The area that is either zoned “Downtown” or has downtown-related uses, if one includes college campuses as downtown uses, forms a rough rectangle between N Street NW and the Southwest/Southeast Freeway, and between Rock Creek and New Hampshire Avenue NW on the west and 2nd Street NE on the east. 'Downtown' zoning, university campuses, and government facilities in and around downtown DC. The map below shows the areas zoned as “Downtown” in purple, government buildings with downtown uses (mostly office buildings, but also the Convention Center) in pink, military facilities in light blue, and university campuses (George Washington University and Georgetown Law School) in light green. This definition is complicated, though, by the fact that much of downtown DC is occupied by federal or District government buildings built on unzoned land (such as Federal Triangle) or on land whose zoning they don’t fully comply with. One obvious place to start in looking for a definition of downtown is the District’s zoning map, which identifies several zones as “Downtown” zones.

Instead, there are a number of different definitions the District, federal government, and private organizations use for different purposes.ĭC’s zoning map provides one definition of “downtown” The question is somewhat open-ended because, unlike city limits, there is no single, official definition. In this final article, I will attempt to answer a related question: Where exactly is downtown DC today? In the first two parts of this series, I discussed how downtown DC migrated to the north and west over the past two centuries, away from George Washington and Pierre L’Enfant’s original vision.

This article is the third in a three-part series about the history of downtown DC. Downtown DC in 2019 by Paul Basken used with permission.

Military grid square map of usa