Ottawa

Ottawa, officially the Capital District Municipality of Ottawa (CDM) or Ottawa, CDM, is the capital and fourth-most populous city of the Canadian Republic. It is governed as a single municipality composed of six boroughs under the direct jurisdiction of the Canadian federal government, and is thus the only municipality in Canada not located within a particular province or territory. In December 2019, Ottawa had an estimated population of 3.11 million; this does not include the surrounding metropolitan area within the neighbouring provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which together with the capital district is home to almost 5 million people. The Metropolitan Police Department is Ottawa's local civilian law enforcement agency; it takes part in various regional initiatives with the law enforcement agencies of Ottawa's fellow municipalities within its metropolitan area. The three largest cities within the Ottawa Metropolitan Area after Ottawa proper are Gatineau, Quebec, Cornwall, Ontario and Cumberland, Ontario.

From Canadian Confederation in 1867 until the establishment of the Canadian Republic in 1967, Ottawa served as the federal capital but was a municipality of the Province of Ontario. In September 1967, a nationwide plebiscite was held to determine the status of the federal capital, with 79% voting in favour of making Ottawa a federal district separate from any province or territory, which it has remained ever since. Unlike many other federal districts around the world, however, Ottawa has representation in both chambers of the Parliament of Canada: one seat in the Senate and 19 in the House of Commons. Despite ultimately being under the jurisdiction of the federal government, Ottawa has its own municipal government with an executive branch headed by a popularly elected mayor and an also popularly elected legislative branch (the District Council of Ottawa, which consists of 12 seats, two for each of Ottawa's boroughs). The process by which Ottawa is given local autonomy by parliament (namely, devolution) is identical to that process used by Canada's six territories; while Ottawa/the CDM itself is not traditionally considered a territory, for all intents an purposes it resembles one, the only difference being it consists of a single municipal entity, as opposed to a collection of municipalities separated by vast unincorporated areas, as in the territories.

As the seat of the federal government, Ottawa is home to the headquarters of all federal government ministries and the great majority of subordinate and independent federal agencies.