Washington Dulles International Airport (IATA: IAD, ICAO: KIAD, FAA LID: IAD) is a public airport in Dulles, Virginia. It is 26 miles (42 km) west of Washington, D.C. The airport serves the Baltimore-Washington DC-Northern Virginia metropolitan area and the District of Columbia. It is named after John Foster Dulles. He was the Secretary of State under Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Dulles main terminal is a well-known landmark it was designed by Eero Saarinen. The airport is run by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Dulles Airport covers an area of 11,830 acres (47.9 km2). It is on the border of Fairfax County and Loudoun County, Virginia.
Dulles lies in two unincorporated communities, Chantilly and Dulles. It is west of Herndon and southwest of Sterling. Washington Dulles Airport is the largest airport in the Washington metropolitan area. It is one of the nation's busiest airports. The airport has over 23 million passengers a year. Daily, more than 60,000 passengers leave Washington Dulles to more than 125 destinations around the world. Dulles is the busiest airport in Virginia. It is also the busiest in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area.
At the end of World War II, growth in aviation and in the Washington metropolitan area caused Congress to pass the Washington Airport Act of 1950. This provided the money for a second airport. The location was selected by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958.