Grande Prairie is a city in the northwestern part of the province of Alberta in Western Canada within the southern portion of an area known as Peace River Country. It is the seventh-largest city in Alberta with a population 55,032 recorded by the 2011 Census, and was one of Canada's fastest growing cities between 2001 and 2006. The city adopted the trumpeter swan as an official symbol due to its proximity to the migration route and summer nesting grounds of this bird. For that reason, Grande Prairie is sometimes nicknamed the "Swan City". The dinosaur has emerged as an unofficial symbol of the city due to paleontology discoveries in the areas north and west of the Grande Prairie.