Northern Alberta

Northern Alberta
Geographic region
Left-right from top: Aurora borealis, Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie skylines, Athabasca River paddlewheeler
Northern Alberta Development Council area
Largest population centres	Fort McMurray Grande Prairie Cold Lake Whitecourt Peace River Slave Lake

Northern Alberta is a geographic region located in the Canadian province of Alberta.

An informally defined cultural region, the boundaries of Northern Alberta are not fixed. Under some schemes, the region encompasses everything north of the centre of the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor, including most of the province's landmass as well as its capital, Edmonton. Other schemes place Edmonton and its surrounding farmland in Central Alberta, limiting Northern Alberta to the northern half of the province, where forestry, oil, and gas are the dominant industries.

Its primary industry is oil and gas, with large heavy oil reserves being exploited at the Athabasca oil sands and Wabasca area in the east of the region. Natural gas is extracted in Peace region and Chinchaga-Rainbow areas in the west, and forestry and logging are also developed in the boreal forests of this region. As of 2011, the region had a population of approximately 386,000.^[1]