The National Capital Parks (NCP) is a unit within the National Park System that encompasses a variety of federally owned properties in the District of Columbia and surrounding areas. These areas include monuments, memorials, public parks, historic sites, historic houses and interiors of traffic circles and squares. The origins of the lands controlled by the NCP can be traced to the Residence Act of 1790, which gave Congress the power to acquire lands as part of the city’s construction. In 1924, Congress created the National Capital Park Commission to acquire land in and around the District of Columbia for the purpose of preserving the sites of civil war battles, fortifications, and burial sites. In 1933, title and control of all parklands in the District of Columbia was transferred to the National Park Service, creating the NCP unit. The NCP was created by an executive order and not by explicit legislation. The order officially dissolved numerous commissions that controlled the various sites and consolidated their functions into the National Park Service. Today the NCP remains a formal unit of the National Park Service, but administration of the parklands has been divided into six administrative units.