What's So Special About the Capital Region

Ottawa is one of four capitals (with London, Johannesburg and Budapest) that are neo-Gothic in style and spirit. The complex, picturesque quality of Gothic design distinguishes these from neo-classical Rome, Paris and Washington, which are characterized by a spirit of monumental grandeur.

Canada’s Capital straddles the border of two provinces (Ontario and Quebec), contains two major cities (Ottawa and Gatineau) and has two official languages (English and French).

The Rideau Canal (built through the wilderness from 1826 to 1832 to link Ottawa to the Great Lakes) was one of the great engineering feats of the 19th century. In winter, a section of the Canal (7.8 kilometres) becomes the world’s largest skating rink.

This is one of the world’s coldest capitals, with mean January temperatures of -10.7º Celsius.

Cyclists and in-line skaters enjoy the Capital Pathway, which consists of 170 kilometres of recreational pathways, and is the most extensive off-road, multi-use system of its kind in North America.

Ottawa and Gatineau are home to eight national museums, storehouses of Canadian culture.

The Central Experimental Farm, a 500-hectare federal government agricultural research facility, was founded in 1886 and today is a “farm in the city.”

Some 90 kilometres of scenic parkways run through the Capital, following the waterways from east to west and penetrating deep into Gatineau Park to the north and the Greenbelt to the south.

The Capital region has one of the world’s only successful greenbelts, a 200-square-kilometre belt of protected wild and rural land located in the southern part of the urban Capital in Ontario.

Over a million tulips bloom in the Capital region in the spring. The original bulbs were a gift from the Dutch in appreciation of Canada’s role in the 1945 liberation of the Netherlands.

A boardwalk leads into Mer Bleue, a wetland only a few kilometres from Parliament Hill that is protected as internationally important under the U.N. Ramsar Convention.

Nearly 200 kilometres of trails in Gatineau Park (a 15-minute drive from Parliament Hill) offer some of the most beautiful and challenging cross-country skiing in the world.