Explore Washington, D.C.

The National Gallery of Art is an art museum on the National Mall, established by Congress in 1937 with the collection and funds of Andrew W. Mellon. John Russell Pope's neoclassical West Building shows European and American art from the Middle Ages on, I. M. Pei's East Building of 1978 holds modern art, and a sculpture garden lies beside them.

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 National Air and Space Museum is the Smithsonian's museum of flight and space exploration on the National Mall, founded in 1946 and housed in a building opened in 1976. Its galleries show original aircraft and spacecraft, among them the 1903 Wright Flyer, Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and the Apollo 11 command module Columbia.

The National Museum of the American Indian is the Smithsonian museum devoted to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, opened in 2004 at Fourth Street and Independence Avenue on the National Mall. Its curving building, clad in golden Kasota limestone, was designed by Douglas Cardinal. Exhibitions present objects, art and histories from across the hemisphere.

The United States Botanic Garden lies at the foot of the Capitol and is run by the Architect of the Capitol; Congress first granted it land in 1820. Its glass Conservatory, on this site since 1933, has rooms for jungle, desert, Hawaiian and orchid plants. The outdoor National Garden adjoins it, and Bartholdi Park lies across Independence Avenue.

The United States Capitol is the seat of Congress at the eastern end of the National Mall. Its central part was completed in 1800 and its cast-iron dome around 1866. Visitors enter through the underground Capitol Visitor Center, which holds an exhibition hall and starts guided tours of the Crypt, the Rotunda and National Statuary Hall.

The National Postal Museum is a Smithsonian museum opened in 1993 in the former City Post Office, a 1914 Beaux-Arts building beside Union Station. It covers the postal history of the United States and other countries, with a large stamp gallery, three mail planes, a stagecoach, a replica railway mail car and a 1931 Ford Model A mail truck.

Union Station is Washington's main railway station, designed by Daniel Burnham and opened in 1907 on Massachusetts Avenue near the Capitol. Its Beaux-Arts facade draws on the Arch of Constantine, and the vaulted main hall on the Baths of Diocletian. Besides Amtrak, commuter and Metro trains, the station houses shops and restaurants.

The Thomas Jefferson Building, built between 1890 and 1897 across from the Capitol, is the oldest building of the Library of Congress. Visitors walk through the Great Hall with its marble staircases and painted ceilings, see the Main Reading Room under the central dome and visit exhibitions drawn from the library's collections.

The Supreme Court Building, one block east of the Capitol, has housed the highest court of the United States since 1935. Cass Gilbert designed it in the neoclassical style, with a marble portico inscribed 'Equal Justice Under Law'. Visitors can tour the public areas of the ground floor, see exhibitions on the Court, attend lectures in the Courtroom and watch public sessions.

The Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill holds a collection of Shakespeare's printed works that includes 82 copies of the 1623 First Folio. Founded by Henry Clay and Emily Jordan Folger, it opened in 1932 in an Art Deco building by Paul Philippe Cret, and a 2024 renovation added public exhibition galleries and gardens.

Smithsonian's National Zoo is a zoo founded in 1889 in Rock Creek Park in northwest Washington and run by the Smithsonian Institution. Its 163-acre park on wooded slopes is laid out along trails such as Asia Trail, Elephant Trails and American Trail, with giant pandas, Asian elephants, great apes, lions, tigers and sea lions.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in northeast Washington is the patronal Catholic church of the United States, begun in 1920 in Byzantine and Romanesque Revival styles. Beneath its bell tower and mosaic-tiled dome are the Great Upper Church, the Crypt Church and more than 80 chapels; it became a minor basilica in 1990.

The Frederick Douglass National Historic Site preserves Cedar Hill, the hilltop house in Anacostia where the abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass lived from 1877 until his death in 1895. Rangers lead guided tours of the furnished house; the grounds include a visitor centre, a rebuilt stone study called the Growlery and a view of the Capitol.

The United States National Arboretum covers 446 acres in Northeast Washington and was established by Congress in 1927; the Department of Agriculture runs it as a research centre. Its gardens include Asian collections, azaleas, the National Herb Garden and the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, and 22 sandstone columns from the Capitol's 1828 east portico stand in a meadow.

Rock Creek Park is a wooded valley park in northwest Washington, created by Congress in 1890 and run by the National Park Service. Its trails follow Rock Creek past the boulder-faced Boulder Bridge of 1902 and the 19th-century Peirce Mill, and the park also has a nature center with a planetarium, a horse center and picnic areas.