The District of Columbia is a federal district with an ethnically diverse population. On July 2024, the District had a population of 702,250 people, with a resident density of 11,515 people per square mile.

The District of Columbia had relatively few residents until the Civil War. The presence of the U.S. federal government in Washington has been instrumental in the city's later growth and development. Its role as the capital leads people to forget that approximately one-third of the District of Columbia's population was born in the city.

In 2011, the District of Columbia's Black population slipped below 50 percent for the first time in over 50 years. The District was a majority-Black district from the late 1950s through 2011. The District of Columbia has had a significant African-American population since the District's creation; several neighborhoods are noted for their contributions to Black history and culture. Like numerous other border and northern cities in the first half of the 20th century, the District of Columbia received many black migrants from the South in the Great Migration. African Americans moved north for better education and job opportunities, as well as to escape legal segregation and lynchings. During World War II, the growth of the military-industrial complex provided increased economic opportunities for African Americans.

In the postwar era, the percentage of African Americans in the District steadily increased as its total population declined as a result of suburbanization, supported by federal highway construction, and white flight. The Black population included a strong middle and upper class.

Since the 2000 U.S. census, the District has added more than 120,000 residents and reversed some of the population losses seen in previous decades. The growth is speeding up; the population has increased more than 100,000 since the 2010 census. The proportion of White, Asian, and Hispanic residents has increased, and the proportion of Black residents has stagnated, with the latter mostly moving to the suburbs.

Between 2010 and the 2020 census, the Black population experienced a notable decline, with Blacks comprising fewer than half of the population for the first time since the late-1950s, though still the largest racial group in the city. The percentage of Asians, Hispanics and whites all experienced small increases.

History

The District of Columbia was established to host the new United States capital, the City of Washington. However, there were already many settlements within the federal territory when it was created in 1790. Most important of these settlements were the cities of Georgetown, founded in 1751, and Alexandria, Virginia (then included in the District), founded in 1749. Together these two cities had most of the District's early residents. The populations of each place were counted separately from that of the City of Washington until Alexandria was returned to Virginia in 1846, and until the District of Columbia was formed into a single entity in 1871. In 1790, Alexandria had a population of 2,748. By 1800, the City of Washington had a population of 3,210, Georgetown had 2,993, and Alexandria had 4,971.

The District's population remained small in comparison to other major U.S. cities. In 1860, directly before the Civil War, the District had about 75,000 residents, far smaller than such major historical port cities as New York at 800,000 or Philadelphia at more than 500,000. It is notable that the District of Columbia had a large African-American population even before the Civil War, and most were free people of color, not slaves. Due to slaveholders' manumission of slaves in the Upper South after the American Revolutionary War, the free Black population in those states climbed markedly from an estimated 1% before the war to 10% by 1810. Since many states did not permit free Blacks to stay after gaining freedom, they often relocated to the District; in 1860, about 80% of the District's African-American residents were free Blacks.

Following the Civil War, the District's population jumped 75% to more than 130,000. The District of Columbia's population continued to grow throughout the late nineteenth century as Irish-American, German-American, and Jewish-American immigrant communities formed in downtown areas. Many immigrants escaping severe poverty and antisemitism moved to the US and found refuge in the District. By 1900, the District's growth had spread to the more residential sections beyond the old Florida Avenue boundary line following the development of the District's streetcar lines along major arteries such as Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Connecticut Avenue, Wisconsin Avenue, Georgia Avenue, 14th Street, and 16th Street. By 1930, development within the District's boundaries was largely complete, except for a few outlying areas in far Northeast and Southeast. The District's population totaled just under 500,000. In response to the Great Depression in the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation expanded the bureaucracy in the District of Columbia. World War II further increased government activity and defense contracting, adding to the number of federal employees in the capital. People came from across the country to work in wartime in the District of Columbia. By 1950, the District's population reached a peak of 802,178 residents.

Shortly after that, in a pattern repeated across the country, the District began losing residents attracted to newer housing in the suburbs, with commutes made easier by an expanded highway network outside the District. Following social unrest and riots in the 1960s, plus increasing crime, by 1980, the District of Columbia had lost one-quarter of its population. After the achievements of civil rights, more of the District's middle-class Black population also moved to the suburbs. The District's population continued to decline until the late 1990s. Gentrification efforts started to transform the demographics of distressed neighborhoods. Recently, a trend of growth since the 2000 U.S. Census provided the first rise in the District's population in 50 years.

Statistics 2020 census

+Washington city, District of Columbia – racial and ethnic compositionRace / ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 1980Pop 1990Pop 2000Pop 2010Pop 2020% 1980% 1990% 2000% 2010% 2020% change 2010–2020White alone (NH)164,244166,131159,178209,464261,77125.73%27.37%27.83%34.81%37.96% +3.15%Black or African American alone (NH)445,154395,213340,088301,053282,06669.74%65.12%59.45%50.03%40.91% –9.12%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)1,0311,2521,2741,3221,2770.16%0.21%0.22%0.22%0.19% –0.03%Asian alone (NH)6,63610,73415,03920,81833,1921.04%1.77%2.63%3.46%4.81% +1.35%Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH)xx273216349xx0.05%0.04%0.05% +0.01%Other race alone (NH)3,5898601,6701,4513,7530.56%0.14%0.29%0.24%0.54% +0.30%Mixed-race or multiracial (NH)xx9,58412,65029,485xx1.68%2.10%4.28% +2.18%Hispanic or Latino (any race)17,67932,71044,95354,75977,6522.77%5.39%7.86%9.10%11.26% +2.16%Total638,333606,900572,059601,723689,545100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00% n/a

Population Per the 2020 Census, the District's population was 689,545 residents, continuing a trend of population growth in the District since the 2000 Census, which recorded 572,059 residents. During the workweek, the number of commuters from the suburbs into the city swells the District's population by an estimated 71.8%, to a daytime population of over one million people. The Washington Metropolitan Area, which includes the surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia, is the eighth-largest in the United States, with more than five million residents. When combined with Baltimore and its suburbs, the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area has a population exceeding eight million residents, the fourth-largest in the country.

There were 281,475 households within the District in 2017. About 45% of those were householders living alone. There were also 119,357 family households; about 20% of homes had children under 18. Of those families with children, 56% were those headed by a married couple. The average household size was 2.32, and the average family size was 3.40.

Ethnic composition DC is also home to people of more than 170 nationalities and ethnic groups, making it one of the most diverse cities in the United States.

In 2007, an estimated 74,000 immigrants lived in the District of Columbia. Major sources of immigration have included El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, China, Jamaica, India, the U.K., the Dominican Republic, and the Philippines. A concentration of Salvadorans have settled in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. Wards 1 and 4 have the highest percentages of immigrants in the city, and the Brightwood neighborhood in Ward 4 has the highest percentage of immigrants of any neighborhood in D.C., with only 46 percent of residents being born in the United States.

African Americans D.C. has long been noted for its large, though declining, African-American population, who form a plurality of the city's population. Black Americans have officially been the District's largest racial group since the 1960 Census. In 1970, 71.1% of the population identified as Black, but in recent years the number of European Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos in the District has increased. Notable African American neighborhoods include, Shaw, LeDroit Park, Sixteenth Street Heights and Anacostia, among others. In general, African Americans show a strong concentration in areas east of Rock Creek park, notably so in the city's Northeast and Southeast quadrants.

The Black population in D.C. has been declining. Many Black residents in D.C. have moved back to Southern cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Birmingham, Memphis, San Antonio and Jackson. In recent decades, as traditional Black neighborhoods are affected by gentrification, many middle-class and professional African Americans have moved to the suburbs, mostly to Maryland (Prince George's County, Charles County, Montgomery County, and to a lesser extent Howard County and Frederick, Maryland) and Northern Virginia, aggravated by the rising cost of living in the area or low-performing public schools.Muhammad, Nisa Islam. "D.C. 'exodus' sparks district renewal efforts for Whites", The Final Call, June 21, 2007. Accessed June 25, 2007. In addition, a minority of African Americans are migrating to parts of the South, notably North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Florida in a New Great Migration because of family ties, retirement, and lower cost of living. Despite decline in the District, regional Black population growth continues due to robust migration from the Caribbean, Africa, and other parts of the United States. Notable contributory states are New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan.William H. Frey, "The New Great Migration: Black Americans' Return to the South, 1965-2000", May 2004, pp.1-4 , accessed 19 Mar 2008, The Brookings Institution

African immigrants

The metro DC area is the second-most popular destination for African immigrants, after New York City. More than 192,000 African-born people live in DC and nearby suburbs as of 2019, just shy of the 194,000 African-born in New York. This includes Nigerians with 19,600 residents, and Ghanaians with 18,400.(Washington Post, 10/1/14) By far, the largest concentration of Ethiopians in the United States are found in D.C. and the local metro area. Some conservative estimates put the number at around 75,000 residents. In contrast, other estimates are as high as 250,000 Ethiopians in DC and surrounding neighborhoods. So heavy is the concentration of Ethiopian restaurants and shops in central Washington, that a part of the Shaw neighborhood is known as "Little Ethiopia".