Live in Country Hills Village
A compact community around a public pond, with a cinema, a Superstore and most of the north's services within a walk.
Country Hills Village is the densest thing in Calgary's far north: 0.9 km² of condominiums, townhomes and apartments built around a pond, with 2,480 residents in 1,315 private households at the 2021 census. Only 3% of the occupied dwellings are single-detached houses; 70% are apartments in buildings under five storeys and 27% are row houses. It is also one of the oldest communities on this site: 29% of residents are 65 or over against 13% city-wide, sixth of the 167 Calgary guides that publish the share and nine points behind Rideau Park, and 42% of households are one person. Median household income was $70,000 in 2020, well under the city's $98,000, and 34% of households rent. It exists because of its retail: the Country Hills Town Centre district wraps it, nearly all walkable.
The pond, the power centre, and the condos between
Northeast of the Country Hills community proper, wrapped by Country Hills Boulevard and Harvest Hills Boulevard, around the central pond. Ward 3.
Country Hills Village is the far north's densest address: 0.9 km² of condominiums, townhomes and apartments around a pond, with 2,480 residents in 1,315 private households at the 2021 census. Just 3% of the occupied dwellings are single-detached houses. 70% are apartments in buildings under five storeys and 27% are row houses.
It is an old community, and a modest one. 29% of residents are 65 or over, against 13% across Calgary, and 42% of households are one person. Median household income was $70,000 in 2020, well under the city's $98,000, 34% of households rent, and 29% spend 30% or more of income on shelter. Read the community as a retirement and first-home address rather than a family one.
The pitch is the walk. The Country Hills Town Centre district wraps the community and nearly all of it is reachable on foot, which no other far-north address offers, and Vivo for Healthier Generations at 11950 Country Village Link NE holds the pools, ice arenas, climbing walls, an indoor park and the Country Hills Library branch a few minutes west. Be precise about the water: no lake association or residents' fee is published for the pond, so treat it as the community's front garden rather than its club.
- 97% of occupied dwellings are apartments or row houses: read the condo documents and reserve fund as carefully as the unit
- Retail-adjacent means traffic and light around the district edges
- Deerfoot and the airport are close enough to hear on some evenings
- No CTrain: the Green Line north leg remains a plan. 11% of employed residents take transit to work
How Country Hills Village got here
- 2001–2010Seven in ten of the community's occupied dwellings go up in this decade, the City recording its community structure as 2000s.
- 2012The civic census counts 2,615 residents in 1,467 dwellings on 1 km², the figures Wikipedia still carries.
- 2019The City's last civic census counts 2,597 residents in 1,352 dwellings, 1,289 of them occupied and only 826 owner-occupied.
- 2021The federal census records 2,480 residents in 1,315 private households: 66% owner households and 34% renter, 70% of occupied dwellings apartments in buildings under five storeys, and a median household income of $70,000 in 2020.
Public water at the centre of the plan
The pond loop is the community's daily walk, geese included; West Nose Creek's pathway system is a few minutes west, and Harvest Hills' green spine is one boulevard over.
What the map does not show: this is the rare Calgary address where the errands, the movie and the evening walk all happen without the car. Judge it on that, not on suburban comparisons.
Elsewhere in Calgary, not Country Hills Village
10 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–10 of 10 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are estimated from the centre of the community to each destination using Calgary's road grid, and are rounded to honest ranges rather than presented as precise figures. Everything close is genuinely walkable; everything far rides Deerfoot.
Every gym within reach
The district carries the options. Confirm hours before you count on anything.
- Leisure and lane pools, ice arenas, climbing and bouldering walls, an indoor park and the Country Hills Library inside
- Commercial clubs inside the Town Centre district
- The pond loop and creek pathways are the free options
- Thornhill Aquatic is the second city pool, south on Centre Street
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Vivo for Healthier Generations open | The north-central anchor: leisure and lane pools, hot tub, sauna, ice arenas, climbing and bouldering walls, gymnasiums, an indoor park and a library branch. | 2–3 min |
| Town Centre commercial clubs open | Commercial gyms inside the walkable retail district. | 1–3 min |
| The pond loop open | Free option: the walking loop around the water, plus the creek pathways west. | 1–2 min |
For most residents the walkable commercial clubs win on convenience: Vivo wins on breadth.
Schools sit in the communities around the Village
The Village is a multi-family pocket without schools of its own; designations point into Coventry Hills, Harvest Hills and the north-central cluster, including North Trail High School, which describes itself on its own site as a new school and publishes no attendance area. With 11% of residents under 15, this is not a community organised around its schools.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Designated schools outside the community | Both boards | No school sits inside the Village; students attend schools in the surrounding north-central communities. Confirm for a specific address. |
| North Trail High School | Calgary Board of Education | Calgary Board of Education high school in neighbouring Coventry Hills, which describes itself as a new school. Its site publishes neither a grade range nor an attendance area. |
| St. Clare Elementary | Calgary Catholic | Catholic elementary in Coventry Hills. The Calgary Catholic School District's site refuses automated clients, so nothing here was read from the district. |
Alberta funds Catholic education the same way it funds public education, so there is no tuition for a resident student at either board. Confirm the designation for a specific address before you buy. The Calgary Catholic School District's site refuses automated clients, so nothing on the Catholic side here was read from the district itself.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- The pond freezes into the neighbourhood's own rink
- Priority snow routes keep the main roads clear
- Indoor recreation carries the season
- Long dark evenings, but rarely for weeks at a stretch
- Ski traffic west on the Trans-Canada peaks on Friday and Sunday
- Coldest snaps usually break with a chinook
- Noticeably longer light by month end
- Indoor pools at their busiest
- Melt and refreeze on the side streets: ice cleats weather
- Pathways reopen as the snow goes
- First patio afternoons on the warm chinook days
- Street sweeping begins late in the month
- Last hard frosts: planting waits for the May long weekend
- Pathway and park season opens properly
- Garden centres open across the quadrant
- Migratory birds return to the parks
- Long evenings: sunset past 9pm by month end
- Lilacs and crabapples through the older streets
- Field sport seasons start on the community greens
- First genuinely warm stretches
- Peak daylight at the solstice: over 16 hours
- School year ends and the parks fill
- Evening thunderstorms begin building over the foothills
- Farmers' markets open for the season
- Evening thunderstorms sweep the open north
- Hottest month, with cool nights at this elevation
- Evening thunderstorms roll off the foothills
- Canada Day events in the parks
- Folk Festival on Prince's Island mid-month
- Kananaskis and Banff at their best, straight west
- Quietest weeks before school returns
- Smoke from western wildfires is possible
- School year restarts and morning traffic thickens
- First frost typically arrives late in the month
- Poplar and aspen colour begins
- Evenings shorten fast
- Peak autumn colour through the older tree-lined streets
- First snow is normal, and normally melts
- Snow tires go on across the quadrant
- Nose Hill's grasses turn gold
- Ski season opens west on the Trans-Canada
- Dark by 5pm
- Freeze sets in for good
- Holiday retail season begins
- Chinook arches over the western skyline on clear days
- Holiday lights through the community streets
- Outdoor rinks open when the freeze holds
- Quiet, short days between the holidays
Every photograph in this guide's library is above
This library holds one photograph and the page has already printed it. The credits are in the footer.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near Country Hills Village, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Calgary library.