Cultures · region shelf 01 of 05
Middle East& the Maghrebin Ottawa.
Arabic is the largest non-official mother tongue in this city, and Lebanon sits fourth on the list of birthplaces behind China, India and the United Kingdom. This shelf holds the communities behind those lines, one article at a time.
Census 2021, Statistics Canada · one draft open, seven names unwritten
What the census counts here.
Three lines describe the size of Arabic-speaking Ottawa, and each one counts something different: two census categories and a birthplace. Read them as separate measurements of one part of the city, with the language further down the page.
All figures · Census 2021, Statistics Canada
| Country of birth | All immigrants in Ottawa | Rank | Arrived 2016–2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lebanon | 11,900 | 4th | 1,045 · ninth among recent arrivals |
| Syria | 6,370 | 8th | 4,450 · second among recent arrivals |
| Iran | 6,000 | 10th | Below the top ten for those five years |
Lebanon at fourth place is an Ottawa particularity: the same list in Toronto and in Vancouver puts it far lower. Syria second among the arrivals of 2016–2021 describes a much shorter history in this city, shared with the older community through a language.
Census 2021, Statistics Canada · country of birth, city of Ottawa
The communities on this shelf.
Eight names to begin with, drawn from the birthplace and language tables above and from the roll-call of communities that already cook in this city. One has a draft; the others are open, and the community that writes to us first goes next.
Stamps · a draft you can read, or a page still to be written
A marked name has a draft you can read today · the rest wait on the community that writes first · a community missing from this shelf gets added the day it asks
Arabic as a mother tongue in Ottawa
The largest non-official mother tongue in the city, ahead of Mandarin at 22,155 and Spanish at 14,235.
Census 2021, Statistics Canada · mother tongue, city of Ottawa
Where the counting stops.
The census categories above hold many countries of origin together, so a count of Palestinian Ottawa or Moroccan Ottawa is absent from the tables this page quotes.
Stated gaps · each one names how it gets settled
Write your community's article.
Every name on this shelf is waiting for somebody inside that community to start.
Open now · the editor answers every letter
The other shelves.
Five regions and one strand that cuts across all of them
Africa
The largest and youngest racialized group in the city, and the shelf with the most left to write. Census 2021.South & East Asia
China and India are the two largest birthplaces in Ottawa. Census 2021.Eastern Europe
A century-deep diaspora and a wave the May 2021 census closed too early to count.Latin America
14,350 residents counted as Latin American, and Spanish third among mother tongues. Census 2021.Crafts & kitchens
Trades that belong to more than one community: wax and dye, thread, metal, bread, light.All cultures
The index, the open drafts, and how an article starts.
Eight names. One article.
Seven of the communities on this shelf have a stamp and an empty page behind it. The next article is written with whoever writes to us first, and it stays online long after the tents come down.