is home to the tallest high-rises in the region, partly due to
the District's height restrictions. As a result, many of the region's tallest buildings are located outside of Washington, D.C. The Washington metropolitan area has the largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation in 2006 according to the Greater Washington Initiative at 324,530, ahead of the combined
San Francisco Bay Area work force of 214,500, and
Chicago metropolitan area at 203,090, citing data from U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Claritas Inc., and other sources. Fueling the metropolitan area's ranking was the reported 241,264 tech jobs in the region, a total eclipsed only by
New York,
Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the highest master's or doctoral degree attainment among the 100 ranked metropolitan areas. In 2020, the total
gross domestic product for the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
(MSA) was $561,027,941,000.
Real estate and housing market Changes in
house prices for the Washington metropolitan area are publicly tracked on a regular basis using the
Case–Shiller index; the statistic is published by
Standard & Poor's and is also a component of S&P's 10-city
composite index of the value of the U.S. residential real estate market.
McLean ZIP code 22102 had the highest median home prices among ZIP codes within the Washington metropolitan area as of 2013.
Net worth, wealth disparities, and business ownership restaurants and shops at the
Eden Center in
Falls Church, Virginia The economy of the Washington metropolitan region is characterized by significant
wealth disparities, which were heightened by the
Great Recession and the
2007–09 housing crisis, which adversely affected black and Hispanic households more than other households. A 2016
Urban Institute report found that the median net worth (i.e., assets minus debt) for white households in the D.C. region was $284,000, while the median net worth for HispanicLatino households was $13,000, and for
African American households as $3,500. Additionally, many biotechnology companies such as
United Therapeutics,
Novavax,
Emergent BioSolutions,
Parabon NanoLabs and
MedImmune have headquarters in the region. The area is also home to branch offices of many
contract research organizations. Firms with a presence in the area include
Fortrea,
IQVIA,
Charles River Laboratories, and
ICON plc. The area's medical research is driven by government and non-profit health institutions, such as the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
J. Craig Venter Institute, and the
National Institutes of Health.
Consumer goods Local consumer goods companies include
Nestle USA and
Mars, Incorporated.
Defense contracting in
Arlington. Many defense contractors are based in the region to be close to
the Pentagon in Arlington. Local defense contractors include
Lockheed Martin, the largest, as well as
General Dynamics,
BAE Systems Inc.,
Northrop Grumman,
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC),
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC),
CACI,
ManTech International,
DynCorp, and
Leidos.
Hospitality The Washington metropolitan area contains the headquarters of numerous companies in the hospitality and hotel industries. Major companies with headquarters in the region include
Marriott International,
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company,
Hilton Worldwide,
Park Hotels and Resorts,
Choice Hotels,
Host Hotels and Resorts, and
HMSHost.
Mass media is where
The Washington Post is headquartered. The media industry is a significant portion of metropolitan Washington's economy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Washington DC region has the second largest concentration of journalists and media personnel in the United States after the
New York metropolitan area. Washington's industry presence includes major publications with national audiences such as
The Washington Post,
U.S. News & World Report, and
USA Today, as well as new media publishers such as
Vox Media,
RealClearPolitics,
Axios, and
Politico. A secondary portion of this market is made up of periodicals such as
National Affairs, those by
The Slate Group,
Foreign Policy,
National Geographic,
The American Prospect, and those by
Atlantic Media, including
The Atlantic. There are also many smaller regional publications present, such as
The Washington Diplomat,
The Hill, Hill Rag,
Roll Call,
Washington City Paper and the
Washington Examiner.
Telecommunications Anchored by the
Dulles Technology Corridor, the telecommunications and tech industry in DC spans a diverse range of players across internet infrastructure, broadcasting, satellite communications, and datacenters. Firms headquartered in the area include
Cogent Communications,
GTT Communications,
Hughes Network Systems,
iCore Networks,
Iridium Communications,
Intelsat,
Ligado Networks,
NII Holdings,
Oceus Networks,
OneWeb,
Tegna Inc.,
Transaction Network Services,
Verisign,
WorldCell, and
XO Communications.
Tourism in
Arlington County is a major tourist attraction. Tourism is a significant industry in the Washington metropolitan region. In 2015, more than 74,000 tourism-sector jobs existed in the District of Columbia, a record-setting 19.3 million domestic tourists visited the city, and domestic and international tourists combined spent $7.1 billion. The convention industry is also significant; in 2016, D.C. hosted fifteen "city-wide conventions" with an estimated total economic impact of $277.9 million. A 2016
National Park Service report estimated that there were 56 million visitors to national parks in the National Capital Region, sustaining 16,917 and generating close to $1.6 billion in economy impact.
Largest companies in
Tysons, the tallest building in the region and centerpiece of the headquarters campus for
Capital One in
Bethesda, Maryland Most of the following companies are located along
Interstate 66 and
Dulles Toll Road from Washington, D.C. to
Dulles International Airport.
Amazon is dual-headquartered in
Seattle and
secondarily in Arlington.
History headquarters in
Fort Belvoir The
2005 Base Realignment and Closure resulted in a significant shuffling of military, civilian, and defense contractor employees in the Washington metropolitan area. The largest individual site impacts of the time are as follows: •
Fort Belvoir gained 11,858 employees, primarily as a result of the relocation of the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) into a massive new headquarters within the fort. •
Fort Meade gained 5,361 employees, primarily as a result of the expansion of the
National Security Agency. •
Walter Reed Army Medical Center lost 5,630 employees as part of its realignment. It was later closed and consolidated into
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. BRAC 2005 was the largest infrastructure expansion by the
Army Corps of Engineers since
World War II, resulting in the
Mark Center, tallest building they have ever constructed, as well as
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Campus East, which at 2.4 million square feet is the largest building the Corps have constructed since the
Pentagon. ==Transportation==