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.