Assiniboia, << uh `sihn` uh BOY uh, >> was the name of two territorial districts in what are now the United States and Canada. One district lay on either side of the Red River in both countries. The other district was mainly in the present-day province of Saskatchewan.
In 1811, the district along the Red River was granted to the Earl of Selkirk, a Scottish colonizer in Canada. He named the area after local Indians. Part of the district, which included much of what are now North Dakota and Minnesota, was cut off when the 49th parallel became the U.S.-Canadian boundary in 1818. The rest disappeared when the province of Manitoba was created in 1870. See Selkirk, Earl of ; Manitoba (The Red River Colony) .
In 1882, a district in what was then the Canadian North-West Territories was named Assiniboia. In 1905, it became part of Alberta and Saskatchewan. See Saskatchewan (North-West Territories) .
