Text 2. Washington, d.C.

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, founded on July 16, 1790. The city was so named in memory of George Washington, the first president of the country. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the Territory into a single entity called the District of Columbia. It is for this reason that the city, while legally named the District of Columbia, is known as Washington, D.C. The city is located on the north bank of the Potomac River and is bordered by the states of Virginia to the southwest and Maryland to the other sides.

The District has a resident population of 590,000; however, because of commuters from the surrounding suburbs, its population rises to over one million during the workweek. The Washington Metropolitan Area, of which the District is a part, has a population of 5.3 million, the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the country.

Article One of the United States Constitution provides for a federal district, distinct from the states, to serve as the permanent national capital. The centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are located in the District. The White House, the official residence of the US President, the Capitol, the seat of the US Congress, and the Supreme Court, are all in Washington. Washington, D.C., hosts 174 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Washington is one of the most beautiful and unusual cities in the United States. One reason Washington looks different from other cities is that no building in the city may be more than 40 metres tall. There are no skyscrapers, because they would hide the city’s many monuments from view. The city is divided into four sections: NW, NE, SW, and SE. Numbered streets run north and south: First Street, Second Street … Lettered streets such as A-street, B-street run east and west. Bear in mind that every section has an independent street system. If you’re looking for Third Street, you need to know what section of the city it is in.

In the very centre of the city rises the huge dome of the Capitol, the highest building in Washington. There is a law in Washington not to build buildings higher than the Capitol. It dominates the city of Washington. All the tourists begin sightseeing from the Capitol and see the Senate Chamber, the Hall of Representatives, and the Statuary Hall.

Not far from the Capitol is the Library of Congress, the largest library in the States. It contains more than 13 million books, more than 19 million manuscripts, including the personal papers of the US presidents.

The official residence of the president of the USA is the White House. It was constructed between 1792 and 1829. The White House has 132 rooms, among them the Oval Office where the President works. White House is open for tours.

One can hardly find a park, a square or an open area in Washington without a monument or a memorial. The Washington Monument, the tallest stone structure in the USA, is in the Potomac River. It was opened to the public in 1888. It is 555 feet tall, and is called the "Pencil" because of its shape. There is an elevator, which will carry you to 500-foot level observation windows. The Jefferson Memorial was built in honour of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the USA. The Lincoln Memorial reminds everybody of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the USA, who wrote the Emancipation Proclamation which freed the blacks in the South from slavery.

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational foundation chartered by Congress in 1846 that maintains most of the nation’s official museums and galleries in Washington, D.C. The U.S. government partially funds the Smithsonian, thus making its collections open to the public free of charge. The most visited of the Smithsonian museums are the National Museum of Natural History, the National Air and Space Museum; the National Museum of African Art; the National Museum of American History; and the National Museum of the American Indian.