World Capitals Quiz

What the 43 countries in this quiz have in common

There are roughly 195 widely recognised sovereign states, and a quiz demanding every one of them would be an endurance test rather than a game. This set is cut down to 43: the countries whose capitals turn up in school geography papers, general-knowledge tests and pub quiz rounds, with every inhabited continent represented. A 195-question round dissolves into a blur around the fortieth item. Forty-three is short enough to finish in one sitting, and small enough that a second run genuinely closes the gaps.

The regional split tells you where the difficulty is concentrated. Europe supplies thirteen countries: France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Asia supplies twelve: China, Japan, South Korea, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Iraq. The Americas supply nine: Canada, the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. Africa supplies six: Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia. Oceania supplies two, Australia and New Zealand. Turkey sits on its own, straddling the Bosphorus in both Europe and Asia, as in their own ways do Russia and Egypt.

It is worth being precise about what a capital is. A capital is a legal designation, not a description of size, wealth or fame: it marks where a state has decided to seat its government, and states may split that decision up. South Africa is the clearest example. Since the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 out of four colonies, it has run three capitals at once, with Pretoria holding the executive, Cape Town the legislature and Bloemfontein the judiciary. This quiz uses Pretoria, the executive capital and the standard test answer. Chile shows a milder split: Santiago is unambiguously the capital, but the National Congress has sat about 120 kilometres away in Valparaiso since 1990, a decentralisation written into law in 1987.

Two answers are live questions rather than settled ones. Egypt answers Cairo, correct for every ordinary purpose, but the government has been moving ministries to a new purpose-built city east of Cairo since March 2023, and President Sisi took his oath of office there in April 2024. Indonesia answers Jakarta, where the country is actually governed from, although a law passed in 2022 designated a new capital, Nusantara, on Borneo, with the transfer proceeding in stages since 2024. When another world-capitals list gives a different answer, this is usually why: it draws the de jure and de facto line differently.

Fourteen of the 43 have a capital that is not the country's biggest city

Almost every question people get wrong comes from one assumption: that the capital is the famous city. It usually is. In 29 of the 43 countries here the capital is also the largest city. The other fourteen are where scores are decided: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Brazil, Turkey, Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, China and the United Arab Emirates. Each has a capital smaller than another city in the same country, and that other city is usually the one the four options will dangle in front of you.

The English-speaking group is the most familiar and still the most missed. Australia answers Canberra, not Sydney. Canberra exists because Sydney and Melbourne could not agree: the federation compromise put the capital in New South Wales, at least 100 miles from Sydney. The Yass-Canberra district was settled on in 1908, the city was named on 12 March 1913, and Parliament moved from Melbourne on 9 May 1927. It is Australia's largest inland city and only its eighth largest overall, with roughly 485,000 people. Canada answers Ottawa, not Toronto or Montreal: Queen Victoria settled that argument on 31 December 1857, choosing a lumber town renamed from Bytown only two years earlier. New Zealand answers Wellington, not Auckland, which held the title from 1841 until Parliament first sat in Wellington on 26 July 1865.

Three of the fourteen barely existed until a government decided to build one. Brazil answers Brasilia, not Rio de Janeiro, which had been the capital since 1763; the new city was laid out by Lucio Costa with public buildings by Oscar Niemeyer, was inaugurated on 21 April 1960, and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Nigeria answers Abuja, not Lagos: the site was chosen for being ethnically and religiously neutral and geographically central, and formally took over on 12 December 1991, while Lagos kept the commerce. India answers New Delhi, a district inside the National Capital Territory of Delhi: George V announced the move from Calcutta at the Delhi Durbar on 12 December 1911, and the imperial quarter designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker was inaugurated on 13 February 1931.

A fourth group owes its capital to a political rupture. Turkey answers Ankara, not Istanbul: Ataturk ran the independence struggle from Ankara from 1920, and the city formally replaced Constantinople on 13 October 1923, weeks before the republic was proclaimed. Ankara remains Turkey's second city. Vietnam answers Hanoi, not the larger Ho Chi Minh City. The United Arab Emirates answers Abu Dhabi, not Dubai; the federation was formed on 2 December 1971 and the capital went to the emirate that led it, though Dubai is the more populous city. The tell in each case is the same: ask which city holds the government, not which holds the skyline.

The last three catch people who think they have learned the trick. China answers Beijing, and Beijing is enormous, but Shanghai is larger still. Morocco answers Rabat, not Casablanca, which has several times Rabat's population and all the commercial weight. And the Philippines answers Manila, but not for the reason most players assume: Manila city proper is smaller than neighbouring Quezon City, which held the capital from 1948 until President Marcos restored Manila on 24 June 1976.

A four-pass method for learning all 43

Because this quiz gives four options rather than a blank box, knowing the whole answer pool is worth almost as much as knowing any individual pairing. The wrong options are other real capitals, so a player who recognises all 43 cities can often eliminate two on sight. Rather than grinding country-capital pairs one at a time, work through the set in four passes, each asking a different question of the same 43 items.

The first pass is the free pass: the 29 countries where the capital is simply the biggest, most famous city. Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Warsaw, Kyiv, Moscow, Cairo, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Jakarta, Riyadh, Tehran, Baghdad, Mexico City, Havana, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Bogota and Lima. Read it aloud once and check that no name surprises you. Note that Kyiv is the romanisation of the Ukrainian spelling and is what the quiz uses; Kiev is the older English form, which came through Russian and has been retreating from international use since 2014.

The second pass is the fourteen exceptions, learned as a single recited block rather than as fourteen separate facts. Say each capital with its decoy attached, because the decoy is what the quiz will put on the screen next to the right answer. Canberra not Sydney. Ottawa not Toronto. Wellington not Auckland. Washington not New York. Brasilia not Rio. Ankara not Istanbul. Abuja not Lagos. Pretoria not Cape Town or Johannesburg. Rabat not Casablanca. New Delhi not Mumbai. Hanoi not Ho Chi Minh City. Manila not Quezon City. Beijing not Shanghai. Abu Dhabi not Dubai.

The third pass attacks confusion inside the answer pool, a different failure from not knowing an answer. Three clusters cause almost all of it. The Nordic trio, Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki, is easy individually and slippery under pressure; run them west to east, Norway-Oslo, Sweden-Stockholm, Finland-Helsinki. The South American four, Bogota, Lima, Santiago and Buenos Aires, sort themselves roughly north to south in that order. And the Southeast Asian run of Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta and Manila splits cleanly into two mainland cities and two island ones.

The fourth pass uses what a flashcard cannot give you: the map highlight. Before answering, look at which shape has lit up and say the country's name to yourself before you say the capital. This stores the capital against a position rather than a word, and position is more durable. It also guards against the commonest careless error: reading the options first, recognising a city you know, and choosing it before registering which country was highlighted. Your best score is kept on the device, so replaying measures whether the passes are working.

Why capitals move, and what that tells you about the answers

Every surprising answer here has a reason behind it, and there are only three. Name the reason and the answer stops being a fact to memorise and becomes something you can reconstruct. The first is compromise: when a federation forms out of rival states, the capital often goes where none of the rivals wins. Canberra was built between Sydney and Melbourne because neither would accept the other. Ottawa was chosen because it straddled the divide between Upper and Lower Canada, with Kingston, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City passed over.

The second is development. A country with a swollen coastal metropolis and an empty interior may move its capital inland to pull growth after it. Brazil built Brasilia on the central plateau and opened it in 1960 with exactly that intention. Nigeria built Abuja in the geographic middle of the country and handed it the title in 1991, both to relieve Lagos and to sit outside any one ethnic or religious region. The pattern is not merely historical: Indonesia's Nusantara project on Borneo, authorised by law in 2022 and occupied in stages since 2024, applies the same logic to an overloaded Jakarta.

The third is political rupture: a new regime refuses the old regime's capital. Turkey is the sharpest case in the set: Ankara, an inland provincial town, replaced imperial Constantinople on 13 October 1923 because the republic was defining itself against the Ottoman order, and it has stayed the capital ever since despite Istanbul remaining roughly three times its size. Russia is the mirror image over a longer arc, with Moscow restored as capital in 1918 after roughly two centuries in which Saint Petersburg held the title. Germany's version was slower: the Bundestag voted on 20 June 1991 to return the seat of government from Bonn to Berlin, and the move was completed in 1999.

A fourth pattern is a reason for splitting rather than moving, and it explains the answers most likely to start an argument: some states deliberately separate the branches of government across cities. South Africa's three capitals date from the 1910 Union settlement. Chile keeps its president in Santiago and its Congress in Valparaiso. South Korea did something similar without changing the answer: a plan to move the capital out of Seoul was struck down by the Constitutional Court in October 2004, which held Seoul's status to be part of the customary constitution, so a dozen ministries went to the new city of Sejong instead while Seoul kept the title. The quiz always answers with the city that holds the executive.

The full list of 43, region by region

Europe contributes thirteen, the friendliest block in the quiz. France answers Paris, the United Kingdom London, Germany Berlin, Italy Rome, Spain Madrid, Portugal Lisbon and Greece Athens. The Nordic trio gives Norway Oslo, Sweden Stockholm and Finland Helsinki. Eastern Europe gives Poland Warsaw, Ukraine Kyiv and Russia Moscow. Several are more recent than they feel: Berlin regained the full seat of government only in 1999, Helsinki replaced Turku as Finland's capital in 1812 under Russian rule, and Rome became Italy's capital in 1871, after Turin and then Florence had held the role during unification.

Asia contributes twelve, plus Turkey as a transcontinental case, and this is where the quiz bites. The straightforward ones are Japan-Tokyo, South Korea-Seoul, Thailand-Bangkok, Indonesia-Jakarta, Saudi Arabia-Riyadh, Iran-Tehran and Iraq-Baghdad. The awkward ones are China-Beijing, where the trap is Shanghai's greater size; India-New Delhi, where the trap is the distinction between New Delhi and Delhi; Vietnam-Hanoi against Ho Chi Minh City; the Philippines-Manila against Quezon City; and the United Arab Emirates-Abu Dhabi against Dubai. Turkey-Ankara against Istanbul belongs with them. Produce those six reliably and the Asian block costs you nothing.

Africa contributes six, and they are the African capitals that appear most often in general-knowledge tests. Egypt answers Cairo, Kenya answers Nairobi and Ethiopia answers Addis Ababa, all three of which are also their country's largest city, with Addis Ababa additionally hosting the headquarters of the African Union. Morocco answers Rabat, with Casablanca as the decoy. Nigeria answers Abuja, with Lagos as the decoy. South Africa answers Pretoria, with Cape Town and Johannesburg as the decoys.

The Americas contribute nine. Canada answers Ottawa, the United States Washington, D.C., Mexico Mexico City, Cuba Havana, Brazil Brasilia, Argentina Buenos Aires, Chile Santiago, Colombia Bogota and Peru Lima. Six of the nine are the largest city in their country and give no trouble; Canada, Brazil and the United States are the exceptions. One footnote is worth carrying: Mexico City stopped being a federal district and became a federal entity in its own right in 2016, though its capital status was unaffected.

Oceania contributes two, Australia-Canberra and New Zealand-Wellington, and both are exceptions rather than gifts. That gives a rough difficulty ranking. Tier one, answer without thinking: the seven Western European capitals, the Nordic three, Moscow, Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Cairo, Nairobi, Mexico City, Havana, Buenos Aires and Lima. Tier two, know but check: Warsaw, Kyiv, Jakarta, Riyadh, Tehran, Baghdad, Addis Ababa, Santiago and Bogota. Tier three is the fourteen where the capital is not the biggest city, which is where a score of 35 becomes a score of 43.

Where to go once you have all 43

This quiz is deliberately a sampler: each region is represented by only its best-known members, so the natural next step is to take one region and do it properly. Europe is the obvious first choice, since this set covers thirteen European countries while the continent has far more. The European capitals quiz on this site runs to 44 and is where the genuinely hard European answers live: separating Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius across the Baltic states, telling Bratislava from Ljubljana, and working through Podgorica, Skopje, Sarajevo and Tirana in the Balkans. It plays the same way, so the format needs no relearning.

Africa is the sharpest step up. This quiz asks six African capitals; the Africa capitals quiz asks all 54, and exposes gaps no amount of European knowledge covers. The West African run of Ouagadougou, Bamako, Niamey and Conakry is where most scores collapse, and the island states, Praia, Moroni, Port Louis and Victoria, finish the job. It also multiplies the not-the-largest-city problem: Dodoma rather than Dar es Salaam for Tanzania, Yamoussoukro rather than Abidjan for Cote d'Ivoire, and Porto-Novo rather than Cotonou for Benin.

Two smaller sets make good intermediate targets. The Middle East capitals quiz covers sixteen countries, adding the Gulf cluster of Manama, Doha, Kuwait City and Muscat and the Levantine group of Beirut, Damascus, Amman and Ramallah. The Spanish-speaking countries capitals quiz takes a different cut entirely, grouping 21 countries and territories by language rather than by continent, which puts Madrid, Mexico City, San Juan and Malabo in the same round and fixes the Central American capitals this world set never asks about.

It is also worth changing mode rather than region, because a different mechanic tests different knowledge. The click quizzes on this site, such as the Latin America map quiz with its 20 countries, name a place and ask you to find it on an unlabelled map, so you work with outlines and relative position rather than city names. Country location and capital recall are separate skills. For United States geography the same two modes exist, with a Northeast states and capitals quiz covering nine states and a Southeast states map quiz covering twelve.

A practical routine: play this quiz once cold for a baseline, spend ten minutes on the fourteen exceptions and the confusable clusters, then replay. Because your best score is stored on the device, the second number is a measurement rather than an impression.