a province in southern central Canada. Area, 651,900 sq km; population, 962,000 (1971), 53 percent of which is urban. The capital and largest city is Regina.
Saskatchewan is situated between the Laurentian Upland in the north and the High Plains in the south. The main river is the Saskatchewan. The northeast of the province has coniferous forests, and the southwest forest-steppe and steppes.
Saskatchewan contains one-third of Canada’s agricultural lands and accounts for approximately one-half of the country’s wheat harvest, two-thirds of the rye and oat harvests, and one-third of the barley, flax, and rape harvests. Animal husbandry includes the raising of cattle (2.6 million head in 1971), hogs, and poultry. Agricultural production is concentrated on large, highly mechanized farms.
Mineral production in Saskatchewan includes large-scale potassium salt mining (Esterhazy, Saskatoon, Belle-Plaine), oil and helium extraction (Swift Current), copper mining (La Ronge), and the extraction of uranium concentrates (Uranium City, Lake Wollaston). The main branches of the manufacturing industry are the food industry, including flour milling, meat canning, and butter production, the chemical industry, ferrous metallurgy (pipes), agricultural machine building (tractors), and oil refining. Prince Albert and Meadow Lake have woodworking and pulp-and-paper industries.
L.N. KARPOV
a river in southern Canada. The Saskatchewan is formed by the confluence of the North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan rivers, which originate in the Rocky Mountains. It flows over the High and Central plains and empties into Lake Winnipeg (Hudson Bay basin). The river is 544 km long; measured from the source of the South Saskatchewan, it is 1,928 km long. It drains a total area of 385,000 sq km.
The Saskatchewan is fed primarily by snow. High water is from June to August. The water level is extremely low from December through March. The river freezes in early November, and the ice breaks up in late April. The mean annual flow rate at The Pas is 780 cu m per sec. The total length of the navigable sections of the river and its tributaries is 1,450 km. The North and South Saskatchewan rivers and their tributaries are used for irrigation. The cities of Edmonton and Prince Albert are on the North Saskatchewan, and the city of Saskatoon is on the South Saskatchewan.