The Washington Metropolitan Area is the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The area includes all of the federal district and parts of the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The Office of Management and Budget defines the area as the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, a metropolitan statistical area used for statistical purposes by the United States Census Bureau and other agencies. The area includes as its principal cities Washington as well as the Virginia county of Arlington and city of Alexandria. The Office of Management and Budget also includes the metropolitan statistical area as part of the larger Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area, which has a population of over 8.55 million.
The area is also sometimes referred to as the National Capital Region, particularly by federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security. The area in the region that is surrounded by Interstate 495 is also referred to as being "inside the Beltway".
The Washington Metropolitan Area is the most educated and by some measures, the most affluent metropolitan area in the United States. As of the 2010 Census Bureau estimate, the population of the Washington Metropolitan Area was estimated to be 5,582,170 (+16.39%), making it the seventh-largest metropolitan area in the country.
Read more about Washington Metropolitan Area: Composition, Principal Cities, Demographics, Economy, Area Codes, Sister Cities
Famous quotes containing the words washington, metropolitan and/or area:
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“In metropolitan cases, the love of the most single-eyed lover, almost invariably, is nothing more than the ultimate settling of innumerable wandering glances upon some one specific object.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Prestige is the shadow of money and power. Where these are, there it is. Like the national market for soap or automobiles and the enlarged arena of federal power, the national cash-in area for prestige has grown, slowly being consolidated into a truly national system.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)