New Sarepta is a hamlet in central Alberta, Canada, within Leduc County. It is located approximately 23 km east of the City of Leduc along Highway 21. New Sarepta dissolved from village status to become a hamlet on September 1, 2010. It originally incorporated as a village on January 1, 1960.

History

Name

The ancient Phoenician city of Sarepta was located on the Mediterranean coast of today's Lebanon, approximately at the site of the modern village of Sarafand, between Sidon and Tyre. Sarepta was also mentioned, as Zarephath, in the Old Testament (I Kings 17:9), as the home of Elijah during a drought and famine. In the 18th century (1765-1773), Moravian Brethren from Germany established the village of Sarepta, Volgograd, Russia. About a century after its founding, the larger German Lutheran Church in Russia began efforts to take Sarepta under its wing. Many of the Moravian Brethren objected, moving elsewhere in Russia, then choosing to emigrate to the Western Hemisphere, including Canada. Some of these settlers, part of the Germans from Russia diaspora, established a new village in Canada's North-West Territories. From various suggestions, approximately 60 people in the new community signed a document favouring the name Sarepta, honouring their previous village. The government of the North-West Territories designated the name Sarepta to this settlement on October 2, 1904. When the new province of Alberta was split from the North-West Territories in 1905, the government added "New" to distinguish it from the existing place name in Ontario. The Moravian Brethren also felt that it honored and distinguished their newer community from the earlier biblical and Russian villages.

Timeline

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, New Sarepta had a population of 495 living in 194 of its 203 total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of 522. With a land area of 2.24 km2, it had a population density of in 2021. As a designated place in the 2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, New Sarepta had a population of 522 living in 195 of its 219 total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2011 population of 491. With a land area of 2.24 km2, it had a population density of in 2016.

Religious assemblies

Education

New Sarepta has one elementary school and one high school, both operated by Black Gold Regional Schools.

Recreation

Winter Summer