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The House of the Seven Gables is a timber-framed mansion on Salem Harbor built in 1668 for the merchant and ship-owner John Turner. It inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1851 novel of the same name and was restored in 1910 by Caroline Emmerton as a museum and settlement house. Guided tours visit the mansion; the grounds include Hawthorne's birthplace and a seaside garden.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is a Smithsonian museum on the National Mall, opened in 2016 in a building designed by David Adjaye and Philip Freelon with a bronze-toned lattice facade. Its galleries trace African American history from slavery and the civil rights movement to music, sport and the arts.

The International Spy Museum is a non-profit museum about the history and practice of espionage and intelligence work. It opened in 2002 in Penn Quarter and moved in 2019 to a new building by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners at L'Enfant Plaza. Its galleries show spy equipment, real cases and tradecraft from ancient times to the present, with interactive stations.

The Washington Monument is a marble-faced obelisk on the National Mall, about 169 metres tall, built to commemorate George Washington, the first US president. Designed by Robert Mills, it was begun in 1848, interrupted for more than two decades and completed in 1884. An elevator takes visitors to an observation level near the top.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the national memorial and museum of the Holocaust, opened in 1993 beside the National Mall in a building by James Ingo Freed. Its Permanent Exhibition documents the persecution and murder of Europe's Jews and other victims of Nazi Germany; the Hall of Remembrance is the memorial to the victims and survivors.

Dumbarton Oaks is a historic estate in Georgetown that Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss gave to Harvard University in 1940, now a research institute. Visitors see the terraced garden designed by Beatrix Farrand and a museum of Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art, part of it in a 1963 pavilion by Philip Johnson.

The World War II Memorial on the National Mall honours Americans who served in the armed forces and as civilians during World War II. Designed by Friedrich St. Florian and dedicated in 2004, it rings an oval plaza and fountain with 56 granite pillars for the states and territories and two arches for the Atlantic and Pacific; a wall of 4,048 gold stars marks the war dead.

The Tidal Basin is a man-made reservoir of about 43 hectares between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel, planned in the 1870s to flush the channel with tidal water. A path circles the basin under cherry trees, the focus of the spring National Cherry Blossom Festival, past the Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorials.

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial honours the third US president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Built in 1939–1943 on the south shore of the Tidal Basin, the domed, colonnaded rotunda by John Russell Pope draws on the Pantheon in Rome. Inside stands a bronze statue of Jefferson, added in 1947, surrounded by passages from his writings.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Constitution Gardens honours the US service members who served in the Vietnam War. At its centre is the Wall, designed by Maya Lin and completed in 1982: two black granite walls engraved with the names of those who died or remain missing. The Three Soldiers statue and the Vietnam Women's Memorial stand nearby.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts stands on the east bank of the Potomac and opened in 1971 as the national cultural centre and a living memorial to President Kennedy. Edward Durell Stone designed the long marble building with its Concert Hall, Opera House and Eisenhower Theater; the REACH pavilions by Steven Holl were added in 2019.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial in West Potomac Park, dedicated in 1995, honors those who served in the Korean War of 1950 to 1953. Nineteen stainless-steel statues of soldiers on patrol stand in a triangular field beside a granite wall etched with faces, and a Wall of Remembrance added in 2022 lists the names of those who died.

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial on the west side of the Tidal Basin honors the 32nd president of the United States. Designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and dedicated in 1997, it traces his four terms in office through four open-air rooms of granite walls, waterfalls, carved quotations and bronze sculptures.

The Lincoln Memorial honours President Abraham Lincoln at the western end of the National Mall. Designed by Henry Bacon as a Doric temple and dedicated in 1922, it holds Daniel Chester French's seated marble statue of Lincoln and the carved texts of two of his speeches. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 'I Have a Dream' speech on its steps in 1963.

The Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum occupies the 1910 factory of the Allan Herschell Company in North Tonawanda, about 15 km east of Niagara Falls, which built carousels and amusement rides. Visitors see the carving shop and band organs, ride a 1916 wooden carousel, and children can use the Kiddieland rides.

Goat Island lies in the Niagara River between the American Falls and the Horseshoe Falls and is part of Niagara Falls State Park. Footpaths lead to Terrapin Point at the edge of the Horseshoe Falls, footbridges cross to Luna Island and the Three Sisters Islands, and the Cave of the Winds starts from the island.

Niagara Falls State Park, established in 1885 as the Niagara Reservation, is the oldest state park in the United States, laid out with Frederick Law Olmsted's involvement. It takes in Prospect Point, Goat Island and smaller islands in the river, with paths and overlooks beside the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls and views across to the Horseshoe Falls.

The Aquarium of Niagara opened in 1965 on Whirlpool Street, near the Niagara Gorge north of the falls, as one of the first inland aquariums to use artificially made seawater. It keeps harbor seals, California sea lions, Humboldt penguins, sharks and Great Lakes fish, with daily feedings and sea lion presentations.

Maid of the Mist is the boat tour that has sailed below the falls since 1846, leaving from the dock at the foot of the Observation Tower at Prospect Point on the American side. The boats pass the American and Bridal Veil Falls and enter the basin of the Horseshoe Falls; the current boats, in service since 2020, are electric.

Horseshoe Falls is the largest of the three waterfalls that form Niagara Falls, on the Niagara River between Table Rock in Ontario and Goat Island in New York. About 90 per cent of the river water not diverted for hydropower flows over its curved crest. A promenade along the Niagara Parkway leads to viewpoints at Table Rock, right at the brink.