What is "ottawa"

Ottawas \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.

Canadian capital, founded 1827 as Bytown, named for English officer John By, who oversaw construction of the canal there; renamed 1854, when it became capital, for the Ottawa River, which took its name from the Algonquian people who lived in Michigan and Ontario. Their name is said to be from adawe "to trade."

Ottawa ( or ; ) is the capital city of Canada. It stands on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec; the two form the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) and the National Capital Region (NCR). The 2011 census reported a population of 883,391 within the city, making it the fourth-largest city in Canada, and 1,236,324 within the CMA, making it the fourth-largest CMA in Canada. The City of Ottawa has since estimated it had a population of 951,727 in 2014.

Founded in 1826 as Bytown, and incorporated as "Ottawa" in 1855, the city has evolved into a political and technological centre of Canada. Its original boundaries were expanded through numerous minor annexations and were ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and major amalgamation in 2001 which significantly increased its land area. The city name "Ottawa" was chosen in reference to the Ottawa River nearby, which is a word derived from the Algonquin word Odawa, meaning "to trade".

The city is the most educated in Canada, and it is home to a number of post-secondary, research, and cultural institutions, including the National Arts Centre and the National Gallery. Ottawa also has the highest standard of living in the nation and low unemployment. It ranks second out of 150 worldwide in the Numbeo quality of life index, and it contains a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ottawa is a city in the province of Ontario and the capital of Canada. It may be used as a metonym for the Government of Canada which is based there.

Ottawa may also refer to:

Ottawa was the name of a former provincial electoral district in the Outaouais region of Quebec, Canada. It was located in the part of Quebec across the Ottawa River from the city of Ottawa, Ontario.

It was created for the 1867 election, and electoral districts of that name existed earlier in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada (for Canada East) and in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada: see Ottawa (County of). Its final general election was in 1916, although there was a by-election in 1917. It disappeared in the 1919 election and its successor electoral districts were Hull and Papineau.

Ottawa was the name of a provincial electoral district that elected one member to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Canada from 1867 to 1894 and two members from 1894 to 1908.

The riding was created up Ontario becoming a province in 1867, initially consisting solely of the City of Ottawa. It was expanded in the 1894 redistribution to include the villages of Ottawa East and Hintonburg, the unincorporated community of Mechanicsville and that part of the Township of Nepean located in Lots 36, 37, 38 in Concession A of Ottawa Front (mostly the area around the Bayswater community, today the area east of Parkdale Avenue and north of Carling Avenue). The riding was abolished in the 1908 redistribution into Ottawa East and Ottawa West.