Germantown, Montgomery County, Maryland
Encyclopedia
Demographics
As of the census of 2010, there were 86,395 people, and 30,531 households residing in the area. The population density was 7,999.5 people per square mile (3,096.6/km²). There were 31,807 housing units at an average density of 2,001.9 per square mile (773.2/km²). The racial makeup of the area was 62.20% White, 19.13% African American, 0.34% Native American, 9.84% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 4.22% from other races, and 4.20% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 10.21% of the population.There were 20,893 households out of which 41.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.8% were married couples living together, 13.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.4% were non-families. 23.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 1.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.65 and the average family size was 3.19.
In the area, the population was spread out with 28.9% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 43.0% from 25 to 44, 17.3% from 45 to 64, and 3.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 94.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.6 males.
The median income for a household in the area was $71,226, and the median income for a family was $81,461 as of a 2007 estimate. Males had a median income of $46,039 versus $37,237 for females. The per capita income for the area was $26,709. 4.6% of the population and 3.5% of families were below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 5.9% are under the age of 18 and 9.9% are 65 or older. The largest families range from 8 to 12 people.
Education
Public schools in Germantown are part of the Montgomery County Public SchoolsMontgomery County Public Schools
Montgomery County Public Schools ' is a school district that serves Montgomery County, Maryland, USA. It is the largest school district in Maryland. As of the 2009–2010 school year, the district had 11,500 FTE teachers serving 141,777 students at 200 schools.Students in the district score among the...
system.
- Elementary schools: Cedar Grove Elementary School, Clopper Mill Elementary School, Fox Chapel Elementary School, Germantown Elementary School, Great Seneca Creek Elementary School, Captain James E. Daly Jr. Elementary School, Lake Seneca Elementary School, Ronald McNair Elementary School, Sally K. Ride Elementary School, Spark Matsunaga Elementary School, S. Christa McAuliffe Elementary School, Waters Landing Elementary School, and William B. Gibbs, Jr. Elementary School
- Middle schoolMiddle schoolMiddle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
s: Kingsview Middle SchoolKingsview Middle SchoolKingsview Middle School is a public school for students in grades 6, 7 and 8 located in Germantown, Maryland, an unincorporated area in Montgomery County. The school was established in 1997 and is part of the Northwest High School cluster. Kingsview draws students from Spark M. Matsunaga, Great...
, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, Neelsville Middle School, and Roberto Clemente Middle School - High schools: Northwest High SchoolNorthwest High School (Montgomery County, Maryland)Northwest High School is a public high school in unincorporated Germantown, Maryland.-History:Northwest is part of the Montgomery County Public Schools. As of 2006, its enrollment was over 2,000 students. It is one of two high schools in Germantown, the other being Seneca Valley High School, with...
, and Seneca Valley High SchoolSeneca Valley High SchoolSeneca Valley High School is a public high school in Germantown, Maryland, United States. It is part of the Montgomery County Public Schools...
.
Montgomery College
Montgomery College
Montgomery College is a public, open access community college located in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. in the United States. The college has three campuses, the largest of which is in Rockville; the other campuses are in Takoma Park/Silver Spring and Germantown...
, the largest higher education institution in Montgomery County, has a campus in Germantown.
Transportation
Germantown is bisectedBisection
In geometry, bisection is the division of something into two equal or congruent parts, usually by a line, which is then called a bisector. The most often considered types of bisectors are the segment bisector and the angle bisector In geometry, bisection is the division of something into two equal...
by Interstate 270
Interstate 270 (Maryland)
Interstate 270 is a auxiliary Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of Maryland that travels between Interstate 495 just north of Bethesda, Montgomery County and Interstate 70 in the city of Frederick in Frederick County. It consists of the mainline as well as a spur that provides access to and...
and has a station
Germantown (MARC station)
Germantown is a passenger rail station on the MARC Brunswick Line between Washington, D.C. and Martinsburg, WV . It is one of the busiest stations on the Brunswick Line along with Silver Spring and Rockville stations. All Brunswick Line trains, except a single express to Martinsburg, WV, stop at...
on the MARC train
MARC Train
MARC , known prior to 1984 as Maryland Rail Commuter Service, is a regional rail system comprising three lines in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. MARC is administered by the Maryland Transit Administration , a Maryland Department of Transportation agency, and is operated under contract...
commuter service's Brunswick Line, which operates over CSX's Metropolitan Subdivision. The station building itself, at the corner of Liberty Mill Road and Mateny Hill Road, is a copy of the original 1891 structure designed by E. Francis Baldwin
Ephraim Francis Baldwin
Ephraim Francis Baldwin was an American architect, best known for his work for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and for the Roman Catholic Church.-Personal life:...
for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which...
. The current building was rebuilt after it was burned down by arson in 1978.
The Montgomery County public bus system, Ride On
Ride On (bus)
Ride On is the primary public transportation system in Montgomery County, Maryland. Ride On serves Montgomery County as well as the community of Langley Park in Prince George's County...
, serves Germantown with approximately 20 bus routes and operates a major transit hub in Germantown, known as the Germantown Transit Center. Also, a light rail system (the Corridor Cities Transitway
Corridor Cities Transitway
The Corridor Cities Transitway is a proposed light rail or bus rapid transit line in Maryland, USA, that would run from the Shady Grove Metro station in Gaithersburg northwest to Clarksburg...
) is under evaluation which would, when completed, connect the terminal of the Washington Metro Red Line
Red Line (Washington Metro)
The Red Line of the Washington Metro is a rail rapid transit service operating between 27 stations in Montgomery County, Maryland and the District of Columbia, United States. It is a primary line through downtown Washington, and the oldest and busiest line in the system...
at Shady Grove Station
Shady Grove (Washington Metro)
Shady Grove is an island platformed Washington Metro station in Derwood, Maryland, United States. The station was opened on December 15, 1984, and is operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority . Serving as the northwestern terminus of the Red Line, it is the station most distant...
near Gaithersburg to Germantown and continue on northward to Clarksburg
Clarksburg, Maryland
Clarksburg is a census-designated place and an unincorporated area in Northern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, located along the Interstate 270 technology corridor about 4 miles north of Germantown, MD. As of Census 2010 its population is 13,766....
.
Music and Arts
The BlackRock Center for the ArtsBlackRock Center for the Arts
The BlackRock Center for the Arts is an arts and cultural center in Germantown, Maryland. The center became possible when the developer of the Germantown Town Center donated land for the facility...
is located in the Germantown Town Center. BlackRock also sponsors Montgomery County's largest non-profit event, the Germantown Oktoberfest. The festival includes various genres of music, including traditional German folk, rock and pop.
Popular culture
- Germantown is featured in several episodes of the television series, The X-FilesThe X-FilesThe X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
.
- Germantown is featured in the 2008 video game, Fallout 3Fallout 3Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game released by Bethesda Game Studios, and the third major installment in the Fallout series. The game was released in North America, Europe and Australia in October 2008, and in Japan in December 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360...
.
Telecommunications and technology
- Earth Networks, Inc. (formerly known as AWS Convergence Technologies)/WeatherBugWeatherBugWeatherBug is a brand owned by Earth Networks, Ask.com and IAC/InterActiveCorp based in Germantown, Maryland, that provides live weather data and maintains continuously monitored weather stations throughout the United States, mainly located at public and private schools, educational institutions...
- Availink, Inc.
- DRT
- Hughes Network Systems
- Proxy Aviation Systems
Sports
- Maryland SoccerPlexMaryland SoccerPlexMaryland Soccerplex is a sports complex in Germantown, Maryland, United States . There are nineteen natural grass fields, three artificial fields, and eight indoor courts...
- Former home of the Washington FreedomWashington FreedomThe Washington Freedom was an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Germantown, Maryland that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The Freedom was originally founded in 2001 as a member of the defunct Women's United Soccer Association. Since 2004, the...
of Women's Professional SoccerWomen's Professional SoccerWomen's Professional Soccer is the top level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded 6 teams for the 2011 season, with continued plans for future expansion...
(WPS) (now the Boca Raton magicJack)
- Former home of the Washington Freedom
Persons of note
- Wernher von BraunWernher von BraunWernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
, rocket scientist, worked at Fairchild on Century Blvd from July 1972 to December 1976. - Gina SchockGina SchockGina Schock is best known as the drummer in the all-girl punk/pop band The Go-Go's....
, of the new waveNew Wave musicNew Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
band The Go-Go'sThe Go-Go'sThe Go-Go’s are an all-female American rock band formed in 1978. They made history as the first all-female band that both wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to top the Billboard album charts.... - Mark BryanMark BryanMark Bryan is the lead guitarist for the band Hootie & the Blowfish. He also plays the mandolin, among numerous other instruments, and helps with background vocals....
and Dean Felber of the pop rockPop rockPop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
band Hootie and the Blowfish - Rufus Buck, renowned folk singerFolk musicFolk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
- ClutchClutch (band)Clutch is an American rock band from Germantown, Maryland, formed in 1990. The band's first release was an EP entitled Pitchfork, which debuted in October 1990. Their first studio album, Transnational Speedway League, was released three years later in 1993. To date, Clutch has released nine studio...
, hard rockHard rockHard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
band - Walter JohnsonWalter JohnsonWalter Perry Johnson , nicknamed "Barney" and "The Big Train", was a Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Washington Senators...
, pitcherPitcherIn baseball, the pitcher is the player who throwsthe baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the...
, Washington SenatorsMinnesota TwinsThe Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the... - Frank Warren, founder of PostSecretPostSecretPostSecret is an ongoing community mail art project, created by Frank Warren, in which people mail their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard...
- Danny HeaterDanny HeaterDanny Heater is an American record holder for the highest single game scoring performance by one player in high school basketball history worldwide....
, high school basketball single game scoring record holder - Juliet Lee, professional competitive eater
- Bobby Worrest, professional skateboarder
External links
- History of Germantown from Germantown Historical Society
- Hybrid satellite image/street map from WikiMapia