Which city was the U.S. capital when George Washington was inaugurated in 1789?
Answer
New York City
New York City was the U.S. capital when George Washington was inaugurated in 1789.
Washington took the presidential oath on April 30, 1789, at Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan. Federal Hall housed the First United States Congress and served as the seat of the new federal government under the Constitution.
New York was the nation’s capital from 1785 until 1790. The federal government then moved to Philadelphia for a decade while a permanent capital was developed on the Potomac River.
Washington, D.C., became the permanent national capital later, but it was not the capital during Washington’s first inauguration. Philadelphia had also served as a major revolutionary and early national center, which can cause confusion about the sequence of capitals.