Capital Cities of the World

How to use Capitals of the World

Type a country to get its capital, or type a city to run the lookup backwards. The list can also quiz you: hide one column, guess, reveal. Sorting works by country, by capital, or by region, which turns the same data into three different study tools.

Capital cities of the world: what the list contains

The list covers the United Nations member states plus widely recognized territories, each with the city its own government designates as the seat of power. That wording is deliberate — a capital is a legal designation, not a size contest. Some capitals are their nation's biggest metropolis; plenty are not, and that mismatch is exactly what quiz-makers exploit.

The capitals that trip everyone up

Australia — Canberra, not Sydney or Melbourne; the two rivals lost to a compromise built between them; Turkey — Ankara, not Istanbul; Canada — Ottawa, not Toronto; Brazil — Brasília, a city purpose-built for the job, not Rio de Janeiro;

Morocco — Rabat, not Casablanca; New Zealand — Wellington, not Auckland; Switzerland — Bern, which even many Europeans misplace as Zurich or Geneva. The more famous the city, the better the odds it isn't the capital.

Countries where one capital wasn't enough

A few states refuse to give a single answer. South Africa splits government across three cities: Pretoria holds the executive, Cape Town the parliament, Bloemfontein the top court. Bolivia names Sucre its constitutional capital while the government sits in La Paz. The Netherlands crowns Amsterdam in its constitution but governs from The Hague. Any quiz that marks only one of these answers correct is telling you about the quiz, not the country.