Local: City Information
Here are some basic facts about Regina:
Location
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Regina is nestled at the middle of the flat Prairie in the Province of Saskatchewan. The city is 577 metres (1875 feet) above sea level. The city is located at 50 degrees (north) and 30minutes of latitude and 104 degrees (west) and 30 minutes of longitude. The city uses Central Standard Time, the same time zone as Chicago and Houston (but does not move the Daylight Savings Time in the summer). While the area was originally pretty featureless, the city has a man-made lake and has hand-planted over 350,000 trees, making the city the greenest on the prairies.
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Name
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Originally, the Wascana Creek was where the Cree hunted and then cleaned their buffalo, and was called Oscana or "pile of bones". When the Canadian Pacific Railroad extended westwards in 1882, they put a terminal at Pile-O-Bones. A few years later when the seat of government of the Northwest Territories was moved here, Princess Louise, the wife of Canada’s Governor General, named the city Regina (latin for Queen), in honour of her mother the Queen Victoria. In 1905, when Saskatchewan became a province, Regina became its capital city.
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Population
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The population of Regina is 202,000.
Saskatchewan joined confederation in 1905 and has 990,237 residents in its 652,000 square kilometres (251,000 sq miles).
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Industries
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The major industries in Regina reflects the area’s agricultural and potash resources, as well as its position as the administrative capital of the province.
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Weather
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It boasts an average of 2,300 hours of sunshine annually. Average temperature in January is -11°C .. Summer is hot and humid warm and dry with average temperatures of 23°C. Average annual rainfall is 398 mm (about 16 inches), and annual snowfall is 116 cm (46 inches).
In the summer time, you can generally expect hot and sunny weather, with occasional precipitation. In the fall and spring time, expect cooler weather and cloud. The winters are typical of northern Canada, being both continuous and generally cold. Travellers should wear sweaters in fall, and appropriate warm coats and boots in the winter.
Average daily temperatures are:
Scale |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
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Celsius |
-12 |
-8 |
-2 |
11 |
18 |
22 |
27 |
25 |
16 |
10 |
-3 |
-7 |
Fahrenheit |
10 |
18 |
28 |
52 |
64 |
72 |
81 |
77 |
61 |
50 |
37 |
19 |
An approximate guide to Celsius Temperatures is as follows:
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Some hotels include tips or gratuities with group programs to simplify bookkeeping. This will usually include gratuities for housekeeping, bell service and food service. In a hotel, bell service should be tipped about $1 per bag, and housekeeping $1 to $5 dollars a day (in proportion to your room rate). Visitors should know that the standard tip in restaurants is
10%-15% (on restaurant bills, an average tip will be 50% higher the GST & tax), with 20% (about double the GST & tax) for very outstanding service. This is especially important for visitors from countries where tipping on meals is not done: here the waitering staff depend on tips for a significant portion of their incomes. Tip taxis about 10%, and a dollar a bag they carry for you (not just unload), or at the very least round fares up to the nearest dollar.
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