🏛️ European Capitals Quiz
Match every country to its capital city.
43 countries in Europe, and 43 capital cities to match them to. They range from Russia, the region's most populous country, to Iceland, its least.
European Capitals Quiz at a glance
- Capitals to learn
- 43
- Subregions covered
- 7
- Most populous country
- Russia
- Largest by area
- Russia
Capitals against real people, on the same questions — no account needed. New capitals rooms start every 5 minutes, rotating through regions.
The European capitals that catch people out
Europe has 43 countries in this quiz, and many of the capitals are household names. The mistakes cluster in three places: the few countries whose best-known city is not the capital, pairs of neighbours that are easy to swap, and spellings that have changed.
Not the city you would guess
- Switzerland → Bern. Not Zurich or Geneva. Strictly, the Swiss constitution names no capital at all; Bern is the “federal city” where the government and parliament sit.
- Turkey → Ankara. Not Istanbul, which is bigger and far better known. Ankara has been the capital since 1923.
- Netherlands → Amsterdam. Right for this quiz, but the government and parliament are in The Hague, which is why The Hague gets guessed so often.
- Montenegro → Podgorica. Called Titograd from 1946 to 1992. The constitution also names Cetinje as the “old royal capital”, but Podgorica is the capital.
Neighbours that are easy to swap
- Slovakia → Bratislava, Slovenia → Ljubljana. The most common swap in the Europe round. One way to hold it: Bratislava sits on the Austrian border, under an hour from Vienna, and the two are the closest pair of capitals in Europe outside Rome and the Vatican. Slovenia is the small Alpine country beside Italy, and Ljubljana is the city with a dragon on its coat of arms.
- Estonia → Tallinn, Latvia → Riga, Lithuania → Vilnius. Read the Baltic states from north to south and their names run in alphabetical order: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Then remember that Tallinn is at the top, Riga is the port in the middle, and Vilnius is the only one of the three that is not on the coast.
- Serbia → Belgrade. Its name means “white city”, and it stands where the Sava flows into the Danube. Its neighbours are Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Skopje (North Macedonia) and Pristina (Kosovo).
Four capitals on one river
The Danube runs through more capitals than any other river: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade. Upstream to downstream, the countries are Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Serbia. Budapest itself was two towns, Buda and Pest, facing each other across the river until they were joined in 1873, together with Óbuda.
Spellings you will meet
- Kyiv (Ukraine). The Ukrainian spelling, now standard in English. Older maps use the Russian form, Kiev.
- Chișinău (Moldova). The marks are Romanian. You will also see Chisinau, and in older sources Kishinev.
- Luxembourg. The capital has the same name as the country: a free point.
Records
- Northernmost. Reykjavik, at 64°N, is the northernmost capital of any independent country in the world.
- Smallest. Valletta, Malta: a walled city of less than one square kilometre, and the smallest capital in the European Union.
- Divided. Nicosia, Cyprus, has been split by a UN buffer zone since 1974, making it the last divided capital in Europe.
- Largest. Moscow is Europe’s most populous capital. Russia and Turkey both reach into Asia, so they appear in the Europe round and the Asia round of this quiz.
Capitals of Europe
| Country | Capital |
|---|---|
| Albania | Tirana |
| Austria | Vienna |
| Azerbaijan | Baku |
| Belarus | Minsk |
| Belgium | Brussels |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | Sarajevo |
| Bulgaria | Sofia |
| Croatia | Zagreb |
| Cyprus | Nicosia |
| Czechia | Prague |
| Denmark | Copenhagen |
| Estonia | Tallinn |
| Finland | Helsinki |
| France | Paris |
| Germany | Berlin |
| Greece | Athens |
| Hungary | Budapest |
| Iceland | Reykjavik |
| Ireland | Dublin |
| Italy | Rome |
| Kosovo | Pristina |
| Latvia | Riga |
| Lithuania | Vilnius |
| Luxembourg | Luxembourg |
| Malta | Valletta |
| Moldova | Chișinău |
| Montenegro | Podgorica |
| Netherlands | Amsterdam |
| North Macedonia | Skopje |
| Norway | Oslo |
| Poland | Warsaw |
| Portugal | Lisbon |
| Romania | Bucharest |
| Russia | Moscow |
| Serbia | Belgrade |
| Slovakia | Bratislava |
| Slovenia | Ljubljana |
| Spain | Madrid |
| Sweden | Stockholm |
| Switzerland | Bern |
| Turkey | Ankara |
| Ukraine | Kyiv |
| United Kingdom | London |
About the European Capitals quiz
- How many countries are in the Europe quiz?
- 43 — every country in Europe with the data this quiz needs. Questions are drawn fresh from that pool each round, so no two rounds repeat.
- Is the capital always the biggest city?
- Not reliably. Russia is the most populous country in Europe, but across the region plenty of capitals are smaller than another city in the same country — which is exactly where this quiz catches people out.
- How is Europe divided up?
- Europe spans 7 subregions — Southeast Europe, Central Europe, Western Asia, Eastern Europe and more.
- Which capital city belongs to the largest country in Europe?
- Russia is the largest by land area in Europe, at 17,098,242 km². Its capital is Moscow.
- Do any countries have more than one capital?
- A few do — some split their legislature, judiciary and executive across different cities. This quiz asks for the primary capital, which is the one listed in the table above.