Power, Monuments and History
The Metro DC area has a wide array of excitement for everyone in your family.

Washington, D.C. is a wonderful place to visit. In addition to the wealth of attractions relating to our government and its history, you can examine Impressionist masterpieces in the National Gallery of Art, experience the beauty of the United States Botanical Gardens' exotic plants and flowers, and learn about the creatures of the African Savannah at the National Zoo. There is so much to do and see in our nation's capital that you'll want to plan a return visit.

   

History
George Washington personally selected the site of the nation's permanent capital in 1791, and the government was officially transferred there in 1800. Located close to the geographic center of the original 13 colonies, the area allotted measured 259 sq km (100 sq mi) and encompassed the existing port towns of Alexandria and Georgetown. The land west of the Potomac was returned to Virginia in 1846. Pierre Charles L'Enfant's design (1791) for the city, developed after 1801, was limited to the area south of the present Florida Avenue. It consisted of a physical framework for the siting of major government buildings (particularly the White House and Capitol) and a grid street pattern overlaid by broad radial avenues, with a series of squares and circles reserved for monuments.

The barely completed capital of the infant republic was captured and burned (1814) by the British during the War of 1812, but it was soon reconstructed. By 1860 its population was 61,100. Washington's first great period of development took place following the Civil War. The city's continuing growth, closely tied to the expansion of governmental functions, accelerated during the 1930s and particularly after World War II. The district's African American population, which averaged a quarter to a third of the city's total between 1870 and 1950, has since 1970 represented approximately three-quarters of the population, a trend reflecting the flight of the middle classes away from the urban center. The result is a capital city whose residential pattern is sharply divided along class and color lines.

Today, between the historic core Washington and its mid-20th-century suburbs, lie a somewhat dilapidated 19th-century city east of Rock Creek, occupied mostly by African Americans, and an early-20th-century city west of Rock Creek (which envelops the exclusive 18th-century and early-Federal Georgetown section), occupied largely by affluent whites. African American frustrations following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., led to major riots in Washington in 1968. The city also served as the national center for anti-Vietnam War activity during the 1960s and '70s, as well as for protests and demonstrations of every kind.

PARKS:

Busch Gardens | C & O National Historic Park | Great Falls Park | Harpers Ferry | King’s Dominion | Manassas National Battlefield Park | National Zoological Park | Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority | Paramount’s King’s Dominion | Rock Creek Park | Shenandoah National Park | Six Flags America | Water Country USA

MUSEUMS | GALLERIES

Addison/Ripley Gallery Ltd.  | African Art Museum  | Air and Space Museum and Udvar-Hazy Center  | Alexandria Archaeology Museum | Alexandria Black  History Museum | American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery | American History Museum | American Indian Museum | American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center | Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History and Culture  | American Painting Fine Art | Arthur M. Sackler Gallery  Arts and Industries Building (the Castle) | Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum | Burton Marinkovich Fine Art | National Children’s Museum City Museum of Washington, DC | The Cold War Museum Corcoran Gallery of Art | Freer and Sackler Galleries Fraser Gallery | The Friendship Firehouse | Geoffrey Diner Gallery | Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | Hamiltonian Gallery |  International Spy Museum | Long View Gallery |  Madame Tussauds Wax Museum | National Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian) | National Building Museum | National Children’s Museum | National Gallery of Art | National Museum of African Art (Smithsonian) | National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian) | National Museum of American History (Smithsonian) | National Museum of Crime and Punishment | National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) | National Museum of Women in the Arts | National Portrait Gallery | National Postal Museum | Pensler Galleries | The Phillips Collection | Pope John Paul II Cultural Center | Portrait Gallery | Portraiture in the United States Capitol | Postal Museum | Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art | The Reynolds Center | Smithsonian Institution Building, the Castle | International Spy Museum | The Torpedo Factory Art Center | Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (Smithsonian Air & Space Museum Annex) | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

MONUMENTS & MEMORIALS

Air Force Memorial | Antietam National Battlefield  | | Korean War Veterans Memorial  | Lincoln Memorial  | Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima)  | National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial  | National WWII Memorial U.S. Navy Memorial | Pentagon 9/11 Memorial | Tomb of the Unknown Soldier | United States Navy Memorial | Ulysses S Grant Memorial | Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial  | Washington Monument  | Women in Military Service for America Memorial  | WWI Memorial

MORE ATTRACTIONS

Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception | Bureau of Engraving and Printing | Capitol Visitor Center | Colvin Run Mill | Congressional Cemetery  | Constitution Gardens | Dumbarton Oaks Washington, DC  | Embassies of Washington D.C. | Federal Bureau of Investigation  | Folger Shakespeare Library  | Ford’s Theater National Historic Site  | Frederick Douglass National Historic Site | George Washington Memorial Parkway | Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens  | Kennedy Center  | Lafayette Square Historic District  | Library of Congress | Mt. Vernon Estate & Garden | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD | National Aquarium | National Arboretum  | National Mall  | The National Archives | National Zoo | Ocean Planet | Old Executive Office Building | Old Post Office Pavilion | Old Post Office Tower | Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site  | Pentagon  | President Lincoln's Cottage | Sully Plantation  | Union Station | U.S. Capitol | U.S. House of Representatives | U.S. Mint | Verizon Center | Washington National Cathedral | White House