The national capital of Canada, located in the province of Ontario, at the junction of three rivers, the Tigris, Euphrates, and ...... uhh, I mean, the Gatineau, the Rideau and the Ottawa. (eh. It is the home for the standard things that should go in a capital, such as a mint (The Royal Canadian Mint, or Monnaie royale canadienne, if you are a Francophone), the Parliament house, and other assorted whatnot.

this text relocated from Ottowa, after sensei pointed out to me that I can't speel. Thankfully, it's not THAT redundant...

On a personal note, my great grandparents, both of whom are centurions.. wait, scratch that, centenarians, live in Hull, Quebec1, which is the sister city of Ottowa, and I need to visit them again, soon... (Update, October 2001: my great grandfather has left this mortal coil, so my great grandmother is all alone.)

1indestructible pointed out my ignorance to me; I had previously claimed that Hull is in Ontario with Ottawa. In my defense, they are right next to each other, and "hull ontario" returns more google hits than "hull quebec", at least if you don't put quotes around them...

No one understood why Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the capital in 1857. Some members of the press believed that she simply closed her eyes and randomly picked a spot on the map. Both Montreal and Toronto were in up for the honor so Ottawa was considered a sorry compromise. At the time, it was nothing more than a small logging town. In the end, most agree that the Queen chose the capital carefully considering the fact that there were both French and English speaking citizens and it sits on the border between Ontario and Quebec.

Ottawa is the fourth largest city in Canada and has a population of approximately 800 000 citizens. The main employers are government and high tech (notably Nortel, Corel and JDS Uniphase).

Ottawa has the most highly educated population in Canada, approximately 50% of the citizens hold university degrees. It is also the most wired city, 79% of households have access to computers and 61% of the households have internet access.

Some famous people from Ottawa include: Alanis Morisette, Matthew Perry, Norm MacDonald and Tom Green (village idiot turned global village idiot, sorry everyone).

Ot"ta*was (?), n. pl.; sing. Ottawa (). Ethnol.

A tribe of Indians who, when first known, lived on the Ottawa River. Most of them subsequently migrated to the southwestern shore of Lake Superior.

 

© Webster 1913.

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