Bethesda is a census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, just northwest of the United States capital of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda. (In Aramaic, ܒܝܬ ܚܣܕܐ beth ḥesda means "House of Mercy" and in Hebrew, בית חסד "beit ḥesed" means "House of Kindness".) The National Institutes of Health main campus and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center are in Bethesda, as are a number of corporate and government headquarters.