D.C. means District of Columbia, but what does it mean to say that?

It refers to the approximately 67 square miles which were carved out of Maryland for the national capital. It is not part of any state, so has no Senators, but the Constitution was amended from the original to provide for Presidential electors from the District.

The Formation of the District of Columbia

The flag of the District of Columbia was based upon George Washington’s ancestors’ coat of arms.

In 1789, Congress authorized President George Washington to select a location for the new National Capital. In 1790, the site was selected. The original District was a 10 mile square, created from land ceded by the states of Maryland and Virginia.

District of Columbia: So named in honor of Christopher Columbus.

The District of Columbia is a specially created, autonomous Federal District which coexists with the City of Washington. It is a planned city, laid out primarily by French city planner Pierre Charles L’Enfant. Some say the city was designed to be intimidating to visiting foreign heads of state, with monuments to the American character and heroes everywhere one turns. In his role as President Jed Bartlett on the West Wing, Martin Sheen remarked in one episode that “[the District of Columbia] is the greatest home-field advantage in the world”.

The citizens of the District of Columbia are citizens of the United States of America, but not of any particular state. As such, they do not enjoy representation in Congress, though they pay federal income taxes. In 1961(!), the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution finally gave them the right to vote in presidential elections and to representation in the Electoral College, provided the number of electors allocated to DC does not exceed that allotted to the smallest (least populated) state. Though they are not represented by voting representatives in congress, they are represented in the House (but not the Senate) by elected delegates who have limited voting rights (they can vote in committee, but not in floor votes, in which bills are actually voted up or down). In most other areas, Delegates have the same rights and responsibilites as Representatives in the House.

Local government exists at the municipal level, but ultimately Congress controls DC. It delegates much of its responsibilities to the municipal government, but maintains oversight.

The District of Columbia borrows from a poetic name for America popular at the time the District was founded. The name comes from that of Christopher Columbus, who discovered the continent for Queen Isabella of Spain.

The concept of a federal district is not uniquely American. The advantage of locating a national capital in an autonomous Federal District is that no one state can exert any undue influence over the city that serves every citizen of the nation. Other countries also use the Federal District (in Latin America, Distrito Federal), including Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Malaysia.