Regina

The site was known in Cree as Oskana kâ-asastêki, "Pile-of-Bones", after the heaps of bison bones beside a small creek on a treeless plain. In 1882 Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney chose it for the capital of the North-West Territories, beside the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and it was renamed Regina, Latin for "queen", in honour of Queen Victoria — a name suggested by her daughter Princess Louise. In 1883 Wascana Creek was dammed to provide water for the railway's locomotives, creating the lake that would shape the city. In 1885, after the North-West Rebellion, the Métis leader Louis Riel was tried and hanged here.

Regina became a city in 1903 and the capital of the new province of Saskatchewan in 1905. The domed Legislative Building rose beside the lake between 1908 and 1912, with Thomas Mawson's plan for the park around it. On 30 June 1912 a tornado, the Regina Cyclone, tore through the residential streets, downtown and the rail yards, killing 28 people — still the deadliest tornado in Canadian history.

The Depression and drought of the 1930s hit hard. In 1933 the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation adopted its Regina Manifesto here, and in 1935 the On-to-Ottawa Trek of unemployed men ended in the Regina Riot. From the 1930s the city became known as a centre of co-operative and public-healthcare politics, and in 1944 Tommy Douglas led the CCF to power. After the war, suburban malls drained the downtown; since then the Warehouse District has been converted to homes, shops and clubs, and a new Mosaic Stadium opened in 2017.

Regina's public life centres on Wascana Centre, where the provincial legislature, the university, the First Nations University of Canada, the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the Conexus Arts Centre share one park. The Regina Symphony Orchestra, which plays at the arts centre, is Canada's oldest continuously performing orchestra, and the Globe Theatre, founded in 1966, stages plays in the old Post Office building, once used as a temporary city hall. Mosaic, the city's multicultural festival, earned a 2004 Cultural Capital of Canada designation.

The Mounted Police are part of the city's identity. Regina was the headquarters of the force's predecessor before it moved to Ottawa in 1920, every RCMP cadet in the country still trains at Depot on the western edge of the city, and the Depot chapel is the oldest building still standing in Regina.

Sport is followed with unusual devotion. The Saskatchewan Roughriders, founded in 1910 and owned by the community, draw season-ticket holders from hundreds of kilometres away, and the team won the Grey Cup for a fifth time in 2025. The calendar also includes the Cathedral Village Arts Festival, a spring powwow held by the First Nations University, the Queen City Ex in summer and the Agribition in November, when the farming province comes to town.

Regina had about 226,000 people at the 2021 census, and its metropolitan area about 249,000. About a fifth of residents were born outside Canada, with the Philippines and India the largest countries of origin, and the city has a large Indigenous population, both First Nations and Métis.

Government is central to the city's life: the legislature and the provincial civil service are here, along with Crown corporations such as SaskPower, SaskTel and SGI, while oil and gas, potash and farming, with the grain handler Viterra headquartered here, add the rest. The downtown, once emptied by suburban malls and big-box stores, has drawn people back with new offices, the casino in the old station, the Cornwall Centre and its restaurants, and the Warehouse District has filled with flats and nightlife.

Most residents live in low-rise neighbourhoods of detached houses: the older, tree-lined Crescents, Lakeview and the Cathedral Area close to the centre, and newer subdivisions to the north and west built around ornamental ponds. The elms that line many streets are guarded against Dutch elm disease. Summer is spent at the lake, at the farmers' market and at football games; in winter Wascana Lake is cleared for skating and there are toboggan runs along the creek.

Regina eats like the rest of the Prairies: homestyle and generous, shaped by the kitchens of the settlers who farmed the province. Perogies — dumplings filled with potato and cheese, often fried with onions and served with sour cream — and cabbage rolls come from the Ukrainian and Polish homesteaders, bannock from First Nations and Métis homes, and bison and Saskatoon berries, native purple fruits baked into pies and made into jam, from the land itself.

Bison and lamb from local producers are sold at the farmers' market on City Square Plaza in summer, along with vegetables, fruit, breads and baking; a spring market runs in the Cathedral Area. The province is a major grower of wheat, canola and lentils, though little of that appears on local plates.

Eating out is concentrated downtown, in the converted buildings of the Warehouse District and along 13th Avenue in the Cathedral Area. The city's immigrant communities, especially from the Philippines, India and China, have added their own restaurants and groceries, and craft breweries have multiplied in the prairie cities.