Arlington National Cemetery, Military cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, United States
This military cemetery spans approximately 639 acres across hillside terrain in Virginia, containing over 400,000 gravesites of service members from conflicts including the Civil War, World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, and recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Arlington Estate was confiscated from Robert E. Lee's family after a tax dispute. In May 1864, after heavy Union losses at the Battle of the Wilderness, Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs had eligible sites reviewed and his staff found Arlington Estate the most suitable: high ground, free from floods that could unearth graves. The first burial, William Henry Christman, took place on 13 May 1864; Meigs formally authorized burials on 15 June 1864. The government bought the land at a tax sale for $26,800, and in 1883 Custis Lee sold it back after the Supreme Court ruled in his favour.
The cemetery holds about 27 to 30 funerals each weekday and six to eight on Saturdays, roughly 141 to 158 services a week. Its name comes from Arlington Estate, the confiscated Lee property on which it was built. Visitors can watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The cemetery operates daily from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with free admission for all visitors who can access the site via the Arlington Cemetery Metro station on the Blue Line or by vehicle at 1 Memorial Avenue with required identification for security screening.
President John F. Kennedy's gravesite features an eternal flame that has burned continuously since his funeral in 1963, while the ANC Explorer digital app allows visitors to locate specific graves and access historical information about individual service members throughout the grounds.
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