Get to know Great Falls

It won’t come as a surprise to learn Great Falls is named for its most famous landmark: a cascading rock waterfall on the Potomac River, which is also the namesake of its adjacent 800-acre national park. Located in northwest Fairfax County near Dulles Airport, this scenic suburb of Washington, D.C., is primarily composed of single-family homes on large lots, with no condominiums or townhouses to be found. At the heart of Great Falls is Village Centre, a lively assemblage of shops, restaurants, and craft studios hosting concerts on the green and seasonal programming year-round. The area boasts an abundance of horseback riding trails, including Turner Farm Equestrian Park. All this tranquility comes with a catch: There are no major highways in Great Falls, though they’re reachable down two bucolic country roads. But if you value the solace of rolling wide-open spaces, it’s more than worth the effort.

Nearby Neighborhoods:

Living in the Washington Metropolitan Area

The Washington Metropolitan Area starts with the District of Columbia proper and radiates out to the inner suburbs of Virginia and Maryland and stretches all the way to the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Colloquially, many locals refer to the region as the DMV, an abbreviation for D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, but will often just say they live in D.C. when they technically have an address in one of the states. Each town has its own specific atmosphere and residents — even the newly transplanted — often display fierce loyalty to their own suburb of choice. Generally, towns that are closer to D.C., especially those inside the Beltway, have more access to public transportation and more pedestrian-friendly downtowns, while towns on the far reaches of the metropolitan area like Charles Town, West Virginia, will have a more rural feel and fewer daily commuters to D.C. and its immediate environs.