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Regina was previously the headquarters of the North-West Territories, of which today's provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta originally formed part, and of the District of Assiniboia. Regina was named in 1882 after Queen Victoria, i.e. Victoria Regina, by her daughter Princess Louise, wife of the then-Governor General the Marquess of Lorne. Unlike other planned cities in the Canadian West, on its treeless flat plain Regina was a tabula rasa, without topographical features other than the small spring run-off Wascana Creek. Early planners took advantage of such opportunity by damming the creek to create a decorative lake to the south of the central business district and constructing the elaborate 840 ft (256 m) long Albert Street Bridge across the new lake. Regina's importance was further secured when the new province of Saskatchewan designated the city its capital in 1906. Wascana Centre, created around the focal point of Wascana Lake, remains Regina's signal attraction and contains the Provincial Legislative Building, both campuses of the University of Regina, the provincial museum of natural history, the Regina Conservatory (in the original Regina College buildings), the Saskatchewan Science Centre, the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery and the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts. Residential neighbourhoods in Regina are largely indistinguishable from those in other western Canadian cities, but several precincts beyond the historic city centre are historically or socially noteworthy - namely Lakeview and The Crescents both of which lie directly south of downtown. Immediately to the north of the central business district is the old warehouse district, increasingly the focus of shopping and residential development; as in other western cities of North America, the periphery contains shopping malls and big box stores. In 1912, Regina was a focus of international attention when the Regina Cyclone destroyed much of the town; in the 1930s, the Regina Riot brought further attention and, in the midst of the 1930s drought and Great Depression, which hit the Canadian Prairies particularly hard with their economic focus on dryland grain farming. The CCF (now the NDP, a major left-wing political party in Canada), formulated its foundation Regina Manifesto in Regina. In recent years, Saskatchewan's agricultural and mineral resources have come into new demand, and it is widely expected to enter a new period of strong economic growth. |
