Nestled in the heart of Central Alberta, roughly 57 kilometres northeast of Drumheller, Hanna sits within the boundaries of Special Area No. 2 and serves as the home of the district office for the Alberta government’s Special Areas administration. The town traces its roots to 1912, when the first settlers arrived in the area. Incorporation followed just two years later, in 1914, alongside the construction of the Canadian Northern Railway’s Goose Lake line, which connected Saskatoon to Calgary. Hanna served as a division point along that railway and once boasted a ten-stall railway roundhouse. The town takes its name from David Blyth Hanna, the third vice president of the Canadian Northern Railway. The Depression-era drought hit the region hard, and by 1939 the Alberta government had established a Special Area designation to provide additional support for local residents.
According to the 2021 Census, Hanna had a population of 2,394 people living in 1,100 of its 1,257 private dwellings, representing a decline of roughly 6.4 percent from the 2,559 residents recorded in 2016. The town covers a land area of 8.4 square kilometres, giving it a population density of approximately 285 people per square kilometre. Agriculture, oil production, power generation, tourism, and coal mining form the backbone of the local economy, and the town is considered the commercial hub of a broad trading region known as Short Grass County, home to around 200 businesses. Natural resources in the area include coal, petroleum, natural gas, and bentonite. Hanna is perhaps best known beyond Alberta as the hometown of several members of the rock band Nickelback, including Chad Kroeger, Mike Kroeger, Brandon Kroeger, and Ryan Peake, and the music video for the band’s song Photograph was filmed right in the town. Other notable former residents include hockey legend Lanny McDonald, mass murderer Robert Raymond Cook (the last person executed in Alberta), Conservative MP Glen Motz, former hockey executive Jim Nill, and author Marjorie Willison. Hanna also maintains an international connection through its sister town relationship with Wake, Okayama, in Japan.