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Ottawa became Canada's capital almost by default: in 1857, Queen Victoria chose the small timber town of Bytown, renamed Ottawa two years earlier, because it was far enough from the US border to be defensible and central enough between French and English Canada to be politically neutral. The decision still occasionally surprises visitors who arrive expecting a major metropolis and find instead a well-ordered city of just over a million where the federal government is visible at every turn. The Gothic Revival Parliament Hill, with its Peace Tower rising 92.2 meters above the Ottawa River, operates like a clock the whole city sets itself by. The Centre Block, rebuilt after a 1916 fire, is currently undergoing a decade-long restoration, but the surrounding grounds remain one of the finest civic spaces in North America.

The Rideau Canal, completed in 1832 as a military waterway connecting Ottawa to Kingston, cuts through the heart of the city.

In winter it becomes what the Guinness Book of World Records recognizes as the world's largest skating rink: 7.8 kilometers of ice past Dow's Lake and under the arches of Pretoria Bridge. Beaver Tail pastries, sold from stands along the canal, are the required accompaniment. In summer the same water reflects the Chateau Laurier hotel (opened 1912) and the parliamentary spires from the surface of a genuinely beautiful waterway. The National Gallery of Canada, in a glass-and-granite Moshe Safdie building opened in 1988, holds the country's most comprehensive collection of Canadian and international art.