Where was The West Wing shot?

Question

Where was the series 'The West Wing' shot ?

Was it a replica set of the White House made elsewhere?

And episodes where they show the presidential motorcade traveling through Times Square in NYC and in Washington, DC, how were those set up?

Answer 1

Per Quora

The West Wing, the NBC White House-based drama was filmed primarily on sound stages in Burbank, California with exterior shots and some B-roll being filmed in the Washington D.C. metro area and also with some additional exterior filming in Canada and Los Angeles in areas which resembled D.C.

Like the majority of television productions, since The West Wing was primarily set indoors, several stages were built to film the show on and they were dressed and struck as the episodes required to be. For reasons of budget constraints, few scenes involving characters were filmed in Washington D.C. and Toronto and Los Angeles Basin exteriors often stood in for the D.C. metro area as a result.

As for motorcades, closing streets is common for movies and cities are often happy to do it. Then it's a matter of CGi or clever camera angles to mask / disguise the actual location

Also...

However, sometimes a White House set constructed for one production will be put into storage and reused later for another production. For example, the Oval Office set built for The American President (1995) [Also written by Sorkin] was also used for Contact (1997) and The West Wing (TV Series 1999–2006)

Answer 2

A user said this on Quora:

The West Wing, the NBC White House-based drama was filmed primarily on sound stages in Burbank, California with exterior shots and some B-roll being filmed in the Washington D.C. metro area and also with some additional exterior filming in Canada and Los Angeles in areas which resembled D.C.

Like the majority of television productions, since The West Wing was primarily set indoors, several stages were built to film the show on and they were dressed and struck as the episodes required to be. For reasons of budget constraints, few scenes involving characters were filmed in Washington D.C. and Toronto and Los Angeles Basin exteriors often stood in for the D.C. metro area as a result.

IMDB has a list of locations, as does MovieMaps.

I also found this on virtualglobetrotting:

Some of the exterior shots of the West Wing office were filmed on location at the South Portico of the Headquarters of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution on 1776 D Street NW in Washington D.C.