Live in Panorama Hills
The most populous community in Calgary: 25,535 residents at the 2021 census, built out on former Country Hills golf lands in the far north.
Panorama Hills is the most populous community in Calgary: 25,535 residents at the 2021 census, no other community in the City's own table higher, across 6.3 km² of the far north. Wikipedia dates it to 1994, built by Ultima Development Corporation on land bought from members of the Country Hills Golf Course; the Federation of Calgary Communities dates it to 1997. Sixty-five per cent of its occupied dwellings went up between 2001 and 2010, 78% of households own, and median household income was $112,000 in 2020 against $98,000 across Calgary. Half the residents are immigrants, against a third citywide.
The city's biggest community
Bounded south by Country Hills Boulevard, east by Harvest Hills Boulevard, and north and west by Stoney Trail. Ward 3.
Panorama Hills is Calgary's most populous community: 25,535 residents at the 2021 census across 6.3 km², and no other community in the City's own table is higher. Saddle Ridge is next at 24,365. Wikipedia dates it to 1994, built by Ultima Development Corporation on land bought from members of the Country Hills Golf Course; the Federation of Calgary Communities dates it to 1997. The two publishers disagree and neither shows its working.
It was built fast and it was built for families. 65% of the occupied dwellings went up between 2001 and 2010 and another 21% by 2015, 68% are single-detached houses, and 78% of households own against 69% citywide. A quarter of households are four people and another 19% are five or more, against 16% and 10% across Calgary. Median household income was $112,000 in 2020, against $98,000 citywide, and half the residents are immigrants against a third across the city.
Scale delivered the goods: schools inside the community, Vivo just east at 11950 Country Village Link NE, retail at every edge. Scale's cost is the traffic. 82% of employed residents drive to work and 7% take transit, against 77% and 9% across Calgary.
- 86% of the occupied stock was built between 2001 and 2015. First-cycle roofs, furnaces and hot water tanks are due across most of the community
- 68% single-detached and 78% owner-occupied. The rental market here is thin, at 22% against 31% citywide
- 82% of employed residents drive to work and 7% take transit. Plan on two cars
- No CTrain. The City's Green Line page carries only the southeast project, ten stations opening in 2031, and describes no north leg
- If a listing mentions a residents-association fee, ask for the document. No publisher we could open sets out what it covers
How Panorama Hills got here
- 1994Panorama Hills is established, built by Ultima Development Corporation on land bought from members of the Country Hills Golf Course. The Federation of Calgary Communities dates the community to 1997 instead; the two publishers disagree.
- 1994The Northern Hills Community Association is registered on 17 October. It covers Panorama Hills along with Harvest Hills, Coventry Hills, Country Hills, Country Hills Estates and Panorama Hills Estates.
- 2001–2010The build-out decade: 5,160 of the community's 7,930 occupied dwellings, 65% of the total, date from these ten years.
- 2004Cardel Place opens just east of the community, with arenas, gymnasiums, an aquatic complex, a climbing wall, a fitness centre and a Calgary Public Library branch. It is now Vivo for Healthier Generations.
- 2021The federal census records 25,535 residents in 7,930 private households, the highest community population in the City's table.
Community greens and the hill the school is named for
Greens and amenity sites thread the community, and Buffalo Rubbing Stone names both a hilltop and the Calgary Board of Education school beside it. Neither the school nor the City publishes anything about the stone itself.
What the map does not show: the community association here is the Northern Hills Community Association, registered in October 1994, and it covers five other communities as well as this one. Its programming runs out of Vivo rather than a hall of its own.
Elsewhere in Calgary, not Panorama Hills
11 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 1–11 of 11 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. Vivo and the district sit at the corners; downtown is the far north's standing trade.
Every gym within reach
Vivo just east of the community, and the pathway network at hand. Confirm hours before you count on anything.
- Leisure and lane pools, hot tub, sauna and steam room
- Arenas, gymnasiums and sport courts, a fitness centre and studios
- Climbing and bouldering walls, an indoor park and a Calgary Public Library branch
- It opened in 2004 as Cardel Place, and the Northern Hills Community Association still runs its programming from there
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Vivo for Healthier Generations open | Leisure and lane pools, hot tub, sauna, arenas, gymnasiums and sport courts, a fitness centre, climbing and bouldering walls and a Calgary Public Library branch. | 5–7 min |
| Northern Hills Community Association programming open | The association covers Panorama Hills and five neighbouring communities and runs sports programming out of Vivo. | 1–3 min |
| District commercial clubs open | Commercial gyms in the Country Hills district. | 4–7 min |
| Community pathways open | Free option: the pathway network across 6.3 km² of community. | 1–3 min |
Vivo does most of the year's work here. It is the one full facility within five to seven minutes of the community.
Schools at community scale
Panorama Hills School and Buffalo Rubbing Stone School sit inside the community, Captain Nichola Goddard runs kindergarten to grade 9, and North Trail High School carries the senior grades east in Coventry Hills. None of the four board pages prints a street address, and only Captain Nichola Goddard prints a grade range.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Panorama Hills School | Calgary Board of Education | Public school inside the community; its own page lists kindergarten among its classes but no grade range. |
| Buffalo Rubbing Stone School | Calgary Board of Education | Public school inside the community. Its own page states no grade range. |
| Captain Nichola Goddard School | Calgary Board of Education | Kindergarten to grade 9, described by the board as an innovative school with a personalized approach. |
| North Trail High School | Calgary Board of Education | Senior high in Coventry Hills, with Advanced Placement, career and technology studies, fine arts, languages and physical education. |
| St. Jerome School | Calgary Catholic | Catholic elementary. The district's site refuses automated clients, and nothing else we opened names it, so this entry is unverified. |
Alberta funds Catholic education the same way it funds public education, so there is no tuition for a resident student at either board. Internal catchments decide the school here. Confirm the street, not just the community. 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.
- Twenty-five thousand neighbours means the rinks and programs actually fill
- 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
- Hail season in the open north: check your insurer
- Hottest month, with cool nights at 1,129 m
- 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
31 more photographs of Calgary and the region
Drawn from the site's shared, freely licensed Calgary photo library, not photographs of Panorama Hills itself. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 31 photographs.
Honesty note. This page uses only the general Calgary, seasonal, Alberta-wildlife and day-trip photography from the site's shared library. Nothing here is presented as a photograph of Panorama Hills itself.