• Capital of the United States
• The population is approximately 572,000 in Washington, DC proper and 5.4 million for the entire metro area.
• In the city are the headquarters for the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank, and other national and international institutions, including labor unions and professional associations.
• A center of American history and culture, Washington is a popular destination for tourists, the site of numerous national landmarks and monuments, the world's largest museum complex (the Smithsonian Institution), galleries, universities, cathedrals, performing arts centers and institutions, and native music scenes.
• The Washington Metropolitan Area is the eighth-largest in the United States with more than five million residents, and the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area has a population exceeding eight million.
• D.C's Univision and Telefutura stations (owned by Entravision) switched call letters on January 1, 2006; meaning that now Univision is the only Spanish station which can be seen at full power over the whole Washington metropolitan area. The Univision network moved from low-powered Channel 47/WMDO to full-powered Channel 14/WFDC; Univision's youth-oriented TeleFutura network moved from 14 to 47.
• A 2007 report found that about one-third of Washington residents are functionally illiterate, compared to a national rate of about one in five.[45] This is attributed in part to the 170,000 Hispanic, Ethiopian, and Eritrean immigrants, many of whom are not proficient in English.
• The Greater Washington metropolitan area, including contiguous areas of Maryland and Virginia, had an estimated population of 5.8 million in 2003, according to the estimates of the Greater Washington Initiative.
• Washington DC's primary industry after the federal government is tourism. Other important industries include trade associations, as Washington, DC is home to more associations than any other US city; law; higher education; medicine/medical research; government-related research and publishing. The Washington, DC metropolitan area is also world headquarters for corporations such as USAirways, Marriott, Amtrak, Gannett News, Mobil Oil, MCI Telecommunications and the International Monetary Fund.