The Pentagon

The Pentagon, the five-sided headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington, Virginia. Completed in 1943, it covers an area of 11.74 hectares (29 acres) and is one of the largest office buildings in the world. The name is also popularly applied to the Department of Defense itself.

The Pentagon was built to bring all of the offices of what was then the Department of War together in one building. It now contains the offices for the departments of the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. It employs about 23,000 workers, who are almost equally divided between military personnel and civilians. It also houses a shopping centre, a large food-service area, bus and taxi terminals, and a heliport.

A section of the Pentagon was destroyed on September 11, 2001 when a hijacked American Airlines jet crashed into the building, killing nearly 200 people including all 64 aboard the aeroplane, in an incident that formed part of the terrorist action—the worst in US history—that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York.