Portal:Washington, D.C.

The Washington, D.C. portal

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly called Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. Washington, D.C., was named for George Washington, a Founding Father and the first president of the United States. The district is named for Columbia, the female personification of the nation.

Washington, D.C., anchors the southern end of the Northeast megalopolis, one of the nation's largest and most influential cultural, political, and economic regions. As the seat of the U.S. federal government and several international organizations, the city is an important world political capital. The city had 20.7 million domestic visitors and 1.2 million international visitors, ranking seventh among U.S. cities as of 2022.

Designed in 1791 by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the city is divided into quadrants, which are centered around the Capitol Building and include 131 neighborhoods. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 689,545, making it the 23rd-most populous city in the U.S., third-most populous city in the Southeast after Jacksonville and Charlotte, and third-most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic after New York City and Philadelphia. Commuters from the city's Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, is the country's seventh-largest metropolitan area, with a 2023 population of 6.3 million residents. (Full article...)

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In the news

8 May 2024 –
A statue of the late African American civil rights leader Daisy Bates is unveiled at the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C., representing the state of Arkansas. (Reuters)
3 March 2024 – 2024 United States presidential election
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wins the Washington, D.C. primary, making it her first win in the Republican Party contest. (Axios)
25 February 2024 – Israel–Hamas war protests
An active-duty United States Air Force member sets himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. as a form of protest against the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip and dies later that day. (BBC News) (NPR)

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