Washington DC
District of Columbia Capital of the USA, on the Potomac River; the
world's first planned national capital. It was named Washington DC to
distinguish it from Washington state, and because it is coextensive
with the District of Columbia, hence DC
Population
(1996 est) 543,200
Metropolitan area extending outside the District of Columbia (1990)
3,923,600.
Features & History
The District of Columbia, the federal district of the USA, is an area
of 174 sq km/69 sq mi. Its site was chosen by President George Washington,
and the first structures date from 1793.
Washington DC operates the national executive, legislative, and judicial
government of the USA, and is a centre for international diplomacy and
finance. Federal and district government are key employers, though numbers
employed in both are decreasing. Public, trade, business, and social
organizations maintain a presence, as well as law and other service
agencies.
Tourism is a major industry.
Land for the federal district was ceded by Maryland and Virginia 1788-89.
The city was designed and partly laid out by French architect Pierre
L'Enfant, whose work was completed by Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker.
Congress first convened in the Capitol on 1 December 1800.
National monuments and buildings include the Capitol (1819-1860), the
Pentagon (1941-43), the White House, the Supreme Court (1935), the Jefferson
Memorial (1943), the Lincoln Memorial (1927), the J Edgar Hoover Federal
Bureau of Investigation Building (1974), the Washington Monument (1884),
the Smithsonian Institution (1849), the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982),
and the Korean War Veterans Memorial (1995).
Seven universities and numerous cultural centres are located in the
city, including the National Gallery of Art, the National Air and Space
Museum, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (1993). Design
and foundation of The District of Columbia was established by an act
of Congress 1790-91. The federal capital was politically neutralized;
residents were allowed one, non-voting representative in Congress, and
could not vote in a presidential election until 1964.
Its location on the Maryland-Virginia border, near the head of navigation
on the Potomac River, was selected by George Washington as being midway
between the main regional groupings of north and south, and accessible
by sea. Land for the swampy, 16 sq km/10 sq mi site was ceded from Maryland
in 1788 and Virginia in 1789 (although the Virginia portion was returned
in 1846). It was originally named Federal City, but renamed in honour
of the first president of the USA.
Washington DC was planned from the first as a great capital worthy
of a new nation, although the population of the USA in the 1790s
was small and the new federal regime virtually bankrupt. Pierre
Charles L'Enfant, the young French engineer commissioned to lay
out the city, envisaged an eventual population of 750,000, although
the population remained below 5,000 for the first 20 years. The
plan covered an area of some 5 sq km/2 sq mi, bounded by the Potomac
and Anacostia rivers, and concentrated on spaciousness and long
vistas. A large number of diagonal avenues intersecting with each
other at `circles´ were imposed on a basic gridiron of streets.
Building eventually took place in approximate accordance with
the L'Enfant plan, and was completed by Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin
Banneker.
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