5EN The peculiarities of WASHINGTON District of Columbia,the capital of the United States of America

The boundaries of Washington, District of Columbia, the federal capital of the United States of America, follow the shapes of a square. In this talk, we will explain the origins of this unusual shape.
On July 4, 1776, in the midst of the war of independence against the Kingdom of Great Britain, 13 American colonies declared their independence and officially became the "United States of America".
These 13 colonies are called Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode-Island, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and extend over nearly 2,000 kilometers from north to south, along the Atlantic Ocean, and east of the Appalachian Mountains.
With the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty in September 1783, after 8 years of war, Great Britain officially recognized the independence of the United States of America.
A constituent convention, made up of representatives from the 13 former colonies, meets in Philadelphia to write a Constitution. This was ratified in 1788 after the agreement of the various states with the exception of the states of North Carolina and Rhode-Island.
Each state designated electors who, in turn, were to elect the new president. In February 1789, these electors chose George Washington as the first President of the United States. The first Congress elected under the Constitution met in New York in March, and George Washington took office at the end of April after being sworn in in New York.
Between 1774 and 1800, the United States Congress met in several places, most often in Philadelphia, but also, among others, in Baltimore, York, Lancaster, Princeton, Annapolis, or New York, the first years to outwit the British troops. The presidency and government did not move to Washington until 1800, 17 years after independence was won. In addition to the executive, the legislative (with Congress) and judicial (with the Supreme Court) powers reinforced the new federal power installed in Washington DC.
George Washington, the first president whose second presidential term ended in March 1797, died a few weeks before the installation of the capital in Washington DC, and he will not have taken advantage of the proximity between his property of Mount Vernon and the site of the capital.
The choice of the location of the federal administration was the subject of multiple negotiations on the part of the different states, with the states of the south opposed to the states of the north, each wishing to defend their own interests. The search for a consensus on a point of agreement was long and spread over many years. It stirred up rivalries between the cities.
Candidates from New York or Boston suffer from their remoteness from the southern states, at a time when travel times are long.
Finally, the Congress voted for a compromise, and the Act of Residence of July 16, 1790 fixed the location of the territory of the future capital according to the following criteria:
• A territory not exceeding 10 miles per side,
• On the banks of the Potomac River,
• Between its tributaries the Anacostia (named “East branch” in the deed) and the Conococheague (named “Connogocheague” in the deed), both on the left bank of the Potomac, in the territory of Maryland, either on a slider about sixty miles long, or on the order of nearly 100 kilometers.
This act also provides:
• That it is up to the President to choose the final location of the territory on which the capital is to be erected,
• That the President must do everything possible so that the Government and the Congress can settle in their new buildings in Washington DC on December 1, 1800,
• And that, in the interim, the government and Congress will sit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for a period of 10 years.

This 10-year deadline was set for two main reasons:
• Philadelphia was a very serious suitor with solid arguments to make to obtain the installation of the capital. This transitional period was seen as a kind of compensation.
• On the other hand, the new capital had to be built ex nihilo, and a delay of 10 years was not a luxury.
It should be noted that this law was passed narrowly, with a very narrow majority, both in the Senate (by 14 votes against 12), and in the House of Representatives (by 31 votes against 29).
As we have just noted, the choice of the precise location of the territory was left to the final judgment of George Washington (1732-1799), the first president of the United States, since April 1789.
Originally from Virginia, and owner of a plantation on the banks of the Potomac less than 25 kilometers downstream from the planned location of the future capital, George Washington knows the region perfectly well.
His choice fell on a territory of a square shape with sides 10 miles (or 16 kilometers) long, the angles of which are directed north, east, south and west with respect to at its center, encompassing the existing cities of Georgetown (in Maryland) and Alexandria ...