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Ottawa above the Ottawa River in May, left to right— Alexandra Bridge · National Gallery of Canada · Byward Market · Fairmont Château Laurier · Rideau Canal Locks · Parliament Hill with Library of Parliament and Peace Tower · Downtown Ottawa towers · Supreme Court of Canada Architecture Main article: Architecture of Ottawa Elgin Street in downtown Ottawa, looking northwards towards the Parliament Buildings from Queen Street Influenced by government structures, much of the city's architecture tends to be formalistic and functional. However, the city is also marked by Romantic and Picturesque styles of architecture such as the Parliament Building's gothic revival architecture.[62] Ottawa's domestic architecture is dominated by single family homes. There are also smaller numbers of semi-detached, rowhouses, and apartment buildings. Most domestic buildings are clad in brick, with small numbers covered in wood or stone. The skyline has been controlled by building height restrictions originally implemented to keep Parliament Hill and the Peace Tower at 92.2 metres (302 ft) visible from most parts of the City.[63] Today, several buildings are slightly taller than the Peace Tower, with the tallest located on Albert Street being the 29-storey Place de Ville (Tower C) at 112 metres (367 ft).[64] Federal buildings in the National Capital Region are managed by Public Works Canada, while most of the federal land in the region is managed by the National Capital Commission; its control of much undeveloped land gives the NCC a great deal of influence over the city's development.[65] Public transit See also: Ottawa Rapid Transit The O-Train, Ottawa's light rail train servicing a portion of Ottawa's public transit system The public transit system is operated by OC Transpo, a department of the city.[66] An integrated hub-and-spoke system of services is available consisting of: regular buses travelling on fixed routes in mixed traffic, typical of most urban transit systems;[66] a bus rapid transit (BRT) system — a high-frequency bus service operating on the transitway — a network of mostly grade-separated dedicated bus lanes within their own right of way and having full stations with Park & Ride facilities further supported by on-road reserved bus lanes and priority traffic signal controls; a light rail transit (LRT) system known as the O-Train operating on one north-south route;[66] and a door-to-door bus service for the disabled known as ParaTranspo.[66] Both OC Transpo and the Quebec-based Société de transport de l'Outaouais (STO) operate bus services between Ottawa and Gatineau. Construction is underway on the Confederation Line, a 12.5 km (7.8 mi) light-rail transit line (LRT), which includes a 2.5 km (1.6 mi) tunnel through the downtown area featuring three subway stations. The project broke ground in 2013, with operation scheduled to start in 2018.[67] Inter-city services See also: List of airports in the Ottawa area Ottawa is served by a number of airlines that fly into the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, as well as two main regional airports Gatineau-Ottawa Executive Airport, and Ottawa/Carp Airport.[68] The city is also served by inter-city passenger rail service at the Ottawa Train Station by Via Rail, and inter-city bus service operating out of the Ottawa Bus Central Station.[68] Highways, streets and roads See also: List of Ottawa roads, List of numbered roads in Ottawa and List of bridges in Ottawa Highway 417 approaching the Highway 416 interchange The city is served by two freeway corridors. The primary corridor is east-west and consists of provincial Highway 417 (designated as The Queensway) and Ottawa-Carleton Regional Road 174 (formerly Provincial Highway 17); a north-south corridor, Highway 416 (designated as Veterans' Memorial Highway), connects Ottawa to the rest of the 400-Series Highway network in Ontario. Highway 417 is also the Ottawa portion of the Trans-Canada Highway. The city also has several scenic parkways (promenades), such as Colonel By Drive, Queen Elizabeth Driveway, the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, Rockcliffe Parkway and the Aviation Parkway and has a freeway connection to Autoroute 5 and Autoroute 50, in Gatineau. In 2006, the National Capital Commission completed aesthetic enhancements to Confederation Boulevard, a ceremonial route of existing roads linking key attractions on both sides of the Ottawa River.[69] Bicycle and pedestrian pathways A Downtown Ottawa segregated bike lane, as seen looking east from the corner of Bank St. & Laurier Ave. Further information: Capital Pathway There are numerous paved multi-use trails that wind their way through much of the city, including along the Ottawa River, Rideau River, and Rideau Canal. These pathways are used for transportation, tourism, and recreation. Because most streets either have wide curb lanes or bicycle lanes, cycling is a popular mode of transportation in the region throughout the year.[70] There are over 220 km (140 mi) of paths located throughout the Ottawa-Gatineau region.[71] A downtown street that is restricted to pedestrians only, Sparks Street was turned into a pedestrian mall in 1966.[72] On 10 July 2011 Ottawa saw its first dedicated, segregated bike lanes in the down town core. The lane is separated from car traffic by a low concrete barrier with many gaps to allow for loading and unloading of people and goods. Ottawa's cycling advocacy group, Citizens for Safe Cycling, has been actively promoting safer cycling infrastructure in the community since 1984.[73] On Sundays (since 1960) and selected holidays and events additional avenues and streets are reserved for pedestrian and/or bicycle uses only.[71] In May 2011, The NCC introduced the Bixi Bike rental program.[74] Navigable waterways The Bytown Museum and Rideau Canal overlooking the Ottawa River Further information: Rideau Waterway Ottawa sits at the confluence of three major rivers: the Ottawa River, the Gatineau River and the Rideau River.[75] The Ottawa and Gatineau rivers were historically important in the logging and lumber industries and the Rideau as part of the Rideau Canal system for military, commercial and, subsequently, recreational purposes.[75] The Rideau Canal, connecting the Ottawa River and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston, Ontario, by-passes unnavigable sections of the Rideau River as it winds its way through the city.[75] Rideau is a French word that means 'Curtain' in English, and the Rideau Falls resemble a curtain, thusly named by the early French canoeists.[76][11] During part of the winter season the frozen waters of the canal form the world's largest skating rink thereby providing both a recreational venue and a 7.8 kilometres (4.8 mi) transportation path to downtown for ice skaters (from Carleton University and Dow's Lake to the Rideau Centre and National Arts Centre).[77] Demographics Main article: Demographics of Ottawa Distribution map compiled from the 2001 census showing percentage of individuals that indicated French as their mother tongue In 2011, the populations of the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa-Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) were 883,391 and 1,236,324 respectively,[78][79] while the Ottawa-Gatineau urban area had a population of 860,928.[4] The city had a population density of 1,680.5 persons per km2 in 2006, while the CMA had a population density of 197.8 persons per km2.[78][79] It is the second largest city in Ontario and the fourth largest city and metropolitan area in the country.[80] Ottawa's median age of 36.7, as well as its percentage of seniors are both below the provincial average and the national average, while those under 15 exceed Canadian percentages.[81][82][83] The vast majority of the population growth is attributable to relocations to the city,[84] and over 20 percent of the city's population is foreign-born. Around 75% describe themselves as Christian, with Catholics accounting for 43.3% of the population and members of Protestant churches 27.6%.[81] Bilingualism became official policy for the conduct of municipal business in 2002,[85] and 37% of the population can speak both languages,[79] making it the largest city in Canada with both English and French as co-official languages.[86] Regarding their mother tongue, 62.8% of residents cited English, 14.9% French and 21.6% other languages.[79] Local government Further information: List of Ottawa municipal elections and Canadian federal election results in Ottawa Ottawa City Hall built as the headquarters of the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton Ottawa is a single-tier municipality, meaning it is in itself a census division and has no county or regional municipality government above it.[87] As a single tier municipality, Ottawa has responsibility for all municipal services, including fire, emergency medical services, police, parks, roads, sidewalks, public transit, drinking water, storm water, sanitary sewage and solid waste. Ottawa is governed by the 24-member Ottawa City Council consisting of 23 councillors each representing one ward and the mayor, currently Jim Watson,[88] elected in a citywide vote. Along with being the capital of Canada, Ottawa is politically diverse in local politics. Most of the city has traditionally supported the Liberal Party.[89] Perhaps the safest areas for the Liberals are the ones dominated by Francophones, especially in Vanier and central Gloucester.[89] Central Ottawa is usually more left-leaning, and the New Democratic Party can win ridings there as government unions and activist groups are fairly strong. Some of Ottawa's suburbs are swing areas, notably central Nepean and, despite its Francophone population, Orléans.[89] The southern and western parts of the old city of Ottawa are generally moderate and swing to the Conservative Party.[89] The farther one goes outside the city centre like to Kanata and Barrhaven and rural areas, the voters tend to be increasingly conservative, both fiscally and socially.[89] This is especially true in the former Townships of West Carleton, Goulbourn, Rideau and Osgoode, which are more in line with the conservative areas in the surrounding counties.[89] However not all rural areas support the Conservative Party. Rural parts of the former township of Cumberland, with a large number of Francophones, traditionally support the Liberal Party, though their support has recently weakened.[89] Main article: History of Ottawa See also: Timeline of Ottawa history Étienne Brûlé, the first European to travel up the Ottawa River, passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes.[10] Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls of the area and about his encounters with the Algonquins, who had previously been using the Ottawa River for centuries.[11] The Algonquins called the river Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning "Great River" or "Grand River".[12] These early explorers were later followed by many missionaries.[10][13][14] Philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first settlement in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from Ottawa in Hull.[15][16] He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers,[12] set about to create an agricultural community[17] called Wrightsville. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade (soon to be the area's most significant economic activity) by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City.[18] Bytown, Ottawa's early name, was founded in 1826 because of preliminary work on the Rideau Canal.[19] Its construction was overseen by Colonel John By, and the canal was intended to provide a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario by bypassing the stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering New York State.[20] Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of today's Parliament Hill. He also laid out the streets of town with its "Upper Town" and "Lower Town" separated by the canal. Bytown's population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was being completed in 1832.[21][22] Bytown saw some trouble in its early days, first with the Shiners' War from 1835 to 1845[23] and the Stony Monday Riot in 1849.[24] Bytown was renamed Ottawa in 1855, when it was incorporated as a city.[25] Views of Ottawa in 1860 On 31 December 1857, Queen Victoria was asked to choose a common capital for the Province of Canada, and she chose Ottawa.[26] The Queen's advisers suggested she pick Ottawa for several reasons:[27] Ottawa's position in the back country made it more defensible, while still allowing easy transportation over the Ottawa River. Ottawa was at a point nearly exactly midway between Toronto and Quebec City (500 kilometres or 310 miles).[28] The smaller size of the town also made it less prone to rampaging politically motivated mobs, as had happened in the previous Canadian capitals.[29] Centre Block on Parliament Hill under construction in 1863 Starting in the 1850s, large sawmills began to be erected by entrepreneurs known as lumber barons, and these would become some of the largest mills in the world.[30] Rail lines erected in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south and to the transcontinental rail network via Hull and Lachute, Quebec in 1886.[31] Between 1910 and 1912, the Chateau Laurier and a downtown Union Station would be constructed.[32] Public transportation began in 1870 with a horsecar system,[33] overtaken in the 1890s by a vast electric streetcar system that would last until 1959. The Hull-Ottawa fire of 1900 destroyed two thirds of Hull, including 40 per cent of its residential buildings and most of its largest employers along the waterfront.[34] The fire also spread across the Ottawa River and destroyed about one fifth of Ottawa from the Lebreton Flats south to Booth Street and down to Dow's Lake.[35] The Centre Block of the Parliament buildings was destroyed by a fire on 3 February 1916.[36] The House of Commons and Senate was temporarily relocated to the then recently constructed Victoria Memorial Museum, now the Canadian Museum of Nature[37] until the completion of the new Centre Block in 1922, the centrepiece of which is a dominant Gothic revival styled structure known as the Peace Tower.[38] Urban planner Jacques Greber was hired in the 1940s to work on a master plan for the National Capital Region.[39] Greber's plan included the creation of the National Capital Greenbelt and the Parkway System, and it also developed many other projects throughout the NCR.[40] He was also responsible for the removal of the streetcar system and closing down historic downtown Union Station (now the Government Conference Centre) in favour of a suburban station several kilometres to the east.[41] From the 1960s until the 1980s, the National Capital Region experienced a building boom.[42] This was followed by large growth in the high-tech industry during the 1990s and 2000s.[43] In 2001, in an amalgamation legislated by the Province, all twelve existing municipalities in the area were terminated and replaced by a new incorporation of the City of Ottawa.[44] Geography Main article: Geography of Ottawa In view from left to right: Gatineau the Ottawa River and Downtown Ottawa Ottawa is situated on the south bank of the Ottawa River and contains the mouths of the Rideau River and Rideau Canal.[45] The older part of the city (including what remains of Bytown) is known as Lower Town, and occupies an area between the canal and the rivers. Across the canal to the west lies Centretown and Downtown Ottawa, which is the city's financial and commercial hub. As of 29 June 2007, the Rideau Canal, which stretches 202 km (126 mi) to Kingston, Fort Henry and four Martello towers in the Kingston area was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[46] Located on a major, yet mostly dormant fault line,[47] Ottawa is occasionally struck by earthquakes. Examples include a magnitude 5.2 earthquake on 1 January 2000,[48] a magnitude 4.5 earthquake on 24 February 2006,[49] a magnitude 5.0 earthquake on 23 June 2010,[50] and a magnitude 5.2 earthquake on 17 May 2013.[51] Across the Ottawa River, which forms the border between Ontario and Quebec, lies the city of Gatineau, itself the result of amalgamation of the former Quebec cities of Hull and Aylmer together with Gatineau.[52] Although formally and administratively separate cities in two separate provinces, Ottawa and Gatineau (along with a number of nearby municipalities) collectively constitute the National Capital Region, which is considered a single metropolitan area. One federal crown corporation (the National Capital Commission, or NCC) has significant land holdings in both cities, including sites of historical and touristic importance. The NCC, through its responsibility for planning and development of these lands, is an important contributor to both cities. Around the main urban area is an extensive greenbelt, administered by the National Capital Commission for conservation and leisure, and comprising mostly forest, farmland and marshland.[53] Climate Rideau Canal looking south from Laurier Avenue Bridge Ottawa has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) with four distinct seasons.[54] The average July maximum temperature is 26.5 °C (80 °F). The average January minimum temperature is −14.8 °C (5.4 °F). Winters can be very cold with minimum temperatures recorded as low as −36 °C (−32.8 °F).[55] Summers are warm and humid in Ottawa. Daytime temperatures of 30 °C (86 °F) or higher are commonplace. Ottawa averages many days with humidex (combined temperature & humidity index) between 30 °C (86 °F) and 40 °C (104 °F) annually. Snow and ice are dominant during the winter season. Ottawa receives about 224 centimetres (88 in) of snowfall annually. Days above freezing and nights below −20 °C (−4 °F) both occur in the winter. Spring and fall are variable, prone to extremes in temperature and unpredictable swings in conditions. Hot days above 30 °C (86 °F) have occurred as early as March (as in 2012) or as late as October, although such events are unusual and brief.[56] Annual precipitation averages around 940 millimetres (37 in). There are about 2130 hours of average sunshine annually (46% of possible). [show]Climate data for Ottawa, Canada (1981–2010) Neighbourhoods and outlying communities Further information: List of Ottawa neighbourhoods Map of Ottawa showing urban area, highways, waterways, and historic townships Ottawa is bounded on the east by the United Counties of Prescott and Russell; by Renfrew County and Lanark County in the west; on the south by the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville and the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry; and on the north by the Regional County Municipality of Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais and the City of Gatineau.[58] Modern Ottawa is made up of eleven historic townships, ten of which are from Carleton County and one from Russell.[59] The city has a main urban area but there are many other urban, suburban and rural areas within the modern city's limits.[60] The main suburban area extends a considerable distance to the east, west and south of the centre,[60] and it includes the former cities of Gloucester, Nepean and Vanier, the former village of Rockcliffe Park and the community of Blackburn Hamlet, the community of Orléans.[61] The Kanata suburban area consists of Kanata, with the former village of Stittsville to the southwest.[61] Nepean is another major suburb which also includes Barrhaven.[61] There are also the communities of Manotick and Riverside South on the other side of the Rideau River, and Greely, southeast of Riverside South.[61] There are a number of rural communities (villages and hamlets) that lie beyond the greenbelt but are administratively part of the Ottawa municipality.[60] Some of these communities are Burritts Rapids; Ashton; Fallowfield; Kars; Fitzroy Harbour; Munster; Carp; North Gower; Metcalfe; Constance Bay and Osgoode and Richmond.[61] There are also a number of towns located within the federally defined National Capital Region but outside the city of Ottawa municipal boundaries,[60] these include the urban communities of Almonte, Carleton Place, Embrun, Kemptville, Rockland, and Russell.[61] Ottawa (Listeni/ˈɒtəwə/ or /ˈɒtəwɑː/) is the capital of Canada and the fourth largest city in the country. The city stands on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and together they form the National Capital Region (NCR).[8] Founded in 1826 as Bytown and incorporated as "Ottawa" in 1855, the city has evolved into a political and technological centre of Canada. Its original boundaries were expanded through numerous minor annexations and ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and major amalgamation in 2001 which significantly increased its land area. The name "Ottawa" is derived from the Algonquin word adawe, meaning "to trade".[9] Initially an Irish and French Christian settlement, Ottawa has become a multicultural city with a diverse population. The 2011 census had the city's population as 883,391, the census metropolitan area (CMA) population as 1,236,324. The city is known as being among the most educated in Canada and hosts a number of post-secondary, research, and cultural institutions. Ottawa has a high standard of living and low unemployment. |
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