Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta, Canada. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census metropolitan area had populations of 812,201and 1,159,869 as of the 2011 Census respectively, making it Alberta's second-largest city, Canada's fifth-largest municipality and Canada's sixth-largest metropolitan area by population. Edmonton is the northernmost North American city with a metropolitan population over one million. A resident of Edmonton is known as an Edmontonian.

The majority of Edmonton's metropolitan population lives within the City of Edmonton rather than in the surrounding suburban municipalities. Historically, Edmonton was surrounded by few other urban municipalities (Strathcona, Beverly and Jasper Place being the largest) but these were absorbed through amalgamation or annexation. Edmonton annexed a significant amount of land up until the early 1980s, and as a result it has sustained much of the region's suburban growth within its own boundaries.

Edmonton serves as the northern anchor of the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor and is a staging point for large-scale oil sands projects occurring in northern Alberta and large-scale diamond mining operations in the Northwest Territories.

Edmonton is a cultural, governmental and educational centre. It hosts a year-round slate of festivals, reflected in the nickname "The Festival City." It is home to North America's largest mall, West Edmonton Mall (the world's largest mall from 1981 until 2004), and Fort Edmonton Park, Canada's largest living history museum. In 2004, Edmonton celebrated the centennial of its incorporation as a city.

Edmonton traditionally has been a hub for Albertan petrochemical industries, earning it the nickname "Oil Capital of Canada" in the 1940s. Supply and service industries drive the energy extraction engine, while research develops new technologies and supports expanded value-added processing of Alberta's massive oil, gas, and oil sands reserves. These are reported to be the second-largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia.

Despite the apparent focus on oil and gas, Edmonton's economy is one of the most diverse in Canada. Major industrial sectors include a strong technology sector anchored by major employers such as IBM, Telus, Intuit Canada, Canadian Western Bank, BioWare, Matrikon, General Electric, and Stantec Inc. The associated biotech sector, with companies such as Afexa Life Sciences Inc. (formerly CV Technologies).

Much of the growth in technology sectors is due to Edmonton's reputation as one of Canada’s premier research and education centres. Research initiatives are anchored by educational institutions such as the University of Alberta as well as government initiatives underway at the Alberta Research Council and Edmonton Research Park. Recently, the National Institute for Nanotechnology was constructed on the University of Alberta campus.