the Calgary Stampede), is held every July. Stampede Park also has one of the city’s most remarkable structures, the saddle-shaped Saddledome, which was used as an Olympic stadium and is now the home of the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League.

Other Calgary landmarks are the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, where the Calgary Opera and Alberta Ballet perform; McMahon Stadium, home to the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League; and Spruce Meadows, a world-class equestrian center. The University of Calgary (1966), Mount Royal College (1910), the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (1916), and Alberta College of Art (1983) are the principal educational institutions. There are large natural parks at Fish Creek, Glenmore, and Nose Hill.

The city proper covers a land area of 717 sq km (277 sq mi), and its census metropolitan area (CMA) covers a land area of 5,083 sq km (1,963 sq mi). A CMA is a geographic area that contains the main labor market of an urban zone—that is, the area from which people commute to work in the core built-up area.