Edmonton is Canada's second most populous provincial capital (the city itself boasts approximately 710 000 people, with a metropolitan population of just over one million), and is the northernmost major city in North America. It is situated roughly in the middle of Alberta, a prairie area which boasts some of the most fertile farmland in the central North American grasslands. Edmonton is Canada's 'Gateway to the North', the staging point for large-scale oil sand operations in Northern Alberta and large-scale diamond mining operations in the Northwest Territories. The city is also a cultural, governmental, and institutional centre, playing host to a year-round slate of world-class festivals and earning itself the title 'The Festival City'. Edmonton is home to both North America's largest shopping mall and Canada's largest historical park. In addition, the North Saskatchewan River valley boasts the longest interconnected stretch of urban parkland in North America, contributing to Edmonton's title of having the highest per capita area of parkland of any Canadian city.

Edmonton has a northern continental climate with extreme seasonal temperatures, although the city has milder winters than both Regina and Winnipeg, which are considerably further south. It has mild summers and cold winters, with average daily temperatures ranging from -11.7ºC in January, to 17.5ºC in July. The warmest temperature ever recorded was 37.6ºC; the coldest, -49.4ºC. Edmonton exists in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains, approximately 3 hours to the west; as such, the city is quite dry, receiving an average of 476 mm of rainfall per annum, and 126.0 cm of snowfall in an average winter. However, summer thunderstorms are common, and can become quite severe given the right conditions. The upside is that Edmonton is one of Canada's sunniest cities, with an average of 2,289 hours of sunlight per year.

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