Ottawa travel guide

Top 10 sights in Ottawa

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© – Wladyslaw [Disk.] · CC BY-SA 3.0

   National Gallery of Canada

   Canada's national art museum, in a Moshe Safdie building of 1988 whose glass great hall looks across the river to the parliament. Louise Bourgeois's giant bronze spider Maman stands outside, and the Indigenous and Canadian galleries are hung together deliberately.

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2. 

   2© Harleyd613 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Carleton University

   A public research university founded in 1942 to teach returning servicemen at night, now with some thirty thousand students on a campus between the canal and the river. Its journalism and public affairs schools supply much of Ottawa's press and civil service.

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3. 

   3© Wojciech Dittwald · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Canadian Museum of History

   The most visited museum in Canada, in Douglas Cardinal's curved building across the river in Gatineau. Its Grand Hall holds six Northwest Coast house fronts and the largest collection of totem poles in the world, with the river behind them through glass.

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   Canadian Museum of Nature

   The national natural history museum, in a castle-like building of 1912 that served as the temporary parliament after the 1916 fire. Its blue whale skeleton and its dinosaur hall carry the visits; the research collections are across the river.

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   5© Balcer~commonswiki · CC BY 2.5

   Canadian War Museum

   The national war museum, in a wedge of concrete and copper by Raymond Moriyama, whose regeneration hall is aligned so that on 11 November at eleven the sun falls on the original headstone of the Unknown Soldier. Hitler's staff car is in the vehicle hall.

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   National War Memorial

   A granite arch of 1939 in Confederation Square, with twenty-two bronze figures pouring through it, dedicated by George VI weeks before the war it would come to commemorate as well. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was added in front of it in 2000.

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   Rideau Hall

   The governor general's residence, a house of 1838 enlarged repeatedly, standing in thirty-six hectares of grounds where visiting heads of state plant trees. The grounds are open to the public and the changing of the guard happens on the forecourt in summer.

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8. 

   8© Daryl Mitchell from Saskatoon, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica

   The Catholic cathedral of Ottawa, built from 1841 with twin tin-covered spires, and the oldest surviving church in the city. Its interior of carved wood and painted plaster is a national historic site, and it faces the national gallery across the street.

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   Canada Aviation and Space Museum

   An aviation museum at Rockcliffe holding over a hundred and thirty aircraft, including the nose section of an Avro Arrow — the Canadian interceptor cancelled in 1959 and cut up, which the country has argued about ever since.

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    10© Ajadams94 · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Canada Science and Technology Museum

    The national science and technology museum, rebuilt and reopened in 2017 after mould closed the old building. It keeps working steam locomotives, the Crazy Kitchen tilted room that generations of Canadian children remember, and a large collection of Canadian industrial machinery.

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1. 

   1© SimonP at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Nepean

   Former municipality southwest of Ottawa, amalgamated into the city in 2001. It is now a spread of suburbs with the airport runway at its edge.

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   2© Anna Litickle · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Rockcliffe

   A leafy district northeast of the centre where most of Ottawa's ambassadors live, along with the prime minister's official residence at 24 Sussex Drive — which has stood empty and unrepaired since 2015 because no government wants to be seen spending money on it.

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   Memorial to the Victims of Communism

   A monument to victims of communist regimes, unveiled in December 2024 after a decade of argument — the original design and site beside the Supreme Court were abandoned following objections from judges and architects. It stands instead in the Garden of the Provinces.

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   Peace Tower

   The clock and bell tower at the centre of the parliament buildings, ninety-two metres high and finished in 1927, replacing the tower lost in the 1916 fire. Its carillon of fifty-three bells is played at noon, and the Memorial Chamber below holds the Books of Remembrance.

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   5© Alaney2k · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Orléans

   A suburban community sixteen kilometres east along the Ottawa River, and the francophone end of the city — its street names, schools and shop signs are largely French, which is unusual on the Ontario side.

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   Barrhaven

   A suburb seventeen kilometres southwest of downtown, part of Nepean until the municipal amalgamation of 2001, and one of the fastest-growing parts of Ottawa. It is where the city's postwar expansion is still happening.

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7. 

   7© Shanta Rohse · CC BY 2.0

   LeBreton Flats

   A district west of the centre that was expropriated and cleared in 1962 for a redevelopment that then did not happen, leaving it empty for forty years. The war museum went up on it in 2005, the summer blues festival uses the open ground, and the rest is finally being built.

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   8© Ducio1234 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Beechwood Cemetery

   The national cemetery of Canada, holding over eighty-two thousand graves — a governor general, a prime minister, soldiers, police, spies and hockey hall of famers, along with the national military and RCMP cemeteries within its grounds.

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   9© Matti Blume · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Centretown

   District of Ottawa laid out from the 1870s between the canal and the parliament. It holds the city's tallest residential blocks and the Museum of Nature of 1912.

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    10© Paul Tavares · CC BY-SA 3.0

    New Edinburgh

    A village that grew around the mills at the Rideau Falls and was absorbed into Ottawa in 1887. Rideau Hall and Stornoway, the opposition leader's residence, both stand on its edges, so its streets are quietly full of security.

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