The City of Calgary
Calgary is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. It is situated on the Bow River in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately 80 km (50 mi) east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies. The city is located in the grassland and parkland natural regions of Alberta. As of the 2011 census, the City of Calgary had a population of 1,096,833 and a metropolitan population of 1,214,839, making it the largest city in Alberta, and the third-largest municipality and fifth-largest metropolitan area in Canada.
Located 294 km (183 mi) south of Edmonton, Statistics Canada defines the area between these cities as the "Calgary–Edmonton Corridor." Economic activity in Calgary is mostly centred on the petroleum industry and agriculture. In 1988, Calgary became the first Canadian city to host the Olympic Winter Games.
Calgary Neighbourhoods
The downtown region of the city consists of five neighbourhoods: Eau Claire (including the Festival District), the Downtown West End, the Downtown Commercial Core, Chinatown, and the Downtown East Village (also part of the Rivers District). The commercial core is itself divided into a number of districts including the Stephen Avenue Retail Core, the Entertainment District, the Arts District and the Government District. Distinct from downtown and south of 9th Avenue is Calgary's densest neighbourhood, the Beltline. The area includes a number of communities such as Connaught, Victoria Crossing and a portion of the Rivers District. The Beltline is the focus of major planning and rejuvenation initiatives on the part of the municipal government to increase the density and liveliness of Calgary's centre.
Adjacent to, or directly radiating from the downtown are the first of the inner-city communities. These include Crescent Heights, Hounsfield Heights/Briar Hill, Hillhurst/Sunnyside (including Kensington BRZ), Bridgeland, Renfrew, Mount Royal, Mission, Ramsay and Inglewood and Albert Park/Radisson Heights directly to the east. The inner city is, in turn, surrounded by relatively dense and established neighbourhoods such as Rosedale and Mount Pleasant to the north; Bowness, Parkdale and Glendale to the west; Park Hill, South Calgary (including Marda Loop), Bankview, Altadore, and Killarney to the south; and Forest Lawn/International Avenue to the east. Lying beyond these, and usually separated from one another by highways, are suburban communities including Somerset, Country Hills, Sundance, and McKenzie Towne. In all, there are over 180 distinct neighbourhoods within the city limits. Several of Calgary's neighbourhoods were initially separate municipalities that were annexed by the city as it grew. These include Bowness, Montgomery, and Forest Lawn.
Calgary Transportation
Calgary International Airport (YYC), in the city's northeast, is a transportation hub for much of central and western Canada. In 2010 it was the fourth busiest in Canada by passenger movement, and third busiest by aircraft movements, is a major cargo hub, and is a staging point for people destined for Banff National Park. Non-stop destinations include cities throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, Central America, and Asia. Calgary/Springbank Airport, Canada's eleventh busiest, serves as a reliever for the Calgary International taking the general aviation traffic and is also a base for aerial firefighting aircraft.
Calgary's presence on the Trans-Canada Highway and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) mainline (which includes the CPR Alyth Yard) also make it an important hub for freight. The Rocky Mountaineer and Royal Canadian Pacific operates railtour service to Calgary; Via Rail no longer provides intercity rail service to Calgary since Via Rail discontinued the Super Continental.
Much of Calgary's street network is on a grid where roads are numbered with avenues running east–west and streets running north–south. Until 1904 the streets were named; after that date, all streets were given numbers radiating outwards from the city centre. Roads in predominantly residential areas as well as freeways and expressways do not generally conform to the grid and are usually not numbered as a result. However, it is a developer and city convention in Calgary that non-numbered streets within a new community have the same name prefix as the community itself so that streets can more easily be located within the city.
Calgary Transit provides public transportation services throughout the city with buses and light rail. Calgary's light rail system, known as the C-Train, was one of the first such systems in North America (behind Edmonton LRT and San Diego Trolley). It consists of four lines (two routes) on 58.2 km (36.2 mi) of track (mostly at grade with a dedicated right-of-way carrying 42% of the downtown working population). In the fourth quarter of 2009, the C-Train system had an average of 266,100 riders per weekday, the third-busiest light-rail system in North America behind the Monterrey Metro, and the Toronto streetcar system. The bus system has over 160 routes and is operated by 800 vehicles. As an alternative to the over 260 km (160 mi) of shared bikeways on streets, the city has a network of multi-use (bicycle, walking, rollerblading, etc.) paths spanning over 635 km (395 mi).
Information provided by wikipedia.org
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