Tucked along Saskatchewan Highway 763, Zelma sits within the Rural Municipality of Morris No. 312 in Census Division No. 11. The village covers a modest land area of 0.71 square kilometres, and as of the 2021 Census, 28 residents called it home, spread across 10 of its 12 private dwellings. That figure represents a 20% decline from the 2016 count of 35 people, which itself held steady from the 2011 population. The resulting population density in 2021 sat at roughly 39 residents per square kilometre.
Zelma incorporated as a village on August 10, 1910, though its roots stretch back slightly further. The Zelma Church was erected in 1909 using a single load of lumber, volunteer labour, and a budget of just $500. It opened as a Presbyterian congregation before being reorganised into the Zelma United Church in 1917. Establishing a local school proved more contentious – many of the area’s bachelor farmers resisted paying school taxes, meaning children had to travel to the neighbouring communities of Stonemount or Golden Wheat for their education until 1912, when a school district was finally formed. Classes were held in the church until a one-room schoolhouse was built in 1925, which remained in operation until closing in 1969, after which students were bussed to Young. In its earlier decades, Zelma supported a lively commercial core that included a general store, lumber yards, a hotel, a bakery, a flour mill, and grain elevators, though most of those businesses had wound down by the close of the 1940s.