i don't remember the source of the source of the article i read that pointed out that ottawa is the world's coldest capital city, but i will point out that it was a very long time ago - around 1998 or 1999. i remember people not believing me, and posting a link in a discussion group to back it up. i remember the term "continuously inhabited". and i often cited the cia factbook for information of the sort in this period, if somebody wants to try the archives (that is a guess). that link does not currently appear to be near the top of the google search results, but the sources at the top of the results are really not very good - "worldatlas.com" provides no meaningful data, sources or figures and differs dramatically from the wiki page, which doesn't mean that i'm right so much as it suggests that there are different definitions floating around. "average temperature" is also somewhat of an unclear metric to begin with, and it is possible that you could come up with different rankings by altering the metric. average temperatures are also subject to change over time, as climate shifts and weather patterns evolve. you'd have to define what you mean very clearly. all i can see from a cursory search is that the different sites don't even agree on what the average temperature of ottawa even is - that the accuracy of the data being thrown around is by no means clear.

i will point out, however, that mongolia is not universally recognized as a country, and my source may not have recognized the former ssrs as independent countries, which they were not until 1991. if the source was the cia factbook, it may have been somewhat out of date, even at the time.

that said, ottawa has what is called a continental climate, which is very different from most of the cities on the european coast, which are moderated by the ocean streams. i suspect that a careful analysis of the data would present moscow as the only serious competitor, if we ignore the landlocked central asian ssrs that did not exist before 1991, which have the double whammy of near desertification.

i am not accepting the idea that the capitals of the baltic states, or even iceland, have colder average temperatures than ottawa. sorry.