© 2015 by Henk J. van der Feest Creatieve Concepten en Regie
Washington D.C. - United States of America. The Lincoln Memorial
About Washington
The capitol of the USA is an impressive city, with broad roads and beautiful
buildings. And with a lot of history!
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as "Washington", "the
District", or simply "D.C.", is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on
July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the
country's East Coast. The U.S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state.
The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included
the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria. Named in honor of George Washington,
the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress
returned the land originally ceded by Virginia; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for
the remaining portion of the District.
Washington had an estimated population of 658,893 in 2014, making it the 22nd-most populous city
in the United States. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's
population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of
which the District is a part, has a population of 5.8 million, the seventh-largest metropolitan
statistical area in the country.
by HENK J. VAN DER FEEST
The White House with cherryblossom in spring