Winnipeg

The meeting of the Red and Assiniboine rivers was a trading centre for Indigenous peoples long before Europeans arrived, with evidence of human activity at The Forks going back about 6,000 years. It is the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dene and Dakota, and the place where the Métis Nation was born, from the families of fur traders and First Nations women. French traders built Fort Rouge on the site in 1738, and in 1812 Lord Selkirk's settlers founded the Red River Colony; the Métis and the settlers clashed at the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816.

In 1869–70 the Métis under Louis Riel formed a provisional government in the Red River Rebellion, and General Garnet Wolseley was sent west to end it. Treaty 1, covering the city and the land around it, was signed in 1871, and Winnipeg was incorporated as a city in 1873. The arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1881 turned it into the "Gateway to the West", a boom town of grain traders and warehouses, while French speakers went from a majority to a small minority. The opening of the Panama Canal let Vancouver overtake it. In May 1919 more than 30,000 workers walked off the job in the Winnipeg General Strike; two strikers were killed on Bloody Saturday.

The 1950 flood led to the building of the Red River Floodway, which protected the city in 1997. The surrounding municipalities were merged into one "unicity" in 1972, the old rail yards at The Forks were reopened to the public from 1989, the Jets returned in 2011, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights opened in 2014. In 2025 the population was estimated to have passed 850,000.

Winnipeg punches above its weight in the arts. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is Canada's oldest ballet company, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre are long-established, and the city has produced The Guess Who, Bachman–Turner Overdrive, Neil Young and the Weakerthans. The Exchange District, known for its intact early 20th-century warehouses and banks, is home to galleries, film and theatre, and hosts the second-largest fringe festival on the continent each July.

The city is a meeting of communities. Winnipeg has the highest share of Indigenous people of any major Canadian city and the largest Métis population, and Indigenous art, politics and culture are part of daily life; the Winnipeg Art Gallery holds the world's largest collection of Inuit art. St. Boniface is the largest francophone community in western Canada, and its Festival du Voyageur celebrates the fur-trade era each February. Filipino Winnipeggers make up a larger share of the population than in any other major Canadian city. Folklorama turns dozens of community halls into cultural pavilions every August.

Sport is a shared passion: the Jets in hockey and the Blue Bombers, twelve-time Grey Cup champions, in Canadian football. Winter is something to be enjoyed rather than endured, on the river skating trail, at the Festival du Voyageur and at outdoor rinks across the city.

At the 2021 census the city had 749,607 people and the metropolitan area 834,678; Winnipeg holds 54.9 per cent of Manitoba's population, a higher concentration in one city than in any other province. The economy is diversified rather than dominated by one industry: health care and social assistance, retail, manufacturing and public administration are the largest employers, and the city is a railway hub, the home of 17 Wing of the Canadian Forces and the headquarters of 1 Canadian Air Division.

About 12 per cent of residents are Indigenous, a young and growing population, and about 27 per cent are immigrants, most often from the Philippines and India. Many families live in the suburban neighbourhoods that spread across the flat prairie, while downtown, Osborne Village and the West End hold apartments and older houses.

The inner city carries the city's hardest problems. Winnipeg has had some of the highest violent crime rates in Canada, concentrated in inner neighbourhoods, and a methamphetamine problem since 2017 has fuelled crime. Weather governs the year: winters of plugged-in cars, skywalks and wind chill below -40°C on some days, then a short summer of patios, festivals and weekends at the lakes, interrupted in wet years by mosquitoes.

Winnipeg's local food grew from its immigrant kitchens and its burger bars. The Fat Boy, a burger topped with chili meat sauce, dill pickles and plenty of mayonnaise and mustard, came out of the city's Greek-owned burger restaurants and drive-ins in the 1950s, and several of them still claim to have invented it. Salisbury House, founded downtown in 1931 and known as "Sals", sells hamburgers it calls "nips". Honey dill, a sauce of honey, mayonnaise and dill found only in Manitoba, is the standard dip for chicken fingers and sweet potato fries.

The prairie settlers' dishes are everywhere: perogies, potato and cheese dumplings served with fried onion and sour cream; holubtsi, cabbage rolls; Mennonite farmer sausage; and schmoo torte, a cake layered with whipped cream, brown sugar and nuts. From Manitoba's lakes come pickerel, the local name for walleye, served pan-fried, and Lake Winnipeg goldeye, traditionally smoked until reddish-gold.

The Forks Market, in a former railway stable, has food stalls and specialty shops beside the rivers, and Folklorama in August is the one time of year when dozens of communities serve their food in the same fortnight. Osborne Village and the Exchange District hold many of the city's independent restaurants and bars.