Bethesda is located in central Maryland. It is a residential suburb northwest of Washington, D.C. Among the many federal and corporate headquarters here are the National Naval Medical Center, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Library of Medicine. Bethesda is named for an early church established here in the 1820s, which in turn was named for the biblical place of healing. A 2007 real estate survey has estimated the population of Bethesda, Maryland at 57,831.