Ottawa and Region |
Ottawa is a beautiful city located in a green valley between two rivers. The city hosts many international cultural and sports events, including summer music festivals, theatre and hockey. We offer students the widest choice of recreational activities – from miles of bicycling and rollerblading paths, to boating and, of course, winter sports such as skiing and skating. The Ottawa area is home to 1.1 million people.
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, a nation known for its peacekeeping activities. Canada is a multicultural country that welcomes visitors from all over the world. There are over 110 national embassies in Ottawa.
Safe and Smart
Ottawa is famous for its excellent quality of life – ranked sixth of all the cities in the world. Ottawa residents are better educated and make more money than residents of any other Canadian city. We have more engineers, scientists and PhDs per capita than anywhere else in Canada.
Many technology companies – and a growing number of financial firms – are located in Ottawa. The city is home to several of Canada's advanced science laboratories and two large universities, Ottawa University and Carleton University. Together, these universities have an international reputation for excellence in engineering, medicine and social sciences. Ottawa is also home to Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology.
Beautiful
Ottawa covers a wide area – it is 4,662 square kilometres, including 525 square kilometres of parkland. Most people live in the urban area but Ottawa also includes countryside and farms. The wide and fast-running Ottawa River is Ottawa’s northern border. The Rideau River and Rideau Canal flow out of the Rideau Lakes district south of the city and join the Ottawa River downtown.
Cafes and Entertainment
The Young People’s Language School is in the heart of Ottawa’s safe and spacious downtown. Students are within walking distance of shops, cafes, pedestrian malls and Parliament – the seat of government in Canada. A few blocks away is the Rideau Canal, which in winter is cleared of snow to become the world’s longest skating rink. On sunny winter weekends, thousands skate on the canal. Some people even commute to work on skates!
See Parliament Hill today (web cam updates every 5 minutes)
Walking, running, rollerblading and cycling are popular warm-weather activities. Ottawa’s many paved pathways – many along the water – link the downtown with the suburbs. Ottawa is also within driving distance of Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Niagara Falls.
Educational and Fun Places to Go (search by topic or grade)
Multicultural
More than 60 per cent of Ottawans speak English as a mother tongue and over 85 per cent use English at work. This translates to many opportunities to speak English, both at school and in stores and on the street. Ottawa also has a strong French community (18 per cent), as well as many speakers of Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and other languages. Because Ottawa is the nation’s capital, virtually every country has an embassy, high commission or delegation in Ottawa.
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• Arts
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• Other Festivals
• Arts Schools
• Sports
