Federal district

A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, under the direct control of a federal government. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they exist in states and countries worldwide.

United States

The seat of the U.S. federal government in Washington, D.C. is a federal district known as the "District of Columbia", which is not part of any U.S. state. Other federally administered areas that are within a state, but not under its jurisdiction are called federal enclaves. In main addition, the U.S. government has several other kinds of "federal districts" which are not specifically related to a capital city:

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as "Washington", "the District", or simply "D.C.", is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. The U.S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state.

The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria. Named in honor of George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the District.

Washington had an estimated population of 672,228 as of July 2015. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the seventh-largest metropolitan statistical area in the country.

Federal District (Brazil)

The Federal District (Portuguese: Distrito Federal; Portuguese pronunciation: [dʒiʃˈtɾitu fedeˈɾaw]) is one of 27 federative units of Brazil. Located in the Central Plateau of the Brazilian Highlands, the Federal District is divided into 31 administrative regions, and contains the Brazilian capital city, Brasília, which is also the seat of government of the Federal District. The capital — the seat of the three branches of the federal government of Brazil (legislative, executive and the judiciary) — is the main attraction of this dry area, whose climate has only two seasons. During the dry season (winter), the humidity can reach critical levels, mainly in the peak hours of the hottest days. The artificial Paranoá Lake, with almost 40 km² (15 sq mi) and 500 million cubic metres (410,000 acre·ft) of water, was built to minimize the severe dry, climatic conditions of winter in the Cerrado vegetation.

History

The capital of Brazil was transferred from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília on April 21, 1960, which its new territory was then split off from Goiás. After the transfer, the old Federal District (1891-1960) became the Guanabara State (Estado da Guanabara), which existed from 1960 until 1975 when Guanabara State and Rio de Janeiro State (Estado do Rio de Janeiro) merged and assumed the name Rio de Janeiro State, having as capital the city of Rio de Janeiro.