Talk:District of Columbia (geography)

A question that I've had for a long time that maybe someone here can answer for me: the U.S. Constitution authorizes a 10 square mile federal district. So why is it so much larger (61 square miles, according to the article)? Schmeitgeist 15:13, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Should the table of Wards and ANCs really be in this article? This is really more on DC internal politics than geography. -- BRG

"The area is 159 sq. km (98.5 sq. miles)." 98.5 sq. miles are 255 sq. km. Does anybody know, which figure is right?


 * Where did that come from? The article says 61 sq. miles (135 sq. km), which is correct...  In response to the first question, it wasn't "10 square miles", but a square with 10 mile sides.  It is less than 100 sq. miles because of the cession back to Virginia of what is now Arlington and Old Town Alexandria, and maybe some of it is due to the Potomac too...  I don't know how much is within DC's jurisdiction, or if the 61 sq mi area just includes land.  Postdlf 00:01, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * From Article I of the Constitution: "[Congress shall have the power to] exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States." Source To me, "ten Miles square" sounds like 10 square miles. Schmeitgeist 22:59, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * Ten miles square is different from 10 square miles. It means a square that is 10 miles on each side, which would be an area of 100 sq. mi. Each of the sides of D.C. is, in fact, 10 miles long, though the Virginia portion was retroceded in the 1840s so the total area is now significantly less than 100 mi&sup2;. --Polynova 06:15, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)


 * Archaic language is fun. Schmeitgeist 14:53, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Why merge with main article?
The main Washington, D.C. article is already 43KB, and this would seem to be one of the natural places to subdivide. -- choster 02:58, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)