The Alberta Provisional District was created in 1882, as an informal division of the settled part of the Northwest Territories.
When the North-West Territories was granted representation in the House of Commons in 1887, the Alberta district was used as a federal electoral district and was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1887 to 1908.
The Alberta federal riding had the same boundaries as the District of Alberta in 1887. The creation of the Edmonton, Calgary and Strathcona ridings in 1904 meant that the Alberta riding was left to covered just the part of the old district around Medicine Hat. In 1904, the Alberta riding covered only the southern part of Alberta district outside Calgary, with the north boundary being the north edge of the seventeenth township (now designated Township Road 180). In 1907, the Alberta riding was redistributed into a new Macleod riding and a new Medicine Hat riding.
The Alberta riding elected the following members of Parliament:
(only covering the southern part of Alberta district outside Calgary)