Explore Washington, D.C.

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.

Washington National Cathedral is an Episcopal cathedral in northwest Washington, built in Neo-Gothic style modelled on English Gothic of the late 14th century. The foundation stone was laid in 1907 and the building was completed in 1990. Visitors see the nave, chapels, stained glass such as the Space Window, and carved gargoyles and grotesques.

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.

Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens is the former home of businesswoman Marjorie Merriweather Post, a 1920s Georgian Revival mansion she bought in 1955; it opened as a museum in 1977. It holds her collection of Russian imperial art, including two Fabergé Easter eggs, and 18th-century French decorative arts, set in 25 acres of gardens with a French parterre and a rose garden.

President Lincoln's Cottage is a Gothic Revival house of 1842–1843 on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, today the Armed Forces Retirement Home. Abraham Lincoln and his family lived here from June to November in 1862, 1863 and 1864, and he drafted the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation here. Restored by the National Trust, it opened in 2008 and is seen on guided tours.

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.