Ottawa

Ottawa, officially the Ottawa Capital District Municipality (Ottawa CDM), is the capital and fourth-most populous city of the Canadian Republic. It is governed as a single municipality composed of eight 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's eight boroughs had a total estimated population of 2.31 million; this does not include the surrounding metropolitan area (Greater Ottawa), which consists of neighbouring municipalities in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec: together with Ottawa proper, Greater Ottawa is home to approximately 5.56 million people. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is Ottawa's local civilian law enforcement agency; it cooperates with neighbouring forces and provincial/federal agencies, and is the sixth-largest police department in Canada by number of employees. In addition to Ottawa proper, Greater Ottawa consists of 33 other incorporated municipalities; the following suburban municipalities each have a population of 100,000 or more: Gatineau, Mont-Bleu, Lucerne, Rivière-Blanche, Beauchampville, Angers, Plateau and Jeanne-d'Arc (in Quebec), and Springfield, Rideau Glen, Goulbourn, Metcalfe-Greely and Mississippi Mills (in Ontario). The Ontario municipalities are located in Lanark County, Leeds County, Rockland County and Dundas County. The Quebec municipalities are located in

From Canadian Confederation in 1867 until 1927, Ottawa served as the federal capital but was a municipality within the Province of Ontario. In September 1927, a nationwide plebiscite was held to determine the status of the federal capital, with 77% of respondents 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 called the Capital District Municipal Council (CDMC), a 16-member committee popularly elected by the citizens of Ottawa which meets in a plenary session annually; the CDMC is responsible for all policymaking and relevant deliberation, and appoints an outside individual as the district manager to carry out the municipal government's daily executive responsibilities on behalf of the CDMC.

The process by which Ottawa's local government is granted autonomy by parliament (namely, devolution) is identical to that process used by Canada's six territories; while Ottawa 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. The central and most populous borough is Bytown, also known as Old Ottawa, which includes Downtown Ottawa and the CBD, Parliament Hill, Chinatown, Lowertown, Little Italy, Sandy Hill and Carleton University. The seven other boroughs consist primarily of semi-urban and suburban neighbourhoods, featuring single-family homes, some low-rise condos and apartments, large malls, industrial zones, parks, and even some farmland.