Fort Washington, Maryland is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Prince George's County, Maryland in the suburbs of the capital city of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., south of the downtown district. Other communities such as Friendly, MD which have no post office, share zipcodes with Fort Washington.Fort Washington is the site of Fort Washington Park, which upon its completion was the only defensive fort protecting Washington D.C. The fort is a stone structure and offered a good field of range for cannon fire at enemy advances on the Potomac River. During the War of 1812, the Fort was quickly abandoned during a British advance. In 1844, a cannon exploded on the USS Princeton as it was passing Fort Washington.The very extensive park grounds with their Potomac River view and hiking paths are a scenic place for picnicking, fishing and outdoor recreation. (Admission is free to people entering after business hours and before sunset).Near the fort are many riverfront homes, two marinas, two community pools, and the Tantallon country club and golf course. The area was rural until about 1960 when suburban growth began and is continuing to grow, adding new, large family homes in small developments next to older existing developments. Until the founding of the Oxon Hill post office about 1960, the Fort Washington area generally used the mailing address Washington, D.C., except for the few years that Friendly had a post office. About 1980 the postal service split the Fort Washington area from Oxon Hill, defining it as a separate town name. At that time, to make mail sorting easier, they drew the boundary between the two communities to conform to already existing zip code boundaries. The end result sometimes confuses people, since the northern end of the Fort Washington postal area identifies more instead with the communities Oxon Hill or Temple Hills, MD / Camp Springs, MD but still uses a Fort Washington mailing address.The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) maintains the Harmony Hall Regional Center is also noteworthy, as is a large nursery/landscaping business and a popular motorcycle shop. There is a small 50-bed hospital (Fort Washington Hospital). Many highly successful African-Americans live in Fort Washington; there are also some Ethiopian residents and a large, long-established ethnic Filipino population.First-time visitors are often confused by Livingston Rd. which repeatedly crosses Route 210, as well as by the two separate "Old Fort Roads" causing them to make wrong turns off of Maryland Route 210. Eventually all roads intersecting Route 210 in the Fort Washington area (from the Beltway as far south as the highway 210 curve at Piscataway Creek) are planned for upgrading to controlled-access interchanges (eliminating all traffic signals).