Overall, the history of Regina, Saskatchewan focuses on the combination of Indians, the "Mounties" and immigrant-farmers who have developed the prairie into the world's breadbasket.

Hundreds of years ago, the plains region of southern Saskatchewan was home to thousands of native Indians who lived off the land and the large numbers of buffalo that roamed here. The river was ideal for capturing and then killing buffalo. The meat was then washed and left to dry on the flat ground and the bones were piled up.

The Cree believed that the living buffaloes would not leave the bones of the dead buffalo, and that as long as there was a pile of bones, there would be buffalo to hunt. The pile of bones, which the Cree named "Okana ka-asateki," was at times 2 meters high and 13 meters in diameter.

When Colonel Palliser arrived in 1857, he heard the Cree name, and called the river Wascana. In the early days, the settlement was called Pile-o-Bones.

After the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn in Montana (where General Custer and his troops were wiped out), the North West Mounted Police met with the natives shortly after they crossed into Canada and gave the natives ammunition for hunting purposes, so they could hunt the buffalo herds in the area. But many starved from lack of food.

In 1882, the Northwest Mounted Police Barracks were built as a base to police the border with the United States and the increasing number of settlers in the area. It was the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from 1885-1920. Today, the only training academy for the royal regiment is still located in Regina.

Early settlers were given 160 acre land grants by the government. In September of 1881, Edward Carss settled where the Qu'Appelle River and Wascana Creek met. He is credited as the first settler in Regina. The next summer, six settlers set up camp near present-day Wascana Lake, and were joined a few days later by 11 more homesteaders. This was the humble beginning of Regina.

The town of Pile-O-Bones was a thriving western settlement, but was finally renamed in 1883 by Princess Louise, the wife of Canada’s Governor General, in honor of her mother Queen Victoria.

The building of the trans-continental railroad changed the city's landscape, making the vast Saskatchewan prairie accessible to thousands of new immigrant-farmers. In 1884, Regina had 400 buildings and a population of around 1,000.

In 1886 the transcontinental railroad began carrying passengers and freight to the Pacific Ocean, and the city began to grow quickly, as it was a jumping off point for new settlers in the area.

The city became a major commercial center as agricultural goods were sold for eastern consumption, and the farmers bought manufactured goods, brought from the east by the railroad. Later potash, which is used in fertilizer, was found near Melville.

On May 23, 1906 it was declared that Regina would be the provincial capital.
In the early years of the 1900s, Regina grew quickly.

On June 30, 1912 a tornado roared through the young city, killing 28, destroying over 400 buildings, leaving 2500 people homeless, causing total damage of over $5 million. Much of the downtown was rebuilt in the next two years.

After World War II, significant reserves of oil were found in Saskatchewan, both in the northwest around Lloydminster, and the east around Estevan. This broadened the resource base of the province away from agriculture and potash. Regina also benefited from the surge of European immigrants after the War, and doubled in size in the post-war era.

Today the population is just over 200,000 people.