Washington, D.C. serves as the capital of the United States of America. The acronym D.C. stands for District of Columbia.

Nicknames for Washington, D.C. range from the Nation’s Capital, American Rome, Capital of the World to simply DC.

Research website numbeo ranks Washington, D.C. in the top third compared to the 250 cities evaluated on its overall quality of life index at June 2020. Washington, D.C. scored well on index factors such as purchasing power (strongest 10%), property price to income ratio (lowest 20%), health care (best 33%) and pollution (cleanest 35%). However, Washington, D.C. rates relatively poorly on cost of living (highest 7%), safety (bottom 17%), traffic commute time (slowest 26%).

Washington, D.C. was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the location for the United States Library of Congress which holds the world’s biggest collection of maps. The map collection boasts 5.5 million catalogued items, including a 1507 map which was the first to show America as a separate continent. The mega-library paid US$10 million for the map in 2001, thus recording the costliest map ever.

Other Guinness World Records relate to D.C. museums. These include the world’s biggest set of philatelic and postal history memorabilia with over 13.2 million items such as stamps and greeting cards at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum. Washington, D.C. is home to the largest espionage museum–International Spy Museum–storing a collection of espionage-related items encompassing 9,281 catalogued pieces.

Washington’s most-visited museum is its Natural Museum of Natural History found in the National Mall. Similarly, its National Air and Space Museum is one of the world’s most-visited museums.

Yet another Guinness World Record was set by the Washington Monument, which measures 555 feet (169 meters) high and is the world’s tallest stone pillar monument (technically called an obelisk). The Washington Monument was finished in 1884 to honor America’s first president George Washington.

The U.S. federal government accounts for roughly 30% of all jobs in Washington, D.C. The district is also home to almost 200 foreign embassies and global organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Industrial and medical conglomerate Danaher is the largest private business headquartered in America’s capital.

From an international trade perspective, the District of Columbia exported US$3.7 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2019. Its most valuable exports include parts of airplanes and helicopters (16.5% of District of Columbia’s global total), electrical machinery parts (14.8%), larger helicopters (13.9%), radar apparatus (11.9%), weaponry including bombs, mines and missiles (10.3%), miscellaneous military equipment (6.9%), rocket or grenade launchers and flamethrowers (4.5%), larger airplanes (3.8%), handmade paintings and drawings (3.5%), and armored fighting vehicles (3%) according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the District of Columbia was 8.4% in July 2020, up from 5.4% one year earlier.

Capital Facts for Washington, D.C.: Quick Reference

 

United States won its independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776. Americans celebrate Independence Day as a public holiday each July 4.

Washington, D.C. covers a land area measuring 61.05 square miles (158.1 square kilometers) in which 720,687 people live.

At the country level, America’s land area covers 3,531,837 square miles (9,147,420 square kilometers). The nation’s population count was 331.3 million inhabitants as of August 22, 2020.

Population density is more concentrated within Washington, D.C. averaging 11,805 Washingtonians per square mile (4,558 per square kilometer).

Zooming out to U.S. national land boundaries, population density drops to an average 94 residents per square mile (36 per square kilometer).