Like anyone who has made their way from ECHA to Humanities in the middle of winter, I am acutely aware of how big campus can seem at times. At those times I, like most, will utter under a strained breath, "how bloody big is this place?"
Today we find out.
Let's start simple: how big is North Campus in terms of square kilometers?
Approximate Area of the U of A North Campus
Disclaimer: there are a few buildings in this area that aren't U of A property, but in the interest of simpler calculations we are going to include them for now.
Flashback to basic geometry for a second: how do you measure the area of an irregular shape?
Chop it into something simpler, then do some multiplying.
This gives us a total of around 1.25 square kilometers (about 175 soccer fields). So far, so good. Let's apply this to the other four U of A campuses:
Adding these to the 1.25 square kilometers we already have from North Campus gives us a grand total of 4.07 square kilometers (or 570 soccer fields).
"But wait! The university is not composed of a flat plane of soccer fields as these diagrams suggest!" you say.
To which I reply, "True, but can't we just pretend?"
To which you reply, "Just look at Enterprise Square, it's tiny! You have to take into account multi-level buildings somehow."
"South Campus is mostly a flat plane anyway," I mutter as I storm away. || Image from Google Streetview
Luckily, we needn't track down the blueprints for nearly 500 university buildings to find the answer. Our Vice President Facilities & Operations estimates the square meters of our total building space is somewhere in the realm of 1.7 million, which translates to 1.7 square kilometers (238 soccer fields).
Which brings our new grand total to 5.77 square kilometers (808 soccer fields).
Disclaimer: I realize we're technically counting the first floor of every building twice since we already counted them once in the flat plane calculations, but we're going for a ballpark estimation. Work with me!
But what about the St. Albert Research Station? That's also quite big, isn't it?
St. Albert Research Station || Image from Google Streetview
Clocking in at 800 Acres (3.2 square kilometres/450 soccer fields), the St. Albert Research Station is by far the biggest U of A research station, and is by itself over twice as large as north campus.
Yet all of this represents just the tip of the iceberg. The U of A has dozens of facilities off campus we have to count as well - including but not limited to:
- Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre (Bamfield, BC - shared campus with the University of Victoria, UBC, Simon Fraser University, and University of Calgary)
- Botanic Garden (southwest of Edmonton)
- Calgary Centre (Calgary)
- Institute for Reconstructive Sciences in Medicine (Misericordia Community Hospital in West Edmonton)
- Mattheis Research Ranch (east of Calgary)
- Miquelon Lake Research Station (north of Camrose)
- Roy Berg Kinsella Research Ranch (east of Edmonton)
- U of A School in Cortona (Cortona, Italy)
The list goes on: we have research stations, offices, and units all around the world that contribute to this number. We have to draw the line somewhere, however - and we're far enough down the rabbit hole already.
A little over 9 square kilometers (1260 soccer fields), give or take.
If you squished it all into the center of Edmonton, this is approximately how much space it would take up:
At last: a nearly-exhaustive answer to our question, "Just how big is the University of Alberta?"
If you're looking for other metrics - like the number of students, staff , or faculties at the U of A - you can find that info and other fun facts on the U of A website.on the U of A website.