Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly called Washington or D.C., is the capital city and the federal district of the United States.[10] The city is located on the east bank of the Potomac River, which forms its southwestern border with Virginia and borders Maryland to its north and east. The city was named for George Washington, a Founding Father, victorious commanding general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States who is sometimes referred to as “Father of his country”.[11][12] 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.[13] It is the eighth-most visited city in the U.S., with over two million visitors as of 2019.[14]

The U.S. Constitution provides for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. As such, the District of Columbia is not part of any state, nor is it one itself. The Residence Act, adopted on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district along the Potomac River. The city was founded in 1791, and Congress held its first session there in 1800. In 1801, the District of Columbia, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria, was officially recognized as the federal district; the city initially comprised only a portion of its modern territory, as a distinct entity within the larger federal district.[15] In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia, including the city of Alexandria. In 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the district, though locally elected government lasted only three years and did not return for over a century.[16] There have been several unsuccessful efforts to make the district into a state since the 1880s; a statehood bill passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but was not adopted by the U.S. Senate.[17]

The city is divided into quadrants, which are centered around the Capitol and include 131 neighborhoods. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 689,545,[3] 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.[18] Commuters from the city’s Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city’s daytime population to more than one million during the workweek.[19] The Washington metropolitan area, which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, is the country’s sixth-largest metropolitan area with a 2020 population of 6.3 million residents.[20]