Map view
Lincoln Memorial
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- National memorial that honors the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln
- Built in the form of a neoclassical temple, the interior statue of Abraham Lincoln was carved in marble
- Dedicated in 1922, it has been a major tourist attraction since its opening, and over the years, has occasionally been used as a symbolic center focused on race relations and civil rights
#3 in Best Landmarks in the USA
#53 in Best Attractions in the USA
National Gallery of Art
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- National art museum, established in 1937, that features a collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts, and traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present
- The collection includes the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas
White House
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Official residence and workplace of the president of the United States
- It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800 when the national capital was moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
#24 in Best Landmarks in the World
#26 in Best Landmarks in the USA
#61 in Best Attractions in the USA
National Air and Space Museum
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Museum dedicated to human flight and space exploration
- Established in 1946, it is the fifth-most-visited museum in the world, and the second-most-visited museum in the United States
- The museum is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics
- Its collection includes the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, the Bell X-1 which broke the sound barrier, and the Wright brothers' Wright Flyer airplane
#7 in Best Museums in the USA
#71 in Best Attractions in the USA
National Mall
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Landscaped park that contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institution, art galleries, cultural institutions, and various memorials, sculptures, and statues
- The core area of the National Mall extends between the United States Capitol grounds to the east and the Washington Monument to the west
#39 in Best Landmarks in the USA
#86 in Best Attractions in the USA
Rock Creek Park
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Large urban park, created in 1890, and only the third national park established by the U.S., following Yellowstone in 1872 and Mackinac National Park in 1875
- Recreation facilities include a golf course; equestrian trails; sport venues, including a tennis stadium which hosts major professional events; a nature center and planetarium; and cultural exhibits, including the Peirce Mill
#87 in Best Attractions in the USA
National Museum of Natural History
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- The National Museum of Natural History is the second most visited natural history museum in the world after the Natural History Museum in London
- Opened in 1910, the museum was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities
- The museum's collections contain over 146 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, the largest natural history collection in the world
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Smithsonian Institution museum opened in its permanent home in 2016 with a ceremony led by President Barack Obama
- Early efforts to establish a federally owned museum featuring African-American history and culture can be traced to 1915 and the National Memorial Association
- After many years of little success, a legislative push began in 1988 that led to authorization of the museum in 2003, and the museum was completed in 2016
- The NMAAHC is the world's largest museum dedicated to African-American history and culture
- It ranked as the fourth most-visited Smithsonian museum in its first full year of operation
#18 in Best Museums in the USA
#23 in Best Museums in the World
National Museum of American History
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- The National Museum of American History collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history
- Among the items on display is the original Star-Spangled Banner which inspired the Francis Scott Key poem
#23 in Best Museums in the USA
Washington Monument
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Obelisk built to commemorate George Washington, a Founding Father of the United States, victorious commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1784 in the American Revolutionary War, and the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797
- The monument, made of marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss, is both the world's tallest predominantly stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk
- It was the world's tallest structure between 1884 and 1889, after which it was overtaken by the Eiffel Tower, in Paris
#14 in Best Landmarks in the USA
Union Station
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Major train station noted for its architecture, such as stone inscriptions and allegorical sculpture in the Beaux-Arts style; and its use of expensive materials such as marble, gold leaf and white granite
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- The United States' official memorial to the Holocaust, which provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history
- The memorial is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy
- Since its dedication in 1993, the museum collection has grown to more than 12,750 artifacts, 49 million pages of archival documents, 85,000 historical photographs, a list of over 200,000 registered survivors and their families, 1,000 hours of archival footage, 93,000 library items, and 9,000 oral history testimonies
#22 in Best Museums in the USA
Ford's Theatre
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Theater which opened in 1863, which is infamous for being the site of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
- The famous actor John Wilkes Booth, desperate to aid the dying Confederacy, made his way into the presidential box and shot Lincoln in the head
- Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris were also in the box with the Lincolns, and Rathbone suffered serious stab wounds while trying to prevent Booth's escape
- Abraham Lincoln was carried to Petersen House, a friend of the Lincoln family, across the street, where he died the next morning, at age 56
- Booth was located in Virginia 11 days later and was shot by one of the Union soldiers, Sergeant Boston Corbett, dying several hours later
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- National memorial that includes the Stone of Hope, a granite statue of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr.
- The inspiration for the memorial design is a line from King's "I Have a Dream" speech: "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope"
- The memorial opened to the public in 2011, after more than two decades of planning, fund-raising, and construction
- Although this is not the first memorial to an African American in Washington, D.C., King is the first African American honored with a memorial on or near the National Mall and only the fourth non-President to be memorialized in such a way
#27 in Best Landmarks in the USA
National Portrait Gallery
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Historic art museum known for its permanent collection, in the Hall of Presidents, which contains portraits of nearly all American presidents
- The centerpiece of the Hall of Presidents is the famous Lansdowne portrait of George Washington
- Presidential portraits from 1962 to 1987 were usually obtained through purchase or donation
#32 in Best Museums in the USA
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- United States National Cultural Center, named in 1964 as a memorial to assassinated President John F. Kennedy
- Opened in 1971, the center hosts many different genres of performance art, such as theater, dance, orchestras, jazz, pop, psychedelic, and folk music
United States Capitol
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Seat of the United States Congress, the legislative branch of the federal government, located on Capitol Hill
- Central sections of the present building were completed in 1800
- These were partly destroyed in the 1814 Burning of Washington, then were fully restored within five years
- The massive dome was completed around 1866 just after the American Civil War
- Like the principal buildings of the executive and judicial branches, the Capitol is built in a neoclassical style and has a white exterior
Library of Congress
Best time to visit: March-May, Sept-Nov
Cost: $
- Research library in Washington, D.C., that serves as the library of the U.S. Congress and the de facto national library of the United States
- Founded in 1800, the library is the United States's oldest federal cultural institution
- The Library of Congress is one of the two largest libraries in the world, along with the British Library
- Its collections include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages