Washington’s streets are organized in a scheme of broad diagonal avenues overlain on a grid of wide north-south- and east-west-trending streets. Thus, an orderly web of wide tree-lined avenues creates great vistas and leads both to powerful focal points and open public spaces.

In most of the city, the streets are set out in a grid pattern with east–west streets named with letters (e.g., C Street SW) and north–south streets with numbers (e.g., 4th Street NW).

The Washington, DC street grid is divided into four quadrants. The center of the grid is the Capitol building. From there, the street running directly to the north is called North Capitol Street. Directly to the east is East Capitol Street. Directly to the south is South Capitol Street.

The streets that emanate from the Capitol building run in a grid pattern; avenues were placed on angles according to geometric divides. Two sets of streets running north-south are numbered, and two sets of streets running east-west are lettered. One set of numbered streets starts east of the Capitol, and the other to the west.

From this great building radiate the axes of Washington. North and South Capitol Streets form the north-south axis; East Capitol Street and the National Mall form the east-west axis. These axes divide the quadrants. The axes also provide the basis for the naming and numbering systems.