Washington Metropolitan Area

The Washington metropolitan area is the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The area includes all of the federal district and parts of the U.S. states of Maryland and Virginia, along with a small portion of West Virginia.The Washington metropolitan area is one of the most educated and most affluent metropolitan areas in the United States. The metro area anchors the southern end of the densely populated Northeast megalopolis, with an estimated total population of 6,097,684, making it the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the country and largest metropolitan area in the Census Bureau's Southeast region.NomenclatureThe U.S. Office of Management and Budget defines the area as the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV metropolitan statistical area, a metropolitan statistical area used for statistical purposes by the United States Census Bureau and other agencies. The region's three largest cities are the federal territory of Washington, D.C., the county (and Census-designated place) of Arlington, and the independent city of Alexandria. The Office of Management and Budget also includes the metropolitan statistical area as part of the larger Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area, which has a population of 9,546,579 as of the 2014 Census Estimate.