White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800.

The house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia Creek sandstone in the Neoclassical style. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage. However, in 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed Executive Residence in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania ⁱ/ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/ (Pennsylvania German: Pennsilfaani), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle. The state borders Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to the northwest, New York to the north, and New Jersey to the east.

Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 6th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's five most populous cities are Philadelphia (1,560,297), Pittsburgh (305,801), Allentown (118,577), Erie (100,671), and Reading (89,893). The state capital is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.

The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States; it was originally founded in 1681 as a result of a royal land grant to William Penn, the son of the state's namesake. It was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12, 1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the state's largest city of Philadelphia. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg was fought in the south central region of the state.

Pennsylvania Avenue

Pennsylvania Avenue is a street in Washington, D.C. that connects the White House and the United States Capitol. Called "America's Main Street", it is the location of official parades and processions, as well as protest marches. Moreover, Pennsylvania Avenue is an important commuter route and is part of the National Highway System.

Route

The avenue runs for a total of 5.8 miles (9.3 km) inside Washington, but the 1.2 miles (1.9 km) of Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the United States Capitol building is considered the most important. It continues within the city for 3.5 miles (5.6 km), from the southeast corner of the Capitol grounds through the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and over the Anacostia River on the John Philip Sousa Bridge. Crossing the entire width of Prince George's County, Maryland, it ends 14.5 miles (23.3 km) from the DC line at its junction with MD Route 408 at Waysons Corner near the Patuxent River, for a total length of 20.3 miles (32.7 km). At this point, as a limited-access highway, it becomes Southern Maryland Boulevard. On October 20, 2012, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley issued a proclamation which named the part of Pennsylvania Avenue east of Water Street in Upper Marlboro and just north of her home town of Croom, Maryland the Stephanie Roper Highway In addition to its street names, in Maryland it is designated as Maryland Route 4. At one point in the mid-20th century, Pennsylvania Avenue was designated DC 4, an extension of Maryland Route 4 that reached at least the east side of the White House.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as "Washington", "the District", or simply "D.C.", is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. The U.S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state.

The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria. Named in honor of George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the District.

Washington had an estimated population of 672,228 as of July 2015. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the seventh-largest metropolitan statistical area in the country.