Ottawa, Canada Population

The city of Ottawa is located in Ontario, Canada. It serves as the capital city of Canada and is home to an estimated 1,393,974 people in the urban area and 812,129 in the city area. This makes the city the fourth-largest city in Canada and the fifth-largest urban area. Ottawa is located in southern Ontario and sits quite close to the US border. Founded in 1826, the name Ottawa is derived from the Ottawa River—on which the city sits. This is from an Algonquin word Odawa, which means ‘to trade’.

Ottawa is a cultural and educational hub of Canada and is home to many reputable post-secondary institutions, art museums, galleries, and research institutions. Ottawa has seen steady growth in the past 70 years. Since 1950, the city has grown from 282,000 residents to its current 1.3 million. While the city is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, it’s only predicted to reach 1.6 million residents by 2035.

The aging of Ottawa

While Ottawans are a bit younger than the Canadian average, there is a significant demographic shift happening in Ottawa as their population begins to age. The amount of children being born in and living in Ottawa has continued to drop since the 1960s, when the population of residents under 19 was 40%. Since then, declining birth rates and aging populations have dropped that percentage to 23% of the population. By 2030, this will have dropped to 20%. In contrast, adults between the ages of 35 to 64 accounted for 32% of the population in the 1960s.That number has since risen to almost 42%. Senior citizens will also increase and are projected to be over 20% of Ottawa’s population by 2031.

A multilingual city

There are many places in Canada where residents speak or understand both French and English, however Ottawa is truly a multilingual city. Almost 50% of residents speak English, 32% speak French, and the other 18% speak a mixture of Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Chinese and Portuguese.

Due to the country’s federal government also being located there, alost 37% of Ottawans speak both English and French and are fluently bilingual. This is key in federal jobs in Canada to help move your career forward. Bilingualism also became official policy in Ottawa for conducting municipal business in 2002, which means these offices must offer services in both languages.

An economy based mostly on public service

Ottawa has the sixth-highest total household income out of all of Canada’s cities and a higher median income than the national average. Its unemployment rate is also lower than the rest of country (at 7.3% versus the national 7.7%). The primary employers in Ottawa are the Public Service of Canada, which employees 110,000 people throughout several federal government complexes.

Tourism to Ottawa

The city is a popular tourist destination for fellow Canadians and the number of Canadian visitors to the city jumped 8.7% in 2018. Over the course of a year, Ottawa will usually see around 11 million tourists, who will add $2.3 billion dollars to the city’s economy. International visitors to the city grew by 10.9%, and visits from US citizens—Canada’s neighbor—grew an estimated 7.8% in 2018. Tourists visit the city to see such things as the Parliament Hill (the country’s seat of government), the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian War Museum, the Canadian Museum of Nature, and the Ceremonial Guard, which performs the Changing of the Guard. Ottawa also hosts a very popular and highly attended series of events for Canada Day, the country’s celebration of the anniversary of the Canadian Confederation.