Alberta is located in the western part of Canada

. The size of Alberta is 255,285 square miles, including 6,485 square miles of water surface. Alberta is bounded on the east of Saskatchewan, on the north by Fort Smith Region, North West Territories, on the west by British Columbia and on the south by Montana.

(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
Western most of the Prairie Provinces, Alberta lies on a high plateau, rising on the west to the Continental Divide at the British Columbia border. There are the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the spectacular mountains themselves, with three noted national parks. Jasper, Banff and Waterton Lakes. Although Alberta is known as a Prairie Province only of its area is actually treeless.

(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
See map #1 and #2 to see the province ALBERTA.

Physical Diversity
In Alberta there are thousands among thousands of oil like material trapped in sands, which are called oil sands. Alberta also has fairly large coal beds. Alberta is a Natural Vegetation Region. Northern and some of central Alberta are in the boreal forest region.

(Clarke and Wallace, 1983)
The south east of Alberta consists of Parklands and grasslands. Far southwest is the West Coast Forest.
(Clarke and Wallace, 1983)
There are no existing glaciers in Alberta. In Alberta 60% was covered by lakes, the other 40% of Alberta are areas of glacial erosion and deposition. In the wintertime there usually is not a whole lot of snow in Alberta. There is an annual snowfall of about 180cm per year.

(Matthews and Morrow Jr., 1995)
Alberta is mostly dry climate, which means it is semi-arid, and usually Alberta will end up having a cool summer. Alberta has some natural vegetation like Tropical and middle-latitude grasslands, and Broadleaf, mixed broadleaf and coniferous forests. Alberta is an area covered by glacial lakes.
(Quentin and Stanford, 1988)
The highest temperature recorded in Alberta was 43.3 C at Fort Macleod on July 18th, 1941.

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Alberta was at -61.1 C at Fort Vermilion on January 11, 1911. The greatest amount of rain to have fallen in Alberta was 1440m at Cameron Falls 1975. The greatest snowfall for Alberta was 1066cm of snow at Columbia Icefields in 1973-74.

(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
Some geographical highlights about Alberta are that the province is in Mountain Standard Time, the highest points in Alberta are Mount Columbia, which exceeds a height of 3747m, the Twins which reach a height of 3733m, Mount Alberta which reaches a height of 3620m and Mount Assiniboine which reaches 3670m.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
The lowest point in Alberta is the Slave River at 152m. The largest lake, which is entirely within Alberta, is Lake Claire at 1434km2 and Lesser Slave Lake at 1168km2. Alberta takes up only 6.66% of the total area of Canada.

(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
To see graphs on Climate Region, Precipitation, Vegetation, etc. see graphs #3-7


Cultural Diversity
The population of Alberta is 2,545,553- in 1991. Alberta's urban and rural population is 79.9% urban, 20.2% rural, 2.6% is of aboriginal origin.

The languages spoken in Alberta are 81% English, 2.1% French and 13.3% other languages.)
(Hurtig Publishers)
Alberta has a Provincial Government, a Lieutenant Governor, an Executive Council, and (premier and cabinet) Legislative Assembly. There are 83 members.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
How did Alberta get its name? Well, Alberta got its name from Princess Louise Caroline Alberta; she was the 4th of Queen Victoria.

Alberta was created as a province in the year 1905.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
Hurtig Publishers say that Alberta ranks 4th in Canada. The motto for Alberta is 'Fortis et Liber' which means Strong and Free. The flower in which represents Alberta is the Wild Rose, also known as the prickly rose.Sir Alexander Mackenzie was the first to discover the Mackenzie River in the year 1789.

The Mackenzie River is the longest river in Canada. The missionaries in the 1800's converted Indians/meets-people who are both white and Indian mixed descent. They settled their ways of life on farms and settling into there own permanent homes.
(The World Book Encyclopedia, 1989ed)
Ranching began in the year 1880.

Montana drove their cattle across the Canadian border. The Northwest Mounted Police came to Alberta in the year 1874. The Mounted Police did their job by driving away outlaws and traders.
(The World Book Encyclopedia, 1989)
Oil and natural gases were found in the Turner Valley in the year 1914 which led to the development of Petroleum-this natural gas field is still being used to this very day in Alberta.
(The World Book Encyclopedia, 1989)
A very small part of Alberta was discovered in the Precambrian Era. In the Mesozoic Era another small area of Alberta was found.

Now the rest of what we call Alberta had been discovered in the early stages of the Cenozoic Era, which we are still living in to this very day as we speak.
(Matthews and Morrow Jr., 1995)


Economic Diversity
Agriculture remains an important part of Alberta's economy. Grain, especially wheat, is the dominant crop.

In the south, large irrigation development, such as those around Lethbridge, have placed thousands of additional acres under cultivation.
(Columbia University Press, 1993)
A variety of crops, such as sugar beets and potatoes, are grown in this area. The province is noted as well for the quality of its livestock. Meatpacking, flour milling, dairying, and food processing are important industries. But Alberta's main industry, since the early 1969's, has been the exploitation of its vast petroleum and other mineral resources.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
Alberta's coal beds contain about of Canada's reserves, while the province leads the country in the production of oil; it is believed that the richest oil deposits in the world, most notably in the famous tar beds of the Athabasca River.

Its sources of natural gas are also among the worlds greatest.
(Columbia University Press, 1993)
Pipelines from Alberta, are carrying crude oil and natural gas that the east and to the west points of Canada and the U.S.A.

The production of crude oil decreased slightly in the 1980's, while the production of natural gas and coal increased.
(Columbia University Press, 1993)
Construction, which is usually a booming industry in Alberta, has been severely weakened by the decline in oil production, leading to increase unemployment. Other industries include food and beverage production, lumbering, printing and publishing, and the manufacture of iron, steel, and clay productions.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
Tourism is the 3rd largest segment of Alberta's industrial economy.

Many visitors are drawn by the grand scale of Alberta's landscape, its huge wheat fields, large granaries and cattle ranches. But don't forget the vast oil refineries to.
(Columbia University Press, 1993)
Annual festivals include the Indian Days Celebration in Banff, which attracts more than thousands of Native Americans from a wide area, and the well known famous Calgary Exhibition and Stampede. Other tourist attractions are Elk Islands National Park, and the wonderful Wood Buffalo National Park, which shelters some 5,000 bison.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
In terms of special events, Edmonton hosted the Common Wealth Games in the year 1978 and the World University Games in the year 1983.

But we cannot forget when Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
See graphs # 8,9,10 for Manufacturing

Conclusions
Alberta is certainly well known for the famous Calgary Exhibition and Stampede, but another thing Alberta is known for is the amount dinosaur fossils found here.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
The dinosaur was still unknown to man until the year 1824 when fossil teeth and bones had been found. Badlands, Alberta, are located in Red Deer R Valley.

Here, a scientist first collected dinosaur fossils over 100 years ago.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
Five years later another scull of a species called the Albertasaurus Sarcophagus, the Alberta carcass eater was found, this was in Red Deer R Valley near Rumsey. This area is now well known today as the popular Dinosaur Provincial Park.
(McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
Conclusion
I think that the future outlook for Alberta is good.

Although anything could come up and might change the way Alberta looks to us today, it would have to be something very major to make such a drastic change. But personally, from my point of view, Alberta is in the right direction for a good future in a few years down the road.