Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
airport in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., United States
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (IATA: DCA, ICAO: KDCA, FAA LID: DCA) is a public airport in Arlington County, Virginia, United States, five miles (eight kilometers; four nautical miles) from Washington, D.C. The closest airport to the nation's capital, it is one of two airports owned by the federal government and operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) that serve the Washington metropolitan area; the other is Dulles International Airport (IAD), located about 25 miles (40 km; 22 nmi) to the west in Fairfax and Loudoun counties.
The airport opened 85 years ago in 1941 as Washington National Airport. Part of the original terminal is still in use as Terminal 1; the much larger Terminal 2 opened in 1997. In 1998, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed a bill renaming the airport to honor the fortieth president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, who was in office from 1981 to 1989.
Reagan National serves 108 nonstop destinations as of May 2026. It is a hub for American Airlines. The airport hosts international flights, but has no immigration and customs facilities, restricting routes to those with U.S. Customs and Border Protection preclearance facilities, primarily major airports in Canada and the Caribbean. Reagan National is also home to Coast Guard Air Station Washington.
The twenty-seventh busiest airport in the U.S., the busiest airport in the Washington metropolitan area, and the second busiest in the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area, the airport served 26.29 million passengers in 2024, an increase of 3.3% over a record set in 2023. The airport's main runway is the busiest in the nation.
The public source identifies “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport” as airport in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ronald, Reagan and Washington.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport”, the useful work is to connect “airport in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q676576. VIAF identifies the subject as 130502544. The Library of Congress control number is no98068122. Authority coordinates are 38.854, -77.042. 6 of 17 selected statements include explicit references; 15 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1997, 1998 and 1981.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport primary sources, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport archive and Ronald research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.