Jimmy Carter, who considered himself an outsider even as he sat in the Oval Office as the 39th U.S. president, will be honored Thursday with the pageantry of a funeral at Washington National Cathedral before a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown.

Jimmy Carter was to be honored Thursday with a state funeral at Washington's National Cathedral, amid a groundswell of tributes honoring the 39th US president and the last from the so-called Greatest Generation.

Members of the public will be able to come pay their respects in Washington ahead of the former president's funeral on Thursday.