🏛️ World Capitals Quiz

Why the capital is so often not the biggest city

It keeps happening for one of three reasons, and knowing which one applies makes the answer much easier to hold on to.

• A compromise between rivals. Canberra exists because Sydney and Melbourne would not accept each other; parliament moved there in 1927. Queen Victoria picked Ottawa in 1857 over Toronto, Montreal, Kingston and Quebec City. Washington, D.C. was sited in 1790 as a deal between the northern and southern states.
• A planned fresh start. Brasília (opened 1960), Islamabad (built in the 1960s), Abuja (capital since 1991) and Naypyidaw (the government moved in from 2005) were all built from scratch, away from an older and more crowded city: Rio de Janeiro, Karachi, Lagos and Yangon.
• A disaster. Belize moved its government inland to Belmopan after Hurricane Hattie wrecked Belize City in 1961.

More than one capital, and the answer this quiz expects

Several countries share the role between cities. The quiz accepts one of them, and it is worth knowing which before the timer starts.

• South Africa → Pretoria. Pretoria houses the government, Cape Town the parliament and Bloemfontein the Supreme Court of Appeal. The quiz takes Pretoria.
• Bolivia → Sucre. Sucre is the capital named in the constitution, but the president and parliament work in La Paz. The quiz takes Sucre.
• Netherlands → Amsterdam. The constitution names Amsterdam. The government, the parliament and the king’s working palace are all in The Hague.
• Eswatini → Mbabane. Mbabane is the administrative capital. Lobamba, a short drive away, is the royal and legislative one.
• Benin → Porto-Novo. The official capital. Cotonou, the largest city, is where most of the government actually works.
• Malaysia → Kuala Lumpur. Still the official capital, even though most federal ministries have moved to Putrajaya.
• Sri Lanka → Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte. The parliament sits here, on the edge of Colombo, which remains the commercial centre. It is the longest capital name in this quiz.

Recent changes that older atlases get wrong

• Burundi → Gitega. Replaced Bujumbura as the political capital in 2019. Bujumbura, on Lake Tanganyika, is still the largest city.
• Kazakhstan → Astana. The capital moved here from Almaty in 1997. It was renamed Nur-Sultan in 2019 and went back to Astana in 2022, so you may meet either name.
• Tanzania → Dodoma. Named the capital in the 1970s, though the government’s move out of Dar es Salaam took decades.
• Indonesia → Jakarta. Indonesia is building a new capital, Nusantara, on the island of Borneo. Until that move is finished, Jakarta is the answer here.
• Ukraine → Kyiv. The Ukrainian spelling, now standard in English. Older maps use the Russian form, Kiev.

Free points

A handful of capitals share their country’s name, or nearly do: Djibouti, Luxembourg, Singapore, Kuwait City, Mexico City, Guatemala City and Panama City. Algiers and Tunis are only a letter or two from Algeria and Tunisia. When one comes up, take the point and keep the time.

Records worth knowing

• Northernmost. Reykjavik, Iceland, at 64°N: the northernmost capital of any independent country.
• Southernmost. Wellington, New Zealand, at 41°S.
• Highest. Quito, Ecuador, at about 2,850 m, is the highest official capital. La Paz is higher still at around 3,600 m, but it is Bolivia’s seat of government rather than its capital.
• Coldest. Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, spelled Ulan Bator in this quiz, where the January average is around −20 °C.
• Closest together. Kinshasa (DRC) and Brazzaville (Congo) face each other across the Congo River: the closest pair of capitals on Earth, not counting Rome and Vatican City.