7 neighbourhoods running south from the canal. Old Ottawa South is Bank Street below the Rideau River, with Brewer Park and the second, unofficial skateway on the river itself. Alta Vista is big postwar lots and mature trees around the hospital campus. The neighbourhood Ottawa's doctors and senior public servants bought into and never left. Hunt Club and South Keys fill the belt between the Greenbelt and the airport, and are among the most linguistically diverse blocks in the city. Barrhaven, beyond the Greenbelt, is seventy thousand people on what was farmland in 1990.
The south end has the widest internal spread of any district here. A detached house in Alta Vista and a townhouse in Barrhaven are the same city and not the same market at all. Two things to weigh. The first is transit: Line 2 and Line 4 reopened in January 2025 and now run from Bayview to Limebank and out to the airport, which finally gave Riverside South and South Keys a train, but Barrhaven itself still has none and the Woodroffe corridor is the busiest bus route in the city. The second is the Greenbelt: it is the reason Barrhaven's commute is longer than its distance suggests, because every route in crosses the same few kilometres of federal green.
7 communities, guide by guide
Alta Vista
Big postwar lots, mature trees and the hospital campus. The inner-suburban neighbourhood Ottawa doctors and public servants bought into and never left.
- 12,653
- Residents of the Billings Bridge – Alta Vista ONS neighbourhood
- 1892
- Rideau Park, the first subdivision, laid out on the Billings estate for market gardeners
Barrhaven
Seventy thousand people on former farmland beyond the Greenbelt, the fastest-growing part of Ottawa, and the one whose commute has no rail answer yet.
- 71,408
- Residents of the five Barrhaven ONS neighbourhoods covered here
- 103,234
- Population of Barrhaven on the wider census definition, 2021
Heron Gate
Fourteen thousand people in Ottawa's densest concentration of 1960s rental towers, most of one block of which was demolished in 2018 and is still being fought over.
- 13,903
- Residents of the Ledbury - Heron Gate - Ridgemont ONS unit, wider than Heron Gate itself (ONS Gen 2, retrieved 2026)
- 9,974
- Population of Heron Gate on the narrower definition, across 1.538 km² (2021 census)
Hunt Club and South Keys
The belt between the Greenbelt and the airport: 1980s subdivisions, the city's most linguistically diverse blocks, and two O-Train lines through the middle.
- 48,860
- Residents of the six Hunt Club and South Keys ONS neighbourhoods covered here
- $1,007
- Average studio purpose-built rent. The lowest of any Ottawa zone (CMHC, October 2025)
Manotick
A mill village on the Rideau annexed in 2001 and still run like a village, twenty-five kilometres from Parliament Hill and priced as if it were further.
- 9,040
- Residents of the Manotick ONS unit, wider than the village itself (ONS Gen 2, retrieved 2026)
- 5,315
- Population of Manotick village across 6.717 km² (2021 census)
Old Ottawa South
Bank Street south of the canal: Brewer Park, Windsor Park and the stretch of the Rideau River that freezes into a second skateway.
- 6,635
- Residents of the Old Ottawa South ONS neighbourhood
- 1905–1907
- Incorporated as the police village of Rideauville, then annexed to Ottawa
Riverside South
The fastest-growing part of Ottawa, a greenfield community south of the airport that spent twenty years arguing for the light rail line that opened at its front door.
- 10,942
- Residents of the Riverside South - Leitrim ONS unit (ONS Gen 2, retrieved 2026)
- 19,802
- Population of Riverside South on the census definition, across 28.627 km² (2021 census)
Photographs: Billings Estate by MB-one, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · The Barrhaven welcome sign by ScottBuckingham, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · The downtown skyline by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons · The canal in summer by Reading Tom from Reading, UK, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons · Manotick united church by Andy Civil, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons · Sunnyside Branch by Padraic Ryan, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.