The neoclassical Lincoln Memorial stands at the west end of the National Mall on land created for the purpose by the McMillan Plan from the marshy coast of the Potomac River. Designed by Henry Bacon, and girthed by a peristyle of 38 fluted Doric columns, one for each of the thirty six states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death plus two columns in-antis at the entrance, the central hall holds a solitary figure of Lincoln sitting in contemplation, facing the rising sun. The statute was designed by American sculptor Daniel Chester French who describes his muse as Lincoln’s “simplicity, his grandeur, and his power."

Carved inscriptions of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and his Gettysburg Address as well as murals by Jules Guerin depicting the angel of truth freeing a slave and the Unity of North and South reside in the north and south chambers. A grand stair leads down to a long thin reflecting pool in which the Washington Monument can be seen.

Construction began in 1914, and President Warren G. Harding dedicated the Memorial on May 30, 1922. In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech from the Memorial’s steps.