Nestled in the foothills region of southern Alberta, Cayley sits roughly 73 kilometres south of Calgary and just 13 kilometres south of High River, placing it within easy reach of one of Alberta’s largest cities. The hamlet lies about 1.2 kilometres west of Highway 2, accessible via Range Road 290, formerly designated as Highway 2A. Cayley falls within Foothills County and is part of Census Division No. 6, where it is also recognized as a designated place by Statistics Canada.
The community takes its name from the Honourable Hugh St. Quentin Cayley, a barrister who served as publisher of the Calgary Herald in 1884 and represented Calgary in the Northwest Territories legislature between 1886 and 1894. Originally incorporated as a village on August 4, 1904, Cayley later dissolved to hamlet status on June 1, 1996. In earlier years, the hamlet was home to at least seven grain elevators, all of which have since been demolished. Cayley is also home to a Hutterite colony and an associated colony school, which made provincial history in 2001 when two Cayley Colony students became the first pupils from an Alberta colony school to write provincial diploma exams and graduate from high school. According to the 2021 Census, Cayley had a population of 414 residents living in 166 of its 170 private dwellings, reflecting a growth of 9.8 percent from the 377 people recorded in 2016. The hamlet covers a land area of 0.62 square kilometres, producing a population density of roughly 668 people per square kilometre.