Foggy Bottom is one of the oldest late 18th- and 19th-century neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. Foggy Bottom is west of the White House and downtown Washington, in the Northwest quadrant, bounded roughly by 17th Street to the east, Rock Creek Parkway to the west, Constitution Avenue to the south, and Pennsylvania Avenue to the north. Much of Foggy Bottom is occupied by the main campus of the George Washington University (GW). Foggy Bottom is thought to have received its name due to its riverside location, which made it susceptible to concentrations of fog and industrial smoke, an atmospheric quirk.

The United States Department of State gained the metonym "Foggy Bottom"[1] when it moved its headquarters to the nearby Harry S Truman Building, originally planned and constructed to be the new United States Department of War headquarters building,[2] from the State, War, and Navy Building (now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) near the White House in 1947.