Alma (; 2021 Town population: 30,331; UA Population 20,274) is a town in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, in the Canadian province of Quebec.

History

The present town of Alma was formed in 1962 from the merging of four villages: Isle-Maligne, Naudville, Riverbend and St-Joseph d'Alma. In 2002, Alma merged with the Municipality of Delisle. The oldest of the villages, St-Joseph-d'Alma, was founded in 1867 by Damase Boulanger. Both modern day Alma and St-Joseph d'Alma are named after the Battle of the Alma.

The area became an important industrial centre during the 1920s and 1930s with the construction of a hydro-electrical power station on the Grande-Décharge River, a paper mill (Price) and an aluminum smelting plant (Alcan), all of which are still in activity today.

Geography

Alma is located on the southeast coast of Lac Saint-Jean where it flows into the Saguenay River, in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada, approximately 175km north of Quebec City. Alma is the seat of Lac-Saint-Jean-Est Regional County Municipality. Alma is the second largest city in population in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region after the city of Saguenay.

Alma is the seat of the judicial district of Alma.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Alma had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Language

As of the 2021 Census, 81% of residents in Alma reported their knowledge of official languages being French only. 18.8% had knowledge of both English and French, while a small number reported only knowing English (0.1%). English was the mother tongue for 0.4% of residents, while French was the mother tongue for 98.9%.

Ethnicity

Infrastructure

Transportation

Alma is serviced by the Alma Airport, located 4.1km to the south of the town.

Sister cities

Alma has been twinned with Falaise, Calvados, France, since 1969.

Notable people

• Camille Bedard, hockey player

• Chris Boucher, basketball player for the Toronto Raptors

• Lucien Bouchard, former premier of Québec

• Guy Cloutier, producer and artist manager

• Guillaume Desbiens, hockey player

• Michel Harvey, hockey player for the Quebec Nordiques

• Charles Hudon, hockey player for the Ontario Reign

• Pierre Lapointe, singer

• Émilie Fortin Tremblay (1872–1949), one of the first white women to cross the Chilkoot on the way to the Yukon gold fields

• François-Louis Tremblay, Olympic gold medallist short-track speed skater

• Mario Tremblay, hockey player and former coach of the Montreal Canadiens

See also

• List of cities in Quebec

Notes

References

External links

• Ville d'Alma