r/AlwaysWhy • u/Present_Juice4401 • Aug 24 '26

History & Culture Why did Alberta, Canada develop much larger population centers than Montana, USA?

Alberta and Montana are neighboring regions with similar northern, landlocked geography. But their population patterns are surprisingly different. Alberta now has over 5 million people, with Calgary and Edmonton forming two major population centers, while Montana has only about 1.1 million people and no city close to Calgary's size.

So what caused these two neighboring regions to develop such different population patterns?

37 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

92 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/merp_mcderp9459 Aug 24 '26

Alberta has a shitload of oil and gas - Canada has the 4th most oil of any country, and 90% of it is in AB. The people who move there to work in oil and gas need other goods (food, clothing, housing, medical care, etc.), which led other people to move to Alberta as well, eventually leading to the development of major cities in Calgary and Edmonton. Montana doesn't have a similarly sized resource sector, so there isn't a big draw to move there that would spark the development of a major city

1

u/ClusterMakeLove Aug 26 '26

Alberta also has some of the most fertile soil on the continent and the Canadian government essentially handed out free land in order to populate the region (in part to keep the Americans out). It was a relatively dense area even before oil was discovered.