The world’s largest tulip festival, now encompassing an 10-day celebration each May, was established in 1953 to preserve the heritage of Canada’s role in liberating the Dutch during the Second World War. The symbolic tulip – Ottawa’s official flower – was given as a gift in perpetuity to the Canadian people for having provided safe harbour to the Dutch Royal Family during the German Occupation of the Netherlands. The tulip remains a valuable symbol of friendship and of spring, with special meaning to the people of Canada and its National Capital Region.
The mandate of The Canadian Tulip Festival is to preserve this heritage and celebrate the symbolic tulip by engaging local organizers, volunteers, artists, performers, tourists and festival-goers in what has become an annual rite of spring and one of North America’s best-loved and best-known cultural events.
