Capital Cultures
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Cultures · the encyclopedia · open all year

Cultures of Ottawa, written with them.

This city cooks in a hundred kitchens every day of the year, sews, drums, prays and throws its own new year twice over. This section is the reference to who does all of it: where a community came from, what it makes, what it eats, when it celebrates and where it gathers.

Read the three open drafts Write your community's article

Three drafts open · five shelves with a page of their own · ten articles a quarter

Section status

Three articles are written and readable, and all three are drafts waiting on the signature of the community they are about. An article publishes under a community's name after that community reads it, corrects it and signs it.

Draft 01 · 28 August 2026 · corrections open

An overhead arrangement on indigo linen: heaps of turmeric, sumac, matcha and saffron between a brass coffee pot, a stacked bamboo steamer, a black clay jug, a stone mortar of dried chillies and a folded red-embroidered cloth.
The shape of this section, laid out on one table
Indian OttawaChinese OttawaItalian OttawaFilipino OttawaSpanish OttawaLebanese OttawaUkrainian OttawaVietnamese OttawaPortuguese OttawaGreek OttawaPolish OttawaGerman OttawaIrish OttawaMexican OttawaBrazilian OttawaJapanese OttawaKorean OttawaColombian OttawaPeruvian OttawaMoroccan OttawaTurkish OttawaIranian OttawaNigerian OttawaSomali OttawaEthiopian OttawaHaitian OttawaJamaican OttawaSyrian OttawaBangladeshi OttawaSri Lankan OttawaCongolese OttawaEgyptian OttawaPakistani OttawaAlgerian OttawaTunisian OttawaGhanaian OttawaKenyan OttawaEritrean OttawaSudanese OttawaIraqi OttawaPalestinian OttawaAfghan OttawaNepali OttawaIndonesian OttawaThai OttawaMalaysian OttawaCambodian OttawaRomanian OttawaHungarian OttawaSerbian OttawaCroatian OttawaBulgarian OttawaSenegalese OttawaIvorian OttawaRwandan OttawaCameroonian OttawaSouth African OttawaArmenian OttawaGeorgian OttawaChilean OttawaArgentine OttawaVenezuelan OttawaEcuadorian OttawaCuban OttawaTrinidadian OttawaGuyanese OttawaDutch OttawaFinnish OttawaIcelandic OttawaMoldovan Ottawa

Communities that already cook in this city · no community has been asked yet and no pavilion is confirmed

How an article gets here.

A culture written up from the outside reads as appropriation, and that damage costs more than any traffic it earns. So the encyclopedia has four terms, and all four hold for every article on this site.

The terms · they hold for every article

01

Written with the community

An organisation, a church hall, a Saturday school, a family that has cooked for the same festival for thirty years. We draft with them at the table, in their words.
02

Signed by both

Every article carries the name of the person who wrote it, the name of whoever in the community approved it, and the date it went out. Publication follows that approval.
03

Numbers with a source in the line

Population, share of the city, districts, years of arrival — each one names where it came from, and Census 2021 is where most of it comes from. A number we cannot source stays off the page, and the page says what is missing.
04

Kitchens, crafts, calendars, language

Dishes and where to eat them in Ottawa, what people make by hand, what gets celebrated and when, how to say hello. Politics and folklore about national character stay out.

The city this reference is about.

One resident in four arrived from somewhere else, and the largest groups are recent. A city that changes that fast earns a reference open every month of the year, and the two days in August are the smaller half of the job.

All figures · Census 2021, Statistics Canada

259,215 Immigrants living in Ottawa Census 2021, Statistics Canada · city of Ottawa · 25.9% of the population in private households
324,960 Racialized residents Census 2021, Statistics Canada · city of Ottawa · 32.5% of the city
47,415 Arrived between 2016 and 2021 Census 2021, Statistics Canada · city of Ottawa · 18.3% of all immigrants in the city
43,725 Arabic as a mother tongue Census 2021, Statistics Canada · city of Ottawa · the largest non-official mother tongue here, ahead of Mandarin at 22,155 and Spanish at 14,235
Top ten countries of birth among Ottawa's immigrants · Census 2021, Statistics Canada
Country of birthPeople in Ottawa
China20,320
India16,200
United Kingdom14,760
Lebanon11,900
Philippines10,505
United States8,795
Haiti6,710
Syria6,370
Viet Nam6,155
Iran6,000
Every article here is written with the community it is about, and it goes out with their name on it.
The rule of the Cultures section · Capital Cultures

Three drafts are open.

Three articles are written and readable. Every one of them is a draft, written by our editorial team from the census and waiting on the community it is about to read it, correct it and sign it. That signature is the condition of publication, and until it arrives each page says so on every screen.

Readable now · community signature pending on all three

Middle East & the Maghreb.

58,180 residents are recorded as Arab, the second largest racialized group in the city, and Arabic is the largest non-official mother tongue in Ottawa with 43,725 speakers. Lebanon sits fourth among all countries of birth and Syria second among the arrivals of 2016–2021.

Census 2021, Statistics Canada · a marked name links to its draft

01Now Lebanese
02Planned Syrian
03Planned Palestinian
04Planned Egyptian
05Planned Iraqi
06Planned Iranian
07Planned Moroccan
08Planned Algerian
a rough grey stone mortar with a turned wooden pestle laid across it, on indigo-dyed cloth
A stone mortar and its pestle, the bowl worn smooth

The Lebanese draft is open · the rest wait on the community that writes first · a name missing here gets added the day it asks

Read the Lebanese draft The Middle East shelf

Africa.

84,770 residents are recorded as Black — a census category that holds African and Caribbean origins together — and it is the largest racialized group in the city as well as the youngest, with a median age of 27.6 years against 39.2 for Ottawa and growth of 40.8% between 2016 and 2021. Nigeria, Burundi and the DR Congo all sit among the top ten origins of recent arrivals.

Census 2021, Statistics Canada · articles open for drafting

01Planned Nigerian
02Planned Somali
03Planned Ethiopian
04Planned Eritrean
05Planned Congolese
06Planned Burundian
07Planned Ghanaian
08Planned Sudanese

Every box on this strip: planned

The largest and youngest group in the city · the row with the most left to write

The Africa shelf

South & East Asia.

57,820 residents are recorded as South Asian and 46,170 as Chinese, with a further 14,960 Southeast Asian and 14,325 Filipino. China and India are the two largest countries of birth in the city, and India leads the arrivals of 2016–2021.

Census 2021, Statistics Canada · a marked name links to its draft

01Planned Chinese
02Planned Indian
03Now Filipino
04Planned Vietnamese
05Planned Bangladeshi
06Planned Sri Lankan
07Planned Pakistani
08Planned Korean

The Filipino draft is open · Mandarin and Cantonese make the second language of this city and both articles are unwritten

Read the Filipino draft The South & East Asia shelf

Eastern Europe.

Post-war arrivals, the 1990s, and then the CUAET years. The census of May 2021 caught the first two and missed the third, which is why this row carries a stated gap where a number would sit.

Census 2021, Statistics Canada · one known gap · a marked name links to its draft

01Now Ukrainian
02Planned Polish
03Planned Romanian
04Planned Hungarian
05Planned Serbian
06Planned Croatian
07Planned Bulgarian
08Planned Moldovan

The Ukrainian draft is open, gap and all · Polish and Romanian Ottawa go back generations

Read the Ukrainian draft The Eastern Europe shelf

Latin America.

14,350 residents are recorded as Latin American, and Spanish is the third non-official mother tongue in the city with 14,235 speakers — a community that reads as small in the tables and fills a hall on a Saturday night.

Census 2021, Statistics Canada · articles open for drafting

01Planned Mexican
02Planned Colombian
03Planned Peruvian
04Planned Chilean
05Planned Argentinian
06Planned Venezuelan
07Planned Ecuadorian
08Planned Brazilian

Every box on this strip: planned

Eight communities · eight unwritten articles · a great many kitchens between them

The Latin America shelf

The Caribbean.

Haiti is the seventh country of birth among Ottawa's immigrants with 6,710 people and stays in the top ten for the arrivals of 2016–2021, which makes the francophone Caribbean a large part of francophone Ottawa.

Census 2021, Statistics Canada · this shelf opens when the first community writes

01Planned Haitian
02Planned Jamaican
03Planned Trinidadian
04Planned Guyanese
05Planned Barbadian
06Planned Grenadian

Every box on this strip: planned

a goblet-shaped wooden drum with a hide head lashed on with rope, the carved waist and foot below, standing against a hanging indigo cloth
A hand drum: goatskin head lashed to a carved shell with rope

Carnival, patties, soca, a kitchen calendar of its own · written properly this is one of the strongest rows here

This shelf has no page of its own yet. It opens the week somebody from one of these communities writes the first article, and the form below is how that starts.

Western Europe.

The United Kingdom is the third country of birth in the city with 14,760 people, Italian is the fifth non-official mother tongue with 7,860 speakers, and the Italian, Portuguese and Greek parishes have run festivals of their own here for decades.

Census 2021, Statistics Canada · this shelf opens when the first community writes

01Planned Italian
02Planned Portuguese
03Planned Greek
04Planned Spanish
05Planned German
06Planned Irish
07Planned Dutch
08Planned Finnish

Every box on this strip: planned

The oldest festival kitchens in Ottawa stand in this row · they know how this work is done

This shelf has no page of its own yet. It opens the week somebody from one of these communities writes the first article, and the form below is how that starts.

Crafts & kitchens.

Every article in this section names trades that belong to more than one community: an egg written in wax, a shirt embroidered by region, hammered copper, shell cut into window panes, bread pressed out by hand. Those become articles of their own, cutting sideways across the regions above and linking back into them.

Planned · winter 2027 · the makers decide what gets written first

Hands holding an embroidery hoop with a purple stitch half finished, skeins of pink, red, green and orange thread, small dishes of turmeric and chilli and a pair of scissors across the workbench, others working in the background.
Hands at the hoop, thread skeins across the bench
  • Written and dyed. Pysanka, batik, block printing — wax and dye used to hold a pattern in place.
  • Thread. Embroidery, lace, weaving, piña cloth. A stitch reads as a region to anybody who knows how to look.
  • Metal and glass. Hammered copper and brass, blown glass, cut shell, wood inlay.
  • Bread and sugar. The doughs, the syrups and the festival sweets that every kitchen row on this site ends on.
  • Light. Lanterns, candles and the star that goes up in December in more than one calendar.

Nothing is written here yet. A maker who wants their trade covered first says so, and it moves up the list.

Crafts & kitchens Put a craft on the list Sell your work

The other strand: the year itself.

Every community on this page keeps a year of its own, and most of Ottawa walks past it. The calendar is that year written down month by month, with the article behind each celebration beside it.

The calendar of Ottawa's communities

Write your community's article.

Anyone with standing in a community can start this: an association, a parish, a dance group, a language school, a restaurant family. You bring the knowledge and the approval. We bring an editor, the fact-checking, the photography and the address it lives at.

Open now · the editor answers every letter

Five steps · six to ten weeks end to end for a first article

01

Write to the editor

Tell us the community, who you speak for, and one thing about it that Ottawa gets wrong. Two paragraphs are plenty to start.
02

We draft together

An interview of an hour or two, then a draft you can mark up. History of arrival in Ottawa, language, kitchen, crafts, calendar, where people gather.
03

The community approves

The named approver reads the final text before anything goes out, and their word is the condition of publication.
04

It goes out signed and dated

Author, approver, date. Your organisation is credited and linked, and the byline stays on the article for as long as the article exists.
05

It stays and it grows

The address holds no year, so the article keeps its search position and gets updated: new dishes, new festivals, a pavilion when 2027 comes.
  1. NowNow Three drafts readable and the editor's inbox open Lebanese, Filipino, Ukrainian — written from the census, unsigned, open to correction.
  2. Autumn 2026Planned The first three signatures, and the first ten community articles Ten per quarter is the rate we are staffing for, one author at a time.
  3. Winter 2027Planned Crafts & kitchens: pysanka, embroidery, weaving, coffee, baking Subject articles that cut across communities and link back into them.
  4. August 2027Planned Every article links to the pavilion of the community that wrote it The reference and the festival hold each other up.

Start an article.

Name the community, say who you speak for, and tell us one thing about it that Ottawa gets wrong. Two paragraphs are plenty to start, and the editor answers every letter.

Cultures · article intake · goes to the festival editor

A correction, a paragraph, a name we should call. A single line is enough.
Community articles publish with the name of the person or organisation who checked them. Leave this unticked to stay anonymous.
Keep me posted Canadian anti-spam law asks for consent per mailing type, so we ask per type. One click unsubscribes, any time.

Nothing here is a commitment on either side. We answer every message, and we publish nothing about a community in Ottawa that its own organisations here have not read first.

An older person's hands resting on a linen cloth embroidered in bright floral colours at a window table, small jars of turmeric, saffron and sumac behind.
Hands on an embroidered cloth at a window table

Your kitchen, your calendar, your words.

The roll-call at the top of this page runs seventy names and three of them have a draft here. The next one is written with whoever writes to us first, and it stays online long after the tents come down.

How an article gets written Hear when new ones go out