Grande Prairie is a city in northwestern Alberta, Canada, within the southern portion of an area known as Peace River Country.

The city has adopted the trumpeter swan as its official symbol due to its proximity to the bird's migration route and its summer nesting grounds.

The dinosaur has also emerged as an unofficial symbol of the city due to paleontology discoveries in the areas north and west of Grande Prairie.

The post was established South of Dunvegan and 21 km (13 mi) north west of the present day city of Grande Prairie, south east of La Glace Lake, and west of what is now the Town of Sexsmith (the 1896 version of this building was moved and restored and now stands near the Grande Prairie Museum).

Grande Prairie was incorporated as a village by the Province of Alberta in 1914, but it was not until the arrival of the railway in 1916 that farmland quickly expanded as waves of settlers came into the Peace region.

The arrival of the railway and the increased settlement in the area drove up Grande Prairie's population past the 1,000 mark, allowing it to incorporate as a town on March 27, 1919.

Settlement continued unabated even into the 1930s during the Dust Bowl era because the Peace Region was able to escape the severe drought conditions that plagued the Canadian Prairies further south at the time.

The opening of the Procter & Gamble kraft pulp mill in 1972 and the discovery of the Elmworth deep basin gas field spurred an economic boom.

The Bear Creek Reservoir is the small body of water by Northwestern Polytechnic in the northwest part of the city, and is ringed by marshy wetland.

Although the tornado was considered a very weak one (F0-F1 on the Fujita scale) and the weather was not severe at the time, it was still strong enough to damage houses and flip vehicles.

The largest visible minority groups were Filipino (6.9%), South Asian (2.9%), Black (2.2%), Latin American (0.8%), Chinese (0.8%) and Arab (0.6%).

Until 2015, Grande Prairie topped the list for the national average for the Crime Severity Index,[51] but by 2016 a report published by Maclean's, stated that the city had dropped to 12th place.

Grande Prairie was 13th on the Violent Crime Severity Index with 139 per 100,000 people versus a 75.25 average for all municipalities included in the report.

It was in the mid to late-1970s that the Elmworth gas field was discovered and developed, causing the city to grow rapidly until the oil boom ended in 1981.

[55] Today Grande Prairie's location atop both the Montney and Duvernay geological formations have seen local extraction activities focused on natural-gas condensate and shale gas.

Forestry is a major part of Grande Prairie's economy, for large tracts of forest lie to the south in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.

International Paper (formerly Weyerhaeuser Canada) kraft pulp mill, opened in 1972 by Procter & Gamble, is one of Grande Prairie's largest employers.

Live music can be found in several downtown bars and intermittently at all-ages locations such as Tito's Restaurant and the GP Curling Club.

[62][63] The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, located fifteen minutes west of Grande Prairie, is a 41,000 sq ft (3,800 m2) building with many exhibits, a large theatre, classrooms, a paleontology lab, a gift shop, and a restaurant.

Muskoseepi Park has excellent walking and bike trails extending nearly the entire length of Bear Creek, from the northwest to the southeast of the city.

Crystal Lake in the northeast part of the city also has parkland, preserved wetlands (great for birdwatching), and walking/bike paths around its entire circumference.

Nestled within spruce and pine trees, on the south east side of the city, just a couple of minutes from downtown, is Evergreen Park.

The park is the largest full featured exhibition facility north of Edmonton, and can cater to upwards of 10,000 people at a time.

Thrill Hill in the Swanavon neighbourhood, South Bear Creek, and Coop Community Course at Evergreen Park.

[72] The Outdoor Bear Creek (Aquatera) Swimming Pool, in Muskoseepi Park, was reopened in the summer of 2019, after extensive modifications.

The new renovations include a Tots Pool, a Zero Beach, Spanish Steps, Lily Islands, a Games Area, and a Waterslide.

[77] Greyhound Canada offered scheduled bus service from its Grande Prairie terminal to Edmonton and Dawson Creek.

CN also operates local freight service out of Grande Prairie on former Northern Alberta Railways tracks - north to Sexsmith and Rycroft, and west to Beaverlodge and Hythe.

Savage Alberta Railway, which operated from 1999 to 2006, was owned by North American RailNet and had its headquarters in the city prior to being purchased by CN.

[89] After being renamed Grande Prairie Regional College (GPRC) in 1970, construction of the present campus began in 1973, based on a plan prepared by Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal.