The National Mall is a landscaped park near the downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institution, art galleries, cultural institutions, and memorials, sculptures, and statues. It is administered by the National Park Service (NPS) of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit of the National Park System. Additionally, funding to restore, enrich, and preserve the National Mall is also provided by The Trust for the National Mall, a nonpartisan, privately funded non-profit philanthropic partner of the National Park Service. The park receives approximately 24 million visitors each year. 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. The term National Mall may also include areas that are officially part of neighboring West Potomac Park to the south and west and Constitution Gardens to the north, extending to the Lincoln Memorial on the west and Jefferson Memorial to the south.
Landmarks, museums, and other features
Within the National Mall proper
The National Mall proper contains the following landmarks, museums and other features (including opening year):
2. National Museum of American History (1964)Numbers preceding names of landmarks correspond to numbers in 2005 satellite image of the National Mall (proper). 3. National Museum of Natural History (1910) 4. National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden (1999) 5. West Building of the National Gallery of Art (1941) 6. East Building of the National Gallery of Art (1978) 10. National Museum of the American Indian (2004) (shown under construction) 11. National Air and Space Museum (1976) 12. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1974) 13. Arts and Industries Building (1881) 14. Smithsonian Institution Building ("The Castle") (1849) 15. Freer Gallery of Art (1923) 16. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (1987) 17. National Museum of African Art (1987)
Not marked on the above image: Above the Smithsonian Institution Building Joseph Henry statue (1883)Multiple sources:
Below the Smithsonian Institution Building Andrew Jackson Downing Urn (1856)Multiple sources:
Above the Arts and Industries Building Smithsonian Carousel (1967) which was removed for renovations in November 2023, and returned to the same spot in April 2026, in time to celebrate the United States' 250th anniversaryMultiple sources:
Coordinates of the Smithsonian Carousel: To the left of the National Museum of American History Site of the present National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016)
To the left of the Freer Gallery of Art Jamie L. Whitten Building: U.S. Department of Agriculture Administration Building (1930)Multiple sources:
With the exception of the National Gallery of Art, all of the museums on the National Mall proper are part of the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian Gardens maintains a number of gardens and landscapes near its museums. These include:
Common Ground: Our American Garden (2017) Enid A. Haupt Garden (1987) Freer Gallery of Art Courtyard Garden (1923) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1974) Kathrine Dulin Folger Rose Garden (1998) Mary Livingston Ripley Garden (1978)Multiple sources:
National Air and Space Museum landscape (1976) Native landscape at the National Museum of the American Indian (2004) Pollinator Garden (1995) Urban Bird Habitat (2020) Victory Garden (2020)
East of the National Mall proper
Features east of the National Mall proper include:
United States Capitol and its grounds (no. 7 on image) Union Square, containing: Capitol Reflecting Pool (1971) (no. 8 on image) Ulysses S. Grant Memorial (1922) (east of no. 8 on image) Peace Monument (1878) (in traffic circle northeast of no. 8 in image) United States Botanic Garden (1933) (no. 9 on image) James A. Garfield Monument (1887) (in traffic circle northeast of no. 9 in image)
West of the National Mall proper and in West Potomac Park
Not included in the above map: Lockkeeper's House, C & O Canal Extension (1837) Constitution Gardens (1976) Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence (1984) District of Columbia War Memorial Sylvan Theater George Mason Memorial John Paul Jones Memorial John Ericsson Memorial The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace sculptures Jefferson Pier Tidal Basin paddle-boat dock.
Boundaries and dimensions Dimensions
Between the Capitol steps and the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall spans 1.9 miles (3.0 km). Between the Capitol steps and the Washington Monument, the Mall spans 1.2 miles (1.8 km). Between the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall covers 309.2 acres (125.13 ha). Between Constitution Avenue NW and Independence Avenue SW at 7th Street, the width of the Mall is . Between Madison Drive NW and Jefferson Drive SW at 7th Street, the width of the Mall's open space is . Between the innermost rows of trees near 7th Street, the width of the Mall's vista is .
Boundaries 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). The 2012–2016 National Park Service index describes the National Mall as being a landscaped park that extends from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, defined as a principal axis in the L'Enfant Plan for the city of Washington.
A 2010 NPS plan for the Mall contains maps that show the Mall's general area to be larger. A document within the plan describes this area as "the grounds of the U.S. Capitol west to the Potomac River, and from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial north to Constitution Avenue". A map within the plan entitled "National Mall Areas" illustrates "The Mall" as being the green space bounded on the east by 3rd Street, on the west by 14th Street, on the north by Jefferson Drive, NW, and on the south by Madison Drive, SW. A Central Intelligence Agency map shows the Mall as occupying the space between the Lincoln Memorial and the United States Capitol.
In 2011, the 112th United States Congress enacted the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2012, which transferred to the Architect of the Capitol the NPS "property which is bounded on the north by Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, on the east by First Street Northwest and First Street Southwest, on the south by Maryland Avenue Southwest, and on the west by Third Street Southwest and Third Street Northwest". This act removed Union Square, the area containing the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial and the Capitol Reflecting Pool, from NPS jurisdiction.
Purposes The National Park Service states that the purposes of the National Mall are to:
Provide a monumental, dignified, and symbolic setting for the governmental structures, museums, and national memorials as first delineated by the L'Enfant plan and further outlined in the McMillan plan. Maintain and provide for the use of the National Mall with its public promenades as a completed work of civic art, a designed historic landscape providing extraordinary vistas to symbols of the nation. Maintain National Mall commemorative works (memorials, monuments, statues, sites, gardens) that honor presidential legacies, distinguished public figures, ideas, events, and military and civilian sacrifices and contributions. Forever retain the West Potomac Park section of the National Mall as a public park for the recreation and enjoyment of the people. Maintain the National Mall in the heart of the nation's capital as a stage for national events and a preeminent national civic space for public gatherings because it is here that the constitutional rights of speech and peaceful assembly find their fullest expression. Maintain the National Mall as an area free of commercial advertising while retaining the ability to recognize sponsors."
History
L'Enfant City Plan
In his 1791 plan for the future city of Washington, D.C., Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant envisioned a garden-lined "grand avenue" approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) in length and wide, in an area that would lie between the Congress House (now the United States Capitol) and an equestrian statue of George Washington. The statue would be placed directly south of the President's House (now the White House) and directly west of the Congress House (see L'Enfant Plan) on the site of the Washington Monument. The grand avenue was to be flanked by gardens and spacious accommodations for foreign ministers.Multiple sources:
L'Enfant identified himself as "Peter Charles L'Enfant" during most of his life, while residing in the United States. He wrote this name on his "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of t(he) United States ...." (Washington, D.C.) and on other legal documents. However, during the early 1900s, a French ambassador to the United States, Jean Jules Jusserand, popularized the use of L'Enfant's birth name, "Pierre Charles L'Enfant". (See: Bowling, Kenneth R (2002). Peter Charles L'Enfant: vision, honor, and male friendship in the early American Republic. George Washington University, Washington, D.C.) The National Park Service identifies L'Enfant as and as on its website. The United States Code states in : "(a) In General.—The purposes of this chapter shall be carried out in the District of Columbia as nearly as may be practicable in harmony with the plan of Peter Charles L'Enfant."
Mathew Carey's 1802 map is reported to be the first to name the area west of the United States Capitol as the "Mall".Multiple sources: Portion of Mathew Carey's 1802 map of Washington City showing the Mall In In .
The name is derived from that of The Mall in London, which during the 1700s was a fashionable promenade near Buckingham Palace upon which the city's elite strolled.Multiple sources:
The Washington City Canal, completed in 1815 in accordance with the L'Enfant Plan, travelled along the former course of Tiber Creek to the Potomac River along B Street Northwest (NW) (now Constitution Avenue NW) and south along the base of a hill containing the Congress House, thus defining the northern and eastern boundaries of the Mall. 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. The portion of the canal that traveled near the Mall was covered over in 1871 for sanitary reasons.
Some consider a lockkeeper's house constructed in 1837 near the western end of the Washington City Canal for an eastward extension of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal to be the oldest building still standing on the National Mall. The structure, which is located near the southwestern corner of 17th Street NW and Constitution Avenue NW, is west of the National Mall (proper).Multiple sources: