United States · District of Columbia · Washington
Georgetown, Washington — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Georgetown is the oldest neighborhood in Washington, standing on the north bank of the Potomac at the city's northwest edge. It was founded in 1751. That makes it older than the federal district around it, which was laid out four decades later. M Street and Wisconsin Avenue cross at its core, while Georgetown University and the gardens of Dumbarton Oaks hold its western and northern edges.
About Georgetown
Where to stay in Georgetown
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Staying in Georgetown means walking to shops, restaurants, and the river rather than to the monuments. Most hotels sit along M Street and near the waterfront at the foot of Wisconsin Avenue, within a short walk of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath and Georgetown University. The character is low-rise and quiet.
The Mall memorials and the Smithsonian museums lie a ride to the southeast, so a visitor set on early monument mornings might choose a base nearer downtown. Everyone else trades quick monument access for river views and brick-lined blocks.
About Georgetown
What are the main landmarks in Georgetown?
The neighborhood's own landmark is Dumbarton Oaks, a historic estate in its northern blocks whose gardens and museum surround the mansion where diplomats drafted plans for the United Nations in 1944. Two more sit just outside it. Number One Observatory Circle, the vice president's residence, stands just northwest of the neighborhood, and the Kreeger Museum lies west of it in the Foxhall area.
The memorials most visitors come for lie elsewhere. The Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Korean War Veterans Memorial all sit on the National Mall to the southeast, a short trip beyond Rock Creek.
What is the history of Georgetown?
Georgetown began in 1751 as a tobacco port on the Potomac, laid out four decades before the capital that grew up beside it. Ships loaded here at the head of navigation on the river. In 1789 the Jesuits founded Georgetown University above the town, the oldest Catholic university in the country.
The port later faded. Georgetown kept its own municipal government until 1871, when Congress folded it into the surrounding city of Washington.
Where is Georgetown?
The neighborhood fills Washington's far northwest corner. Its southern edge is the Potomac River, while Rock Creek walls it off from Foggy Bottom and downtown to the east. Wisconsin Avenue runs north from the waterfront and crosses M Street near the river, marking the commercial core.
West of the core, the Francis Scott Key Bridge crosses the Potomac to Rosslyn in Arlington, and Georgetown University closes the neighborhood's upstream end.
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Updated July 2026