Gaithersburg is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland. As of 2005, the city had an estimated total population of 57,698, making it the fourth largest in the state behind Baltimore, Rockville, and Frederick. This city is located at 39°8' North, 77°13' West, to the northwest of Rockville, the county seat of Montgomery County. Gaithersburg was incorporated in 1878.

Gaithersburg is urbanistically diverse, encompassing a historic Old Town, multiple new urban communities, high-rise apartments, and many suburban subdivisions.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is headquartered in Gaithersburg. Other major employers in the city include IBM, ACE*COMM, Lockheed Martin Information Systems and Global Services business area headquarters, MedImmune (recently purchased by AstraZeneca), and Sodexo.

The city is also the location of the 220th Military Police Brigade of the United States Army Reserve.

History

Gaithersburg began in 1765 as a small agricultural settlement known as Log Town, gaining the name Gaithersburg a few years later. In 1850, the post office was named "Forest Oak". In 1873 the B&O Railroad constructed a station at Gaithersburg, designed by Ephraim Francis Baldwin as part of his well-known series of Victorian stations in Maryland. Rapid growth occurred shortly thereafter, and on April 5, 1878 the town was officially incorporated as the City of Gaithersburg.

In 1899, Gaithersburg was selected as one of six global locations for the construction of an International Latitude Observatory as part of a project to measure the earth's wobble on its polar axis. The Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory is (as of 2007) the only National Historic Landmark in the City of Gaithersburg. The observatory and five others in Japan, Italy, Russia, and the United States gathered information that is still used by scientists today, along with information from satellites, to determine polar motion; the size, shape, and physical properties of the earth; and to aid the space program through the precise navigational patterns of orbiting satellites. The Gaithersburg station operated until 1982 when computerization rendered the manual observation obsolete.

Geography

Gaithersburg is located at 39°7'55" North, 77°13'35" West (39.131974, -77.226428)GR: 1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.2 square miles (26.3 km²), of which, 10.1 square miles (26.1 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.2 km²) of it is water. The total area is 0.69% water.

Demographics

As of the censusGR: 2 of 2000, there were 52,613 people, 19,621 households, and 12,577 families residing in the city. The population density was 5,216.2 people per square mile (2,013.3/km²). There were 20,674 housing units at an average density of 2,049.7/sq mi (791.1/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 58.2% White, 15% Black or African American, 0.4% Native American, 13.8% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 8.6 from other races, and 4.4% from two or more races. 19.8% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 34.3% of Gaithersburg's population was foreign-born.