[5] Designed by Pierre L'Enfant, the "Grand Avenue" or Mall was to be a democratic and egalitarian space—unlike palace gardens, such as those at Versailles in France, that were paid for by the people but reserved for the use of a privileged few.

The core area of the National Mall extends between the United States Capitol grounds to the east and the Washington Monument to the west and is lined to the north and south by several museums and federal office buildings.

[14] These include: Features east of the National Mall proper include: Not included in the above map: In its 1981 National Register of Historic Places nomination form, the NPS defined the boundaries of the National Mall (proper) as Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues on the north, 1st Street NW on the east, Independence and Maryland Avenues on the south, and 14th Street NW on the west, with the exception of the section of land bordered by Jefferson Drive on the north, Independence Avenue on the south, and by 12th and 14th Streets respectively on the east and west, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture administers and which contains the Jamie L. Whitten Building (U.S. Department of Agriculture Administration Building).

[38][39][40] Being shallow and often obstructed by silt, the canal served only a limited role and became an open sewer that poured sediment and waste into the Potomac River's flats and shipping channel.

[34][47][62][63][64][65] In subsequent years, the vision of the McMillan plan was generally followed with the planting of American elms and the layout of four boulevards down the Mall, two on either side of a wide lawn.

Most of these buildings were in two clusters: one near the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and the other on the National Mall (proper) in the vicinity of 4th through 7th Streets NW and SW.[68][69][70] The United States entered World War I in April 1917.

[66] However, another World War I tempo, which the government constructed south of the Mall in 1919 between 14th Street SW and the Tidal Basin as the Liberty Loan Building, remained standing in 2019 while housing the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service.

[79][81][82][83] Although the Navy intended the buildings to provide temporary quarters for the United States military during World War I, the reinforced concrete structures remained in place until 1970.

The NPS cloned one such cultivar ('Jefferson') from a DED-resistant tree growing near a path on the Mall in front of the Freer Gallery of Art, near the Smithsonian Institution Building ("The Castle").

[87] The NPS has combated the disease's local insect vector, the smaller European elm bark beetle (Scolytus multistriatus), by trapping and by spraying with insecticides.

One notable example was the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a political rally during the Civil Rights Movement, at which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech "I Have a Dream".

However, in 1995, the NPS issued a crowd estimate for the Million Man March with which an organizer of the event, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, disagreed.

[95][96] The next year, a committee of the 104th United States Congress provided no funds for NPS crowd-counting activities in Washington, D.C., when it prepared legislation making 1997 appropriations for the U.S. Department of the Interior.

[101]On June 12, 2018, the National Hockey League's Washington Capitals staged a rally on the Mall after parading through the city to celebrate the franchise's first Stanley Cup championship victory.

Despite the arrangement, a throng of people seeking access to the event climbed and then removed temporary protective fences around the Smithsonian's Mary Livingston Ripley Garden, six blocks from the site at which Obama took his inaugural oath.

The event's organizers cancelled the 2020 kite festival, which they had earlier scheduled to take place on the Washington Monument grounds on Saturday, March 28, because of concerns related the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

[115] On April 19, 2015, a "Global Citizen" Earth Day concert featured performances on the Washington Monument grounds by Usher, My Morning Jacket, Mary J. Blige, Train and No Doubt.

Watt said that "rock bands" that had performed on the Mall on Independence Day in 1981 and 1982 had encouraged drug use and alcoholism and had attracted "the wrong element", who would mug individuals and families attending any similar events in the future.

[136] Watt then announced that Las Vegas crooner Wayne Newton, a friend and supporter of President Ronald Reagan and a contributor to Republican Party political campaigns, would perform at the Mall's 1983 Independence Day celebration.

[136][138] During the ensuing uproar, Rob Grill, lead singer of the Grass Roots, stated that he felt "highly insulted" by Watt's remarks, which he called "nothing but un-American".

[143] Preceded by a three-day National Football League "interactive Super Bowl theme park", the event had primarily commercial purposes, unlike earlier major activities on the Mall.

[145] Occurring once every two to three years on the Mall in the early fall from 2002 to 2009,[146] the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon displayed solar-powered houses that competitive collegiate teams designed, constructed and operated.

[147][148] Igniting a controversy, the Department of Energy (DOE) decided to move the 2011 Decathlon off the Mall, claiming that this would support an effort to protect, improve and restore the park.

[150] On February 23, 2011, the DOE and the Department of the Interior announced that the 2011 Solar Decathlon would take place along Ohio Drive southeast of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in West Potomac Park.

[180] On April 9, 2012, the Trust for the National Mall announced the ideas for the redesign of Union Square, the Sylvan Theater grounds and Constitution Gardens lake area that finalists in the competition had submitted.

[182] The competition winners were as follows: On October 1, 2015, the NCPC approved the preliminary and final site and building plans that the NPS had submitted for the first phase rehabilitation of Constitution Gardens.

Plans included the relocation and rehabilitation of the Lockkeeper's House, C & O Canal Extension, a new entry plaza at the corner of Constitution Avenue and 17th Street, NW, landscaping, a meadow and pollinator habitat and a new perimeter garden wall.

[195] The National Mall is the official midpoint of the East Coast Greenway, a 2,900 mile–long system of shared-use bicycle trails linking Calais, Maine, with Key West, Florida.

[202][204] On July 1, 2021, an EF1 tornado formed in Arlington County, Virginia at 8:59 p.m., crossed the Potomac River near the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, and traveled eastward along the National Mall before dissipating near 16th Street NW and Constitution Avenue south of the White House and The Ellipse, 4.4 mi (7 km) from where it had started.

The fencing landed in a "mangled and haphazard manner" before the twister dissipated at 9:05 p.m.[205] The National Mall is a common backdrop and setting for films, television shows, and other forms of media.