The Greenbelt is a 20,350 hectare band of open lands and forests surrounding the nation's Capital on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River. First proposed by French planner Jacques Gréber in 1950, it was intended to protect the rural land bordering the Capital from haphazard urban sprawl.

Today, the Greenbelt encircles the Capital from Shirleys Bay on the west to Green's Creek on the east. Most of the area is owned and managed by the National Capital Commission (NCC). The rest is held by other federal departments and private interests.

The Greenbelt offers a mix of sights and sounds from rolling farmlands to peaceful forests and wetlands that shelter a wide variety of plant and animal life.

Barrhaven is a suburban area located about 20 km southwest of downtown Ottawa. Established in the 1960s, it grew rapidly into a community housing several tens of thousands of people, although commercial centres didn’t arrive until the influx of high-tech companies in the 1990s. The 2001 census placed the population at 32,125.

Now a self-contained community, almost every street contains large, late 20th-century-style suburban houses, with big box stores and strip malls nearby.

To the north of Barrhaven lies the Ottawa Greenbelt, to the east the Rideau River and to the west Highway 416, the main highway to Toronto. Barrhaven is well serviced by the city's local transit system, with frequent buses travelling from the Fallowfield transit station to downtown Ottawa.

The area is divided into several areas. Barrhaven Proper or Old Barrhaven is the westernmost part of the neighbourhood, lying between Cedarview Road and Greenbank. Also included in this is the triangle of land east of Greenbank between Fallowfield and the railway tracks known as Knollsbrook. South of this is the area known as Longfields, which stretches south to Strandherd and east to Woodroffe Avenue. Sandwiched between the CN rails, Jockvale, Greenbank and Strandherd is the neighbourhood of Barrhaven on the Green. East of Woodroffe, next to the Rideau River, is the neighbourhood of Davidson Heights. South of Strandherd and east of Greenbank is a new community known as Chapman Mills. West of Cedarview another new neighbourhood, known as Jockvale, is under construction.

Riverside South is nestled directly south of the airport and east of the Rideau River. One of Ottawa’s newest neighbourhoods with the first homes built in 1996, the population currently sits at close to 3,000. However, as one of Ottawa’s fastest growing areas, the population is predicted to swell to over 50,000 by the 2020s.

The area contains two commercial plazas: the newer plaza at the corner of Spratt Road and Canyon Walk containing a smattering of medical, coffee and convenience outlets, and the original plaza at the corner of Earl Armstrong and River Roads offering a broader range of fast food outlets, restaurants, medical and dental clinics, groceries, fitness and other amenities.

To satisfy box-store and entertainment needs, visit the South Keys shopping area 15 minutes’ north-east of Riverside South. The village of Manotick offers a more modest shopping alternative, 10 minutes’ south of Riverside South.

Two bus routes service the area. Route 145 operates throughout the day for a standard fare, starting and ending at the Greenboro Transitway/O-Train station and connecting to downtown bus services and the O-Train. Route 45 operates an express service to and from downtown Ottawa during peak hours and requires a premium fare.