District of Columbia contains the administrative territorial entity Alexandria
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. 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, commanding general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States, and the district is named for Columbia, the female personification of the nation.
Washington, D.C. represents the southern point of the Northeast megalopolis, one of the nation's largest and most influential cultural, political, and economic regions that runs along its northeastern coast from Boston in the north to Washington, D.C. in the south and also includes New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. As the seat of the U.S. federal government and several international organizations, the city is an important world political capital. It is one of the most visited cities in the U.S. with over 20 million annual visitors as of 2016.The U.S. constitution provides for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. Washington, D.C., is not a part of any U.S. state and is not one itself. The Residence Act, adopted on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district along the Potomac River. The city of Washington was founded in 1791, and Congress held its first session there in 1800. The city of Washington originally had smaller boundaries than it does now and was intended to be separate from the District of Columbia, while still being within it.In 1801, the territory, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria, was officially recognized as the federal district. 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 that only lasted for three years due to a variety of reasons, including budgetary ones. There have been several unsuccessful efforts to make the city into a state since the 1880s, though a statehood bill passed the House of Representatives in 2021.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, making it the 23rd-most populous city in the U.S., third-most populous city in the Southeast behind 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 sixth-largest metropolitan area with a 2020 population of 6.3 million residents; and over 54 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the city.The city is the home to each of the three branches of the U.S. federal government, Congress (legislative), the President (executive), and the Supreme Court (judicial), along with the governmental buildings that house most of the federal government, including the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court Building, and multiple federal departments and agencies. The city is home to many national monuments and museums, primarily located on or around the National Mall, including the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument. The city hosts 177 foreign embassies and the headquarters of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, and other international organizations. Many of the nation's largest industry associations, non-profit organizations, and think tanks are based in the city, including AARP, the American Red Cross, Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, National Geographic Society, The Heritage Foundation, Wilson Center, and others.
A locally elected mayor and 13-member council have governed the district since 1973. Congress maintains supreme authority over the city, however, and is empowered to overturn local laws. Washington, D.C., residents are, on a federal level, politically disenfranchised since the city's residents do not have voting representation in Congress, although the city's residents elect a single at-large congressional delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives who has no vote. District voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment, ratified in 1961. Washington, D.C. has been a member state of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization since 2015.Foundation
Prior to the establishment of Washington, D.C., as the nation's capital in 1800, the Second Continental Congress was based in Philadelphia on five separate occasions (May 1775 – July 1776, December 1776 – February 1777, March 1777 – September 1777, July 1778, July 1778 – March 1781, and March 1781 – June 1783). The congressional base was briefly in five other locations: York, Pennsylvania (September 1777), Princeton, New Jersey (1783), Annapolis, Maryland (November 1783 to August 1784), Trenton, New Jersey (November to December 1784), and New York City (January 1785 to March 1789).
On October 6, 1783, after the capital was forced by the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 to relocate to Princeton, New Jersey, Congress resolved to consider a new location for it. The following day, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts moved "that buildings for the use of Congress be erected on the banks of the Delaware near Trenton, or of the Potomac, near Georgetown, provided a suitable district can be procured on one of the rivers as aforesaid, for a federal town".In his Federalist No. 43, published January 23, 1788, James Madison argued that the new federal government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance and safety. The Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security.Article One, Section Eight of the U.S. Constitution permits the establishment of a "District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States". However, the constitution does not specify a location for the capital. In the Compromise of 1790, Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson agreed that the federal government would pay each state's remaining Revolutionary War debts in exchange for establishing the new national capital in the Southern United States.On July 9, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, who signed the bill into law on July 16. Formed from land donated by Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles (16 km) on each side and totaling 100 square miles (259 km2).Two preexisting settlements were included in the territory: the port of Georgetown, Maryland, founded in 1751, and the port city of Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1749. In  1791–92, a team led by Andrew Ellicott, including Ellicott's brothers Joseph and Benjamin and African-American astronomer Benjamin Banneker, surveyed the borders of the federal district and placed boundary stones at every mile point; many of these stones are still standing.A new federal city was then constructed on the north bank of the Potomac, to the east of Georgetown. On September 9, 1791, the three commissioners overseeing the capital's construction named the city in honor of President Washington. The same day, the federal district was named Columbia, a feminine form of Columbus, which was a poetic name for the United States commonly used at that time. Congress held its first session there on November 17, 1800.Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, which officially organized the district and placed the entire territory under the exclusive control of the federal government. The area within the district was organized into two counties, the County of Washington to the east and north of the Potomac and the County of Alexandria to the west and south. After the Act's passage, citizens in the district were no longer considered residents of Maryland or Virginia, which ended their representation in Congress.Congress benefited from the city's small size, and Washington was smaller than Columbia, making it easier for the new nation's government to maintain it than if the city was significantly larger.
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