Why choose Ottawa as your new home? As the capital of Canada, Ottawa is one of the best places to live in the world.

• Ottawa was ranked 1st by MoneySense Magazine as the best place to live in Canada. The study compared 123 Canadian cities for housing costs, unemployment rates, household income and homicide rate. By contrast, Toronto was ranked 12th, Vancouver 15th and Montreal 23rd.
  
  
• The 2007 Worldwide Quality of Living Survey ranked Ottawa 18th out of over 230 cities worldwide.
  
  
• Of the Canadian cities included in the 2006 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, Ottawa is the least expensive to live in.
  
  
• Forbes Magazine recently rated Ottawa the 4th cleanest city out of 300 cities worldwide.
  
  
• Surrounded by a 532-square km preserve of parklands, forests and wetlands, Ottawa is one of the greenest capitals in the world.
  
  
• According to Statistics Canada, families in Ottawa had the highest median incomes of any Canadian city in 2001.
  
  
• Recent immigrants who arrived in Ottawa between 1996 and 2001 earn higher salaries than in any other Canadian city.
  
  
• Ottawa is one of the world's top five sites for Research and Development.
  
  
• Ottawa has a bilingual community with two official languages: English and French. As their first language, approximately 50 per cent of Ottawa residents speak English, 30 per cent speak French, and the remaining 20 per cent speak other languages.
  
  
• Ottawa is a safe place to raise a family. In 2003, Statistics Canada named Ottawa one of seven Canadian cities with the lowest crime rate in the country.

Because of the city’s strong economy and stable labour market, Ottawa residents enjoy a high quality of life. Visit the Job Market section of this Web site to learn more.

As the country’s capital, Ottawa has many cultural attractions, including galleries, museums and festivals. It is also a wonderful place for nature-lovers. Located on the Ottawa River, the city has over 880 parks and hundreds of kilometres of bike paths and nature trails.

My Ottawa

It has a small-town feel, but is also prosperous and continues to grow. It is a safe, clean place in which to raise a family and has a wide variety of neighbourhoods to settle into. More »