Canadian Tulip Festival

Canadian Tulip Festival
Tulips at Parliament Hill in 2019
GenreHorticultural
Dates2 weeks leading through Victoria Day
Location(s)Ottawa, National Capital Region, Ontario, Canada
Years active1953 – present
Websitetulipfestival.ca

The Canadian Tulip Festival (French: Festival Canadien des Tulipes; Dutch: Canadees Festival van de Tulp) is a tulip festival held annually each May in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The festival claims to be the world's largest tulip festival, displaying over one million tulips,[1] with attendance of over 650,000 visitors annually.[2] Large displays of tulips are planted throughout the city, the largest of which are often in Commissioners Park on the shores of Dow's Lake, and along the Rideau Canal with 300,000 tulips planted there alone.[3]

The festival is a cultural and historical aspect of the special Canada–Netherlands relationship, having originated with commemorative donations of tulips to Canada from the Netherlands for Canadian actions during World War II, when Canadian forces led the liberation of the Netherlands and hosted the Dutch royal family in exile.[4][5][6] The Netherlands continues to send 20,000 bulbs to Canada each year (10,000 from the royal family and 10,000 from the Dutch Bulb Growers Association).[7]

  1. ^ "Tulip Times" (PDF). p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 June 2010. Retrieved 12 October 2010.
  2. ^ "Showcasing Canada's Capital Region" (Press release). Canadian Tulip Festival. 2007. Archived from the original on 14 May 2007. Retrieved 18 May 2007.
  3. ^ NCC
  4. ^ Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) (12 May 2023). "Thank You Toronto Tulip Day 2023 - Event - Netherlandsandyou.nl". www.netherlandsandyou.nl. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
  5. ^ Heritage, Canadian (27 September 2017). "Tulips in Canada's capital". www.canada.ca. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
  6. ^ "About the Festival". Canadian Tulip Festival. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
  7. ^ "Crown princess Juliana in 1945 said thanks with loads of tulips". The Windmill news articles. goDutch. 1995. Retrieved 24 May 2012.