Nestled along Highway 38 roughly 52 kilometres north of Edmonton, Redwater sits within the Edmonton Metropolitan Region and is surrounded by Sturgeon County. The town is framed by some of Alberta’s most productive agricultural land, with wide, flat terrain stretching out in nearly every direction. To the south, the Sturgeon River flows east-southeast before emptying into the North Saskatchewan River, while to the east and southeast, locally known sand hills support an active silica sand and gravel industry. The surrounding forests include both coniferous species such as Jack Pine, Scots Pine, White Spruce, Black Spruce, and Balsam Fir, as well as broadleaf varieties including Birch, Poplar, and Aspen. The town’s name traces back to the nearby Redwater River, an ochre-coloured tributary that also drains into the North Saskatchewan River.
The area was first settled in the early 1900s, initially by Ukrainian newcomers and later by English and French settlers. A post office opened in 1907 at a site east of the present-day townsite and was relocated in 1919 when Redwater was established as a hamlet. It became a village on December 31, 1949, and was elevated to town status exactly one year later on December 31, 1950. The community’s most dramatic turning point came in 1948, when oil was discovered nearby, transforming a hamlet of around 160 residents into a town of over 1,300 by 1951. According to the 2021 census, Redwater’s population stood at 2,115 people living in 910 of its 1,000 private dwellings, spread across a land area of 19.93 square kilometres, giving the town a population density of approximately 106 people per square kilometre. Beyond farming, the local economy is also tied to large industrial operations in the nearby Alberta’s Industrial Heartland area to the south, including the Sturgeon Refinery, an 80,000-barrel-per-day crude oil facility operated by the North West Redwater Partnership.