Silver Spring is an unincorporated area, census-designated place, and edge city inside the Capital Beltway, near Washington, D.C., in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. The urbanized, oldest, and southernmost part of Silver Spring is a major business hub that lies at the north apex of Washington, D.C. As of 2004, this 360-acre (145.7 ha) central business district (CBD) held 7,254,729 square feet (673,986 m2) of office space, 5216 dwelling units, and 17.6 acres (7.1 ha) of parkland. The population density of Silver Spring’s CBD was 15,600 people per square mile. The community has undergone a significant renaissance, with the addition of major retail, residential, and office developments. Silver Spring takes its name from a mica-flecked spring discovered there in 1840, by Francis Preston Blair, who subsequently bought much of the surrounding land. Acorn Park, tucked away in an area of south Silver Spring away from the main downtown area, is believed to be the site of the original spring.
Silver Spring’s notable landmarks include the AFI Silver Theatre, the world headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration, and the national headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Silver Spring is served by a county-wide public school system, Montgomery County Public Schools. Of the public high schools in the region, prior to 2010, Montgomery Blair High School was the only one within the census-designated place of Silver Spring. It is nationally recognized for its Communication Arts Program and its Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program, the latter of which perennially produces a large number of finalists and semi-finalists in such academic competitions as the Intel Science Talent Search.