Lloydminster - Geography

Geography

The provincial border runs north to south, falling directly on 50th Avenue (Meridian Avenue) in the centre of Lloydminster. Addresses east of 50th Avenue are considered to be in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan and addresses west of 50th Avenue are considered to be in Lloydminster, Alberta. The city is bordered by the County of Vermilion River, Alberta, on the west, the Rural Municipality (R.M.) of Brittania No. 502, Saskatchewan, on the northeast and the R.M. of Wilton No. 72, Saskatchewan, on the southeast.

Lloydminster is not the only city that straddles a Canadian provincial border. The city of Flin Flon, Manitoba, has a small section that is actually located within Saskatchewan. In the National Capital Region, Ottawa, Ontario, and Gatineau, Quebec, form a single metropolitan area, but they do not form a biprovincial city because there are separate municipalities in each province.

Lloydminster's distinctive situation is reflected in other legal matters, including its time zone. Alberta law requires the use of daylight saving time, while Saskatchewan does not observe daylight saving time. Lloydminster's charter allows it to follow Alberta's use of daylight saving time on both sides of the provincial border; this places the city, and the observing surrounding area, in the Mountain Standard Time Zone during the winter, and synchronizes clocks with those of Alberta. During the summer, Alberta is on Mountain daylight time, and Saskatchewan on Central standard time, which are both UTC−06. Lloydminster follows the Saskatchewan schedule when voting in municipal elections.

The provincial line divides the city in two aspects related to communications. Telephones on the Saskatchewan side are assigned to area code 306, the area code reserved for that province, while land lines on the Alberta side have numbers in the 780 and 587 area codes, the two area codes assigned to northern Alberta. Similarly, Saskatchewan addresses have a postal code with a forward sortation area designation (first three characters) of "S9V", and addresses in Alberta have postal codes beginning with "T9V". All postal codes in Canada beginning with the letter "S" are assigned to Saskatchewan, and those beginning with "T" belong to Alberta.

Lloydminster was not exempted from recent anti-smoking legislation passed by Saskatchewan's legislature. Citizens responded by initiating a referendum against the wishes of the mayor, as permitted in the charter, which resulted in the enactment of a city-wide anti-smoking bylaw. The matter was made a moot point when Alberta enacted its own anti-smoking legislation, which was the solution that the mayor and council preferred.