District of Columbia
District of Columbia Culture & Language
Culture
Two populations share the District. The federal one is transient and turns over with each administration; the local one is long-established, historically Black-majority, and the source of a culture that owes nothing to government.
Go-go, a percussion-driven funk built for live performance, was created here in the 1970s and is the District's official music. Howard University has been a centre of Black intellectual life since 1867.
The District has the largest Ethiopian population in the world outside Ethiopia, and the restaurants around Ninth Street are a genuine part of the city.
Taxation without representation is printed on the licence plates by law. It is a standing political statement rather than a slogan.
Language Basics
English is the working language and no visitor needs another.
Spanish is the most widely spoken second language, concentrated in Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant, and District agencies publish in it as a matter of routine.
Amharic is unusually present for a US city, reflecting the size of the Ethiopian community, and appears on shopfronts around Ninth Street.
Local usage worth knowing: the city is D.C. or the District, rarely "Washington" on its own, which locals reserve for the state. Addresses end in a quadrant — NW, NE, SW, SE — and leaving it off will send you to the wrong side of the city, because the same street numbers repeat in all four.