Краеведческий материал: Вашингтон
учебно-методическое пособие по английскому языку

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Washington, D.C. is located on the northern shore of the Potomac River at the river’s navigation head. The state of Maryland borders the District of Columbia to the north, east, and west, and the state of Virginia borders the District on the southern shore of the Potomac River.

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• In 1790 the U.S. Congress established a 100-square-mile territory to serve as the permanent seat of the federal government. The territory was later named the District of Columbia, within which the city of Washington was built.

After the American Civil War (1861–65), the city of Washington expanded beyond its originally planned boundaries and became legally indistinguishable from the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C., remains a territory, not a state, and since 1974 it has been governed by a locally elected mayor and city council.

Washington is an extraordinary city, one with multiple personalities: a working federal city, an international metropolis, a picturesque tourist destination, an unmatched treasury of the country’s history and artifacts, and a cosmopolitan centre that retains a neighbourly small-town atmosphere. The role Washington plays as the capital of the United States often overshadows its lively local history and its complex political, economic, and social issues. About half the land in Washington is owned by the U.S. government, which pays no taxes on it. Several hundred thousand people in Washington, D.C. work for the federal government.

During the last half of the 20th century, “suburban flight” of the middle class contributed to the city’s loss of more than one-fourth of its population. As new jobs, especially those in the high-technology industries, were created in Maryland and Virginia, the population of the suburbs increased as much as 50 percent per decade. By the first decade of the 21st century, however, Washington’s population began to increase as younger workers moved into revitalized city neighbourhoods.