Explore Washington, D.C.

The White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the residence and office of the US president, home to every president since John Adams in 1800. James Hoban designed the Neoclassical sandstone house, rebuilt after the British burned it in 1814. Visitors see it from Lafayette Square and the Ellipse; the White House Visitor Center has exhibits on its history.

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 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 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 National Museum of American History is a Smithsonian museum on the National Mall, opened in 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology in a building by McKim, Mead & White. Its exhibitions cover the social, political, cultural, scientific and military history of the United States. Among the objects on display is the original Star-Spangled Banner.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts was founded by Wilhelmina and Wallace Holladay and opened in 1987 in a former Masonic Temple of 1908 on New York Avenue. Its collection of more than 6,000 works by women artists ranges from the 16th century to today, with works by Mary Cassatt, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Frida Kahlo.

Ford's Theatre opened in 1863 on 10th Street NW; on 14 April 1865 John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln here, and Lincoln died the next morning in the Petersen House across the street. Restored and reopened as a working theatre in 1968, it forms a historic site with a museum, the theatre and the President's Box, the Petersen House and exhibits on the aftermath.

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.

Planet Word is a museum of language that opened in 2020 in the Franklin School, an 1869 building by Adolf Cluss on Franklin Square. Its interactive galleries deal with how words are learned, where English words come from, the languages of the world, poetry, humour and the spoken word, and visitors speak or sign to take part.

The National Museum of Natural History is a Smithsonian museum on the north side of the National Mall, opened in 1910 in a Neoclassical building designed by Hornblower & Marshall. Its halls cover fossils and dinosaurs, ocean life, human origins, and gems and minerals, among them the Hope Diamond.

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 National Museum of Asian Art is the Smithsonian's museum of Asian art on the south side of the National Mall. It joins the Freer Gallery of Art, opened in 1923, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, opened in 1987 and largely underground. Its collection runs from the Neolithic to today, with Chinese jades, Japanese ceramics, Islamic paintings and Whistler's Peacock Room.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum shares the Old Patent Office Building in Penn Quarter with the National Portrait Gallery. Its collection covers art made in the United States from the colonial period to today by more than 7,000 artists, and the glass-roofed Kogod Courtyard links the two museums.

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 National Portrait Gallery is a Smithsonian art museum in the Old Patent Office Building, a Greek Revival block in Penn Quarter built between 1836 and 1867. Founded in 1962 and opened in 1968, it shows portraits of Americans who shaped the country, among them the Hall of Presidents with a portrait of every president.

The National Archives Museum occupies the National Archives Building on Constitution Avenue, designed by John Russell Pope and completed in the 1930s. Its Rotunda displays the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and further galleries show records from the nation's archives.

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 National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian's museum of traditional and contemporary art from across the African continent, founded on Capitol Hill in 1964 and part of the Smithsonian since 1979. Since 1987 it has occupied a mostly underground building beside the Enid A. Haupt Garden, entered through a domed pavilion on Independence Avenue.

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 National Mall is a landscaped park in central Washington, laid out on Pierre L'Enfant's 1791 plan for the city and run by the National Park Service. Its lawns stretch from the Capitol to the Washington Monument and, in the wider sense, on to the Lincoln Memorial, lined by Smithsonian museums, galleries and memorials.