Quadrants of Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., is administratively divided into four geographical quadrants of unequal size, each delineated by their ordinal directions from the medallion located in the Crypt under the Rotunda of the Capitol.

[clarification needed] Originally, the District of Columbia was a near-perfect square but contained more than one settlement; the Capitol was to be the center of the City of Washington.

(The geographic center was located near the onetime marshy area of the present-day intersection of 17th Street, NW and Constitution Ave.) As a result, the quadrants are of greatly varying size.

The axis of the National Mall through the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial forms the boundary running west of the medallion.

Many people mistakenly (or in some instances, pejoratively) call the entire eastern portion of the quadrant Anacostia, although the name refers only to a small area along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

Color-enhanced USGS satellite image of Washington, D.C. , taken April 26, 2002. The "crosshairs" in the image mark the quadrant divisions of Washington, with the United States Capitol at the center of the dividing lines. To the west of the Capitol extends the National Mall , visible as a slight green band in the image. The Northwest quadrant is the largest, located north of the Mall and west of North Capitol Street .