Ottawa ( , ; Canadian French: [ɔtawɑ] ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southeastern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) and the National Capital Region (NCR). As of 2021, Ottawa had a city population of 1,017,449 and a metropolitan population of 1,488,307, making it the second-most populous in Ontario as well as the fourth-largest city and fourth-largest metropolitan area in Canada.
Ottawa is the political centre of Canada and the headquarters of the federal government. The city houses numerous foreign embassies, key buildings, organizations, and institutions of Canada's government; these include the Parliament of Canada, the Supreme Court, the residence of Canada's viceroy, and the Office of the Prime Minister.
Founded in 1826 as "Bytown", incorporated in 1850, and renamed "Ottawa" in 1855, its original boundaries were expanded through numerous annexations and were ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and amalgamation in 2001. The municipal government of Ottawa is established and governed by the City of Ottawa Act of the Government of Ontario. It has an elected city council across 24 wards and a mayor elected city-wide, each elected using the first-past-the-post voting election system.
Ottawa has the highest proportion of university-educated residents among Canadian cities and is home to several colleges, universities, and research and cultural institutions, including the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, Algonquin College, Collège La Cité, the National Arts Centre, and the National Gallery of Canada, as well as numerous national museums, monuments, and historic sites. It has a generally high standard of living and is one of the most visited cities in Canada, with over 11 million visitors annually.
The city name "Ottawa" was chosen in 1855 in reference to the Ottawa River, whose name is itself derived from the Algonquin adawe, meaning "to trade". In modern Algonquin, the city is known as Odàwàg.
The Ottawa Valley became habitable around 10,000 years ago following the natural draining of the Champlain Sea. The first evidence of human presence in the Ottawa Valley are spearpoints dated 8000-8500 years before present. By 6000 years before present, there were robust trading and communications networks. Approximately 3000-3500 years before present, there is definitive evidence of continuously existing settlements, including likely hearths and heavy tools. In closer proximity to the modern bounds of the City of Ottawa, there has been documentation of specific settlements at the mouth of the Gatineau River dating back to 3000-3500 years prior to post-Columbian contact. These findings suggest that these Algonquin people were engaged in foraging, hunting and fishing, but also trade and travel. Three major rivers meet within Ottawa, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years. This period ended with the arrival of settlers and colonization of North America by Europeans during and after the 15th century.
European exploration and early development
In 1610, Étienne Brûlé became the first documented European to navigate the Ottawa River, passing what would become Ottawa on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls in the area and about his encounters with the Algonquin people.
The first non-Indigenous settlement in the area was created by Philemon Wright, a New Englander. Wright founded a lumber town in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from the present-day city of Ottawa in Hull. He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, also created an agricultural community called Wright's Town, which would later become Gatineau. 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.
In the 1820s, news of the British military's impending construction of the Rideau Canal led to land speculation by John Le Breton, a local businessman who bought a land lot on the prediction of the upcoming construction, which led to an alternative canal course being selected. A town was established in 1826 and in 1827 was named after the British military engineer Colonel John By, who was responsible for the Rideau Waterway construction project. The Rideau Canal provided a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario. It bypassed a vulnerable stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering the state of New York that had left re-supply ships bound for southwestern Ontario easily exposed to enemy fire during the War of 1812.
Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of today's Parliament Hill. He also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named "Upper Town" west of the canal and "Lower Town" east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes, historically, "Upper Town" was predominantly English-speaking and Protestant, whereas "Lower Town" was mostly French, Irish and Catholic. Bytown's early pioneer period saw Irish labourers cause unrest during the Shiners' War from 1835 to 1845, coming into conflict with French settlers.
Bytown's population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was completed in 1832. The settlement was incorporated as a town in 1850. In 1855, Bytown was renamed Ottawa and obtained city status. William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk, serving from 1844 to 1891, guiding Ottawa through 36 years of development, leading the hiring of key municipal roles, founding civic organizations, and proposing a set of by-laws for the city.
Starting in the 1850s, entrepreneurs known as lumber barons began to build large sawmills, which produced tens of millions of board feet of timber, such as producing 39 million in 1855 after the USA began accepting imports, against approximately 480 million board feet imported from across Canada in Britain a decade earlier, and eventually rising to 613 million in the early 20th century. Rail lines built in 1854 connected Ottawa to areas south and, from 1886, to the transcontinental rail network via Hull and Lachute, Quebec. By 1885 Ottawa was the only city in Canada whose downtown street-lights were powered entirely by electricity.
The selection of Ottawa as a capital city predates the Confederation of Canada. The choice was contentious, with the Parliament of the United Province of Canada holding more than 200 votes over several decades to attempt to settle on a legislative solution to the location of its capital. Political dissension between the Reformist and Tory wings of the political establishment led to the Stony Monday Riot of 1849. During these riots, the Tories violently disrupted a Reformist reception for the Governor General to promote Bytown as capital of the province.
The governor-general of the Province of Canada designated Kingston as the capital in 1841. This was controversial: the cities of Toronto and Montreal, as well as the former capital of Lower Canada, Quebec City, all had legislators dissatisfied with Kingston as the capital, although anglophone merchants in Quebec were the leading group supportive of the Kingston arrangement. In 1842, a vote rejected Kingston as the capital, and study of potential candidates included Bytown, but that option proved less popular than Toronto or Montreal. In 1843, a report by the Executive Council recommended Montreal as the capital, as it was a more fortifiable location and commercial centre. However, the governor-general refused to execute a move without a parliamentary vote. In 1844, the Queen's acceptance of a parliamentary vote moved the capital to Montreal.
In 1849, after an Orange mob burned the Parliament building in Montreal, several votes were held on a new permanent capital. Kingston and Bytown were again considered. However, the winning proposal was for the legislature to alternate sitting in either Quebec City and Toronto, in a policy known as perambulation. Logistical difficulties made this an unpopular arrangement, and an 1856 vote passed for the lower house of parliament to relocate permanently to Quebec City. The move did not proceed, as the upper house refused to approve funding for the relocation.