Ottawa Overview | An informative introduction to Ottawa, Ontario

As the capital of Canada, Ottawa is a unique and fascinating city with some of the best architecture on the entire continent. In this series, I briefly cover a city's history, population, skyline, as well as a few things that make that city unique. Now let's meet Ottawa. I always like to start by exploring how a city wound up being where it is today. Ottawa is located in southeastern Ontario at the confluence of the Ottawa, Rideau, and Gatineau rivers. The area was originally inhabited by the Algonquin people, who used the Ottawa River as a key trading route. In 1826, the British government established the town of Bytown as a base for constructing the Rideau Canal, which was meant to secure a military supply route in case of a conflict with the United States. In 1855, Bytown was renamed Ottawa, and just two years later, Queen Victoria selected it as the capital of the province of Canada, a decision that would later make it the capital of the entire country upon confederation in 1867. Since then, Ottawa has grown into a major center of government and culture. Today, Ottawa has a population of just over 1 million people, making it the fourth largest city in Canada. When looking at the larger metropolitan area, which includes Gatineau across the river and Quebec, the population reaches approximately 1.5 million. If comparing to American cities, Ottawa s metro would be the 43rd largest in the country, falling between Oklahoma City and Louisville. Being that Ottawa is located on the border of English-speaking Ontario and French-speaking Quebec, it s one of the most bilingual cities in the world. The largest employer in Ottawa is the Canadian federal government, and there s also a strong tech scene in the city with perhaps the most recognizable company headquartered in Ottawa being Shopify. There are six colleges or universities located in Ottawa, the most notable being Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. Call me shallow, but when it comes to cities, I think appearances matter. Ottawa is one of the most beautiful cities on the continent, but similar to Washington DC, its beauty has little to do with its high rises. If you took the average height of Ottawa s tallest five buildings, it would be ranked as sixth tallest skyline in Canada, falling between Vancouver and Winnipeg. Its tallest building is the Claridge Icon at 143 meters or 468 feet. What makes Ottawa such a uniquely beautiful city are the historic, castle-like buildings along the river. The first of these I should mention is the Centre Block on Parliament Hill. This stunning Gothic building is home to the Canadian Parliament. On the south side of the building is the Peace Tower, which is one of the most recognizable symbols of Canada and stands at 92.2 meters or 302 feet in height. Part of the reason the skyline of the city isn t more impressive is due to height restrictions meant to preserve the Peace Tower s dominance over the Ottawa skyline. On the other side of the building from the Peace Tower is the circular Library of Parliament. Its design was inspired by the British Museum Reading Room in London. The Library of Parliament is the only portion of Centre Block that survived a fire in 1916, making it the oldest part of the entire building. There are a couple of other beautiful Gothic government buildings on Parliament Hill I should mention. The first is the West Block, which has the House of Commons chamber. The chamber room sits in an old central courtyard of the West Block building and has a beautiful glass roof extending over it. I love how they've combined modern architecture with the historic Gothic walls to create this beautiful chamber. The other building on Parliament Hill I should mention is the East Block. The East Block housed the offices of the Governor and Prime Minister during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today they have restored some of these offices to show what they would have looked like when being used by Canada s most powerful politicians. Across the Rideau Canal from the East Block is another breathtaking Gothic building, the Fairmont Chateau Laurier. This luxury hotel has the appearance of a fairytale castle. I think Canada has the best looking historic hotels on the entire continent, and the Chateau Laurier is a great example of that. Between Parliament Hill and the Chateau Laurier is the famous Rideau Canal. The Rideau Canal is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of only 22 in Canada and the only World Heritage Site in all of Ontario. It's the oldest continually operated canal system in North America, and as I mentioned earlier was constructed in the event that there was a war with the United States. During the winter, the canal is repurposed into the world's largest skating rink with a surface size approximating that of 90 full-sized hockey rinks. If you follow the Rideau Canal upstream, it'll curve to the west before reaching Dow's Lake. The lake is part of one of Ottawa's major green spaces, which includes Commissioner's Park. The park is home to the famous Canadian Tulip Festival, which is considered the largest tulip festival in the world. On the west side of the lake is the Dominion Arboretum, which is Canada's oldest arboretum and is 99 acres large. The Dominion Arboretum is part of the larger Central Experimental Farm, which along with being a farm and research center, has the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum. The museum has interactive exhibits teaching about the history of agriculture in Canada. Another interesting museum is the Canadian Museum of Nature. It's located in yet another beautiful castle-like building. The building, known as the Victoria Memorial Museum Building, was the first building in Canada specifically designed to be a national museum. Similar to the West Block building on Parliament Hill, they have blended modern architecture with the original building by adding the glass tower, known as the Queen's Lantern. The museum itself is a natural history museum with a large collection of artifacts and specimens. Perhaps the most unique museum in the Ottawa area though, is Canada's Cold War museum, the Diefenbunker. The Diefenbunker doesn't look like much at first glance, and that's because the 4-story, 100,000 square foot bunker is almost completely underground. The bunker was designed to be the emergency government headquarters during the Cold War, and would have been capable of housing 565 people for a full month. It's now a National Historic Site of Canada and a fascinating historic war museum. It also has what is claimed to be the world's largest escape room, known as Escape the Diefenbunker. The most visited museum in all of Canada is the Canadian Museum of History, which is located in Gatineau across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill. The museum was designed by the Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal, who would later go on to design the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. The Canadian Museum of History has a huge collection of artifacts which spans over 15,000 years of history. Directly east across the river from the Canadian Museum of History is Canada's National Art Museum, the National Gallery of Canada. The beautiful art museum is one of the largest art museums by exhibition space in all of North America. The museum has over 93,000 pieces of art, but the most photographed is likely the 10 meter tall spider, Maman, which guards the art museum. The gallery is part of the Byward Market District, which is a cultural center for the city. Within the Byward District, there are many shops and restaurants, including the iconic Beavertail's Kiosk, where you can get the famous Ottawa pastry. Well, that does it for my video about Ottawa. If you enjoyed the video, please give it a like and consider subscribing. Thanks for watching.