Easy European capitals
London, Paris, Madrid, Rome. Universal recall — warm up the room.
Q1.What is the capital of France?Tap to reveal
Answer: Paris
The city grew out of a Roman settlement called Lutetia on the Ile de la Cite, the Seine island that still holds Notre-Dame.
Q2.What is the capital of Italy?Tap to reveal
Answer: Rome
It is the only capital that completely surrounds another country, since Vatican City sits inside its boundaries.
Q3.What is the capital of Spain?Tap to reveal
Answer: Madrid
Philip II moved the royal court there in 1561, choosing a town close to the geographic centre of the Iberian Peninsula.
Q4.Which port city on the Tagus river is the capital of Portugal?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lisbon
An earthquake and tsunami in 1755 flattened much of the city, and the straight grid of the downtown Baixa district is the rebuilt version.
Q5.What is the capital of Greece?Tap to reveal
Answer: Athens
It only took the role in 1834, replacing Nafplio, which had served as the first capital of newly independent Greece.
Q6.What is the capital of Poland?Tap to reveal
Answer: Warsaw
Krakow held the royal court for centuries until Sigismund III shifted the seat of power north at the end of the 16th century.
Q7.Which city on the Danube is the capital of Austria?Tap to reveal
Answer: Vienna
It was the seat of the Habsburg monarchy for roughly 600 years and today hosts one of the four main United Nations office cities.
Q8.What is the capital of Norway?Tap to reveal
Answer: Oslo
The city carried the name Christiania, after the Danish king Christian IV, from the 17th century until 1925.
Q9.What is the capital of Ireland?Tap to reveal
Answer: Dublin
The English name comes from the Irish dubh linn, meaning black pool, while the modern Irish name Baile Atha Cliath means town of the hurdled ford.
Q10.Which city does the Dutch constitution name as the capital of the Netherlands, even though the government does not sit there?Tap to reveal
Answer: Amsterdam
Parliament, the ministries, the Supreme Court and the royal working palace are all in The Hague, which is why the two cities are so often mixed up.
Q11.Which city has been Switzerland's federal seat of government since 1848?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bern
Swiss law deliberately avoids the word capital and calls the city the federal city, so the country technically has no de jure capital.
Q12.What is the capital of Slovakia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bratislava
It is the only national capital whose city limits touch two other countries, Austria and Hungary.
Q13.What is the capital of Slovenia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ljubljana
An earthquake in 1895 destroyed much of the old town, and the architect Joze Plecnik shaped the rebuilt riverside that defines the centre today.
Asian capitals — the tricky ones
Tokyo (easy), Beijing (easy), but Kuala Lumpur, Pyongyang, Naypyidaw (Myanmar's capital since 2006) trip people up.
Q1.What is the capital of Japan?Tap to reveal
Answer: Tokyo
The city was called Edo until 1868, when the emperor moved his residence there from Kyoto and it was renamed eastern capital.
Q2.What is the capital of Nepal?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kathmandu
The valley around it holds seven separate UNESCO World Heritage monument zones packed into a few kilometres.
Q3.What is the capital of Vietnam?Tap to reveal
Answer: Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh City is the larger and busier of the two, but the northern city kept the capital role when the country reunified in 1976.
Q4.Istanbul is Turkey's largest city, but which city is its capital?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ankara
Istanbul served as the Ottoman capital under the name Constantinople, and the seat of government moved inland in 1923 with the founding of the republic.
Q5.Which purpose-built inland city replaced Yangon as the capital of Myanmar in 2005?Tap to reveal
Answer: Naypyidaw
It was constructed largely in secret and has famously wide, near-empty multi-lane highways for a population a fraction of Yangon's.
Q6.What is the capital of Kazakhstan?Tap to reveal
Answer: Astana
The capital moved there from Almaty in 1997, and the city was renamed Nur-Sultan in 2019 before the original name was restored in 2022.
Q7.Dubai is the best-known city of the United Arab Emirates, but which emirate's city is the federal capital?Tap to reveal
Answer: Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi holds the great majority of the country's oil reserves, which is a large part of why the federal institutions sit there.
Q8.Which city is the official capital of Malaysia, even though most federal ministries work out of Putrajaya?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kuala Lumpur
Parliament and the royal palace stayed put when the administrative functions were moved to the planned city to the south in the late 1990s.
Q9.Which city is the official capital of Sri Lanka, rather than Colombo?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte
Colombo is still the commercial hub and by far the larger city, and the parliament complex sits on an island in a lake in the suburb that holds the title.
Q10.What is the capital of Bhutan?Tap to reveal
Answer: Thimphu
It sits at roughly 2,300 metres in the Wang Chhu valley, and Bhutanese building rules require even new offices and hotels there to carry traditional architectural features.
Q11.What is the capital of Mongolia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ulaanbaatar
By average annual temperature it is the coldest national capital on earth, and much of it is heated by coal through long sub-zero winters.
Q12.What is the name of the new capital Indonesia is building on Borneo to take over from Jakarta?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nusantara
Jakarta is sinking and severely congested, which is the stated reason for the 2022 law authorising the move to East Kalimantan.
Q13.What is the capital of Brunei?Tap to reveal
Answer: Bandar Seri Begawan
Next to it lies Kampong Ayer, a settlement of stilt houses over the river that has been inhabited for centuries.
African capitals — often missed
Cairo, Nairobi, Lagos vs Abuja (Nigerian capital moved). The Africa round usually stumps.
Q1.Douala is Cameroon's largest city and main port, but which city is its capital?Tap to reveal
Answer: Yaounde
The presidency, the ministries and the National Assembly all sit in the hilly inland city, while the coastal rival handles most of the country's cargo.
Q2.What is the capital of Kenya?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nairobi
It began in 1899 as a railway supply depot in a swamp, and a full national park with lions still borders the city.
Q3.What is the capital of Ghana?Tap to reveal
Answer: Accra
The British moved the Gold Coast administration there from Cape Coast in 1877, largely because its drier, tsetse-free surroundings were thought healthier for colonial staff and their animals.
Q4.Casablanca is Morocco's biggest city, but which city is its capital?Tap to reveal
Answer: Rabat
The capital sits at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river opposite the old corsair town of Sale, and holds the royal palace.
Q5.Which planned city replaced Lagos as the capital of Nigeria in 1991?Tap to reveal
Answer: Abuja
It was built in the centre of the country deliberately, on ground not identified with any of the largest ethnic groups.
Q6.What is the capital of Ethiopia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Addis Ababa
It is the headquarters of the African Union and, at roughly 2,350 metres, one of the highest capital cities in the world.
Q7.South Africa has three capitals; which one is the seat of parliament?Tap to reveal
Answer: Cape Town
Pretoria holds the executive and the president's office, while Bloemfontein is the judicial capital and home of the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Q8.What is the capital of Senegal?Tap to reveal
Answer: Dakar
It sits on the Cap-Vert peninsula, whose Pointe des Almadies is the westernmost point of mainland Africa.
Q9.Which inland city is the official capital of Tanzania, rather than Dar es Salaam?Tap to reveal
Answer: Dodoma
It was designated back in 1973, but the ministries took decades to follow and the coastal city remained the real centre of business.
Q10.What is the official capital of Ivory Coast, the country's political capital since 1983?Tap to reveal
Answer: Yamoussoukro
Abidjan still houses most government offices and embassies, while the smaller inland city holds one of the largest church buildings in the world.
Q11.What is the capital of Botswana?Tap to reveal
Answer: Gaborone
Before independence in 1966 the protectorate was administered from Mafeking, a town that was not even inside the territory.
Q12.What is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kinshasa
It faces Brazzaville across the river, making them the closest pair of capitals of two different countries apart from Rome and Vatican City.
Q13.Which city is the official capital of Benin, even though the government sits in Cotonou?Tap to reveal
Answer: Porto-Novo
Cotonou has the port, the airport and the presidency, so the constitutional capital is the smaller and quieter of the two cities.
Americas and Oceania
Brasília (not Rio), Canberra (not Sydney), Wellington (not Auckland). Purpose-built capitals are common trivia.
Q1.What is the capital of Canada?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ottawa
Queen Victoria settled the argument in 1857 by picking a lumber town on the border between Ontario and Quebec over Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Kingston.
Q2.What is the capital of Mexico?Tap to reveal
Answer: Mexico City
It stands on the drained bed of Lake Texcoco where the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan once was, which is why parts of it are steadily sinking.
Q3.What is the capital of Argentina?Tap to reveal
Answer: Buenos Aires
The city was federalised in 1880 and separated from Buenos Aires Province, whose own capital is La Plata.
Q4.What is the capital of Australia?Tap to reveal
Answer: Canberra
It was purpose-built as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne, and parliament actually met in Melbourne until 1927.
Q5.Which city replaced Rio de Janeiro as the capital of Brazil in 1960?Tap to reveal
Answer: Brasilia
Its pilot plan by Lucio Costa and its buildings by Oscar Niemeyer made it a UNESCO World Heritage Site barely three decades after it was finished.
Q6.Auckland is New Zealand's largest city, but which city is the capital?Tap to reveal
Answer: Wellington
The seat of government moved south in 1865 to sit closer to the middle of the country, and it is the southernmost capital of any sovereign state.
Q7.What is the capital of Chile?Tap to reveal
Answer: Santiago
The National Congress does not meet there, having sat in the coastal city of Valparaiso since 1990.
Q8.What is the capital of Fiji?Tap to reveal
Answer: Suva
The capital moved there from the old whaling and trading town of Levuka in 1882 because the original site had no room to expand.
Q9.Which city is the constitutional capital of Bolivia, even though the government works from La Paz?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sucre
La Paz holds the presidency and the legislature and is the highest seat of government in the world, while the Supreme Court stayed behind in the constitutional capital.
Q10.What is the capital of Belize?Tap to reveal
Answer: Belmopan
It was founded inland in 1970 after Hurricane Hattie devastated the coastal former capital, Belize City, in 1961.
Q11.What is the capital of Palau?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ngerulmud
The seat of government moved there from Koror in 2006, and it is one of the least populated capital cities in the world.
Running world capitals trivia
Run rounds by continent for natural variety. Start easy (Europe), build up to obscure (Africa, Oceania). Add a 'name the country from capital' reverse round.
Trivio.NET has Geography packs with world capitals coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which world capital is most-missed?
Naypyidaw (Myanmar's capital since 2006), Astana (Kazakhstan — renamed Nur-Sultan briefly, then back), and Yamoussoukro (Ivory Coast's official capital, though Abidjan is the largest city).
Are world capitals trivia good for kids?
Easy capitals for school-age kids. Obscure capitals for adult quizzes.
Where can I find more world capitals trivia?
Trivio.NET's Geography category has world capitals-specific packs.
What's the best way to learn world capitals?
Daily exposure beats cramming. 5 capitals per day for 2 months covers most countries.
