149 Fun Facts About Capital City

Which city was chosen as Australia's capital as a compromise between two rival cities?

Canberra was chosen in 1908 because neither Sydney nor Melbourne would accept the other as capital; Melbourne hosted the federal parliament until it moved to the purpose-built city in 1927.

Vientiane is the capital city of which Southeast Asian country?

Vientiane is the capital of Laos. It sits on the Mekong River beside the Thai border and served as the administrative capital of French Laos while Luang Prabang remained the royal seat.

Which European capital hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, then endured a 1,425-day siege?

Sarajevo's siege ran from April 1992 to February 1996, the longest of a capital in modern warfare; the Olympic bobsleigh track on the mountain above the city became an artillery position for the besiegers.

Before 1982, the capital of Zimbabwe was known by what name?

Founded as Fort Salisbury in 1890 after the British prime minister, it was renamed on the second anniversary of independence.

Port Moresby is the capital of which Pacific island nation?

Papua New Guinea's capital was named in 1873 by Captain John Moresby, who charted the harbour and called it after his father, an admiral; locals shorten it to Pom City or simply Moresby.

Which capital did Baron Haussmann rebuild with wide boulevards?

Paris was rebuilt on Napoleon III's orders: Haussmann tore down crowded medieval quarters for broad avenues, parks and new sewers, and was dismissed in 1870 amid fierce opposition.

Reunification in 1990 returned which city to its role as capital of all Germany?

Berlin regained the title with reunification in 1990, but parliament voted only narrowly in 1991 to move the government there as well, and the move was not completed until 1999.

Which capital city has an entire independent country inside its boundaries?

Rome surrounds Vatican City, which became an independent state under the 1929 Lateran Treaty; the popes had refused to accept Italian rule over the city ever since Italian troops took it in 1870.

Which city did Philip II choose as the seat of the Spanish court in 1561?

Madrid became the seat of the court when Philip II moved it there in 1561; apart from 1601 to 1606, when Philip III took the court to Valladolid, it has been the capital for almost all the centuries since.

Which purpose-built capital, planned by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, replaced Rio de Janeiro in 1960?

Brasilia was founded by President Juscelino Kubitschek on 21 April 1960 to pull the seat of government towards the centre of the country.

Which purpose-built city replaced Lagos as Nigeria's seat of government on 12 December 1991?

Abuja was chosen in 1976 for its central site, seen as neutral ground between Nigeria's main ethnic and religious groups, and because Lagos had become badly overcrowded.

Which city, Turkey's second-largest after Istanbul, is the country's capital and seat of government?

Ankara became the headquarters of Atatürk's resistance movement after the First World War, and the national assembly first met there; in 1923, as the republic was founded, it replaced the old Ottoman capital.

Which is the southernmost capital of any sovereign state?

Wellington, at about 41°S, is the southernmost capital of any sovereign state; it took over from Auckland in 1865, after commissioners judged a site on the strait between the two main islands the most central.

Which city is Bolivia's constitutional capital, where the Supreme Court still sits?

Sucre is named after Antonio José de Sucre, the independence commander who became Bolivia's president; it kept the courts when the seat of government moved away at the end of the 19th century.

Which city did Queen Victoria pick as Canada's capital in 1857?

Queen Victoria chose Ottawa on 31 December 1857 as a compromise between English and French Canada; the small lumber town was also set back from the US border and hard to attack.

Which city was known as Edo until 1868?

Tokyo means 'eastern capital'; as Edo it had been the shoguns' seat for more than 250 years, and the new name marked the emperor's return to power after their fall.

Which city is the capital of Egypt?

Cairo was founded by the Fatimids in 969 as a new walled city just north of the older settlement of Fustat; it grew to swallow its predecessor, and its metropolitan area now reaches the Giza pyramids.

Which city, now Kenya's capital, started out in the late 1890s as a railway depot?

Nairobi began as a supply depot on the Uganda Railway from Mombasa; the railway's chief engineer picked the site for its high, cool ground and reliable water supply.

Which city is the capital of Argentina?

Buenos Aires is Argentina's capital. The name, rendered 'fair winds' or 'good air', is shortened from the 1536 settlement's dedication to Santa María del Buen Aire, a Madonna whom sailors invoked.

Which city is the capital of Peru?

Lima is the capital of Peru. Francisco Pizarro founded it in 1535 as the City of Kings, a name honouring the Three Kings, because the site was chosen on the feast of the Epiphany.

Which city is the capital of Colombia?

Bogotá is Colombia's capital. It sits at about 2,640 metres on a high Andean plateau, so although it lies close to the equator the city stays cool all year round.

Which city is the capital of Cuba?

Havana is the capital of Cuba. Spain's treasure galleons gathered in its harbour before crossing the Atlantic, which is why the old town is ringed with colonial forts.

Which city is the capital of Saudi Arabia?

Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia. Its name means 'the gardens' in Arabic, a reference to the oasis settlement it grew from in the Najd region.

Which city was the capital of British India until George V announced a move to Delhi in 1911?

Kolkata, then spelt Calcutta, lost the title at the 1911 Delhi Durbar; nationalist unrest in Bengal had made it an uneasy seat for the British, and the purpose-built New Delhi was inaugurated in 1931.

Which city, rather than Casablanca, is the capital of Morocco?

Rabat became the administrative capital when the French protectorate, set up in 1912, moved the seat of government from the old imperial city of Fez; it kept the role at independence in 1956.

Which city is the capital of Vietnam?

Hanoi is Vietnam's capital. Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, is much larger, but Hanoi, capital of the North, became capital of the whole country at reunification in 1976.

Which city is the capital of Pakistan?

Islamabad, whose name means 'City of Islam', was built from scratch in the 1960s to replace Karachi as Pakistan's capital, with neighbouring Rawalpindi serving as the interim seat of government.

Which city replaced Manila as the official capital of the Philippines from 1948 to 1976?

Quezon City, named after President Manuel Quezon, held the title until a 1976 decree handed it back to Manila; the House of Representatives still meets there.

Which city is the capital of Ecuador?

Quito, Ecuador's capital, sits at about 2,850 metres in the Andes just south of the equator that gives the country its name; the larger city, Guayaquil, is the main port.

Which city is the capital of Kazakhstan, and was briefly renamed Nur-Sultan between 2019 and 2022?

Astana means 'capital city' in Kazakh; it took the name Nur-Sultan in 2019 to honour the departing president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and switched back in 2022 after he fell from favour.

Which purpose-built city with an empty 20-lane boulevard replaced Yangon as Myanmar's capital in 2005?

Naypyidaw was built in the middle of the country: when the move from Yangon began in 2005, the government said a central capital would have quick access to every part of Myanmar.

Sri Lanka's parliament sits in Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, effectively a suburb of which commercial capital?

Colombo is Sri Lanka's commercial capital; the legislature moved out to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, chosen in the late 1970s to ease congestion in the city, when a new parliament building opened there in 1982.

Ivory Coast moved its capital in 1983 to which city, home to the basilica Guinness lists as the world's largest church?

Yamoussoukro was the home village of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who made it the capital and built the basilica there; Pope John Paul II consecrated it in 1990, and Abidjan remains the economic hub.

Which city was designated Tanzania's official capital in the 1970s, replacing Dar es Salaam?

Dodoma was named the future capital in 1974 for its central position, but the move dragged on for decades: as late as 2005 only parliament met there regularly, with ministries still in Dar es Salaam.

What inland capital did Belize build after Hurricane Hattie flattened Belize City in 1961?

Belmopan, named after the Belize and Mopan rivers, was sited 80 kilometres inland so that no storm surge could reach it; its parliament building is shaped to recall a Maya temple.

Malaysia's prime minister's office and most ministries moved from Kuala Lumpur in 1999 to which planned garden city?

Putrajaya, a planned garden city south of Kuala Lumpur, became Malaysia's administrative centre in 1999 and its third federal territory in 2001; parliament and the king's palace stayed in Kuala Lumpur.

South Africa's parliament meets in which of the country's three capital cities?

Cape Town has hosted Parliament since the Union of 1910, which shared the capital out between the uniting colonies: the government went to Pretoria and the appeal court to Bloemfontein.

Amsterdam is the Dutch capital, but parliament, cabinet and Supreme Court sit in which city?

The Hague hosts the Dutch parliament, cabinet and Supreme Court, as well as the International Court of Justice and the king's working palace, Noordeinde, which is why foreign embassies sit there rather than in Amsterdam.

Which country has no capital city defined in its constitution, and simply calls Bern its 'federal city'?

Switzerland's constitution names no capital; parliament picked Bern as the seat of government in 1848, ahead of Zurich and Lucerne, so that power would not pile up in the country's economic centre.

Which capital, at over 3,600 metres, is the world's highest seat of government?

La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government, sits more than 3,600 metres up; the better-off live in its lower, warmer districts while poorer neighbourhoods climb the surrounding slopes, so altitude tracks income.

Which is the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state?

Reykjavík, at about 64°N, is the northernmost capital of a sovereign state; Greenland's capital lies slightly further north, but Greenland is a self-governing part of the Danish realm, not an independent country.

Which capital of a sovereign state is the world's coldest by average annual temperature?

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital, sits about 1,350 metres up, far from any sea and under the Siberian winter high, which holds its average annual temperature close to freezing.

Which Pacific island nation has no official capital, with government offices in the district of Yaren?

Nauru has no official capital; parliament and government offices sit in Yaren district. Phosphate mining once made the 21-square-kilometre island's people among the world's richest, and stripped most of its interior.

Which Pacific country moved its capital in 2006 to Ngerulmud, on its largest island?

Palau moved its government from Koror to Ngerulmud on Babeldaob in 2006; the name means 'place of fermented angelfish', after offerings women once made to the gods on the hill.

On which island did Indonesia begin building Nusantara, its planned new capital, in 2022?

Borneo was chosen, in East Kalimantan province, to relieve Jakarta, which is overcrowded and sinking; Indonesia held its first Independence Day ceremony at the unfinished site in August 2024.

Which African capital did the American Colonization Society found in 1822 for freed slaves?

Monrovia is named for James Monroe, the US president who backed the colony; in 1847 its settlers declared their independence as the Republic of Liberia.

Which tiny capital was founded in 1566 by a Grand Master of the Knights of St John and named after him?

Valletta was founded by Grand Master Jean de Valette months after his knights beat off the Ottoman siege of 1565; its co-cathedral holds the only painting Caravaggio is known to have signed.

Which capital hosted the 1814–15 congress that redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon's defeat?

Vienna hosted the congress from September 1814; Napoleon escaped from Elba while it sat, and its Final Act was signed on 9 June 1815, nine days before his last defeat at Waterloo.

Which city, Bhutan's capital, gets by without a single traffic light?

Thimphu has no traffic lights; at its busiest junctions police direct the cars by hand, with sweeping arm signals the city takes pride in.

Which city is the capital of Madagascar?

Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital, means 'city of the thousand' in Malagasy, for the thousand soldiers said to have guarded the hilltop it was founded on in the early 17th century.

Ouagadougou is the capital of which West African country?

Ouagadougou, shortened by locals to Ouaga, is the capital of Burkina Faso, a name adopted under Thomas Sankara in 1984 and usually translated as 'land of honest (or incorruptible) people'.

Which city is the capital of Rwanda?

Kigali became the capital only at independence in 1962, chosen over Nyanza, the old royal seat, and Butare, the colonial centre; until then it was a minor outpost in the middle of the country.

Which city is the capital of Namibia?

Windhoek, Namibia's capital, is usually explained as Afrikaans for 'windy corner'; the modern city dates from 1890, when a German officer, Curt von François, founded it afresh for the new colony of South West Africa.

Which city is the capital of Turkmenistan?

Ashgabat, usually translated as 'city of love', was flattened by an earthquake in 1948 and later rebuilt in white marble under Turkmenistan's first president; Guinness lists its record density of marble-clad buildings.

Which city is the capital of Kyrgyzstan?

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's capital, lies near the northern border with Kazakhstan and was called Frunze from 1926 to 1991, after the Bolshevik commander Mikhail Frunze, who was born there.

Bandar Seri Begawan is the capital of which country?

Brunei's capital was renamed Bandar Seri Begawan in 1970 after Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III, father of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah; its Kampong Ayer district is a whole town built on stilts over the river.

Porto-Novo is Benin's official capital, but the presidency and ministries are in which city?

Cotonou, Benin's main port and economic hub, houses the presidency and most ministries; the National Assembly sits in Porto-Novo, which Portuguese traders developed as a port for shipping slaves to the Americas.

Santiago is the capital of Chile, but the National Congress meets in which port city?

Valparaíso has hosted the National Congress since it was re-established in 1990; General Pinochet's junta had dissolved the old Congress in the capital in 1973 and built the new chamber in the port.

Which capital began in the 1720s as Godthaab, 'good hope', the colony of missionary Hans Egede?

Nuuk, Greenlandic for 'cape', kept the Danish name Godthaab until Greenland won home rule in 1979; more than a third of the island's people live in the town.

Which city was the US capital for the decade before Washington, D.C. took over in 1800?

Philadelphia was the US capital from 1790 to 1800 under the Residence Act while Washington, D.C. was built; it was also home to the nation's first hospital, subscription library and stock exchange.

Which city was Japan's imperial capital from 794 until 1868?

Kyoto, founded as Heian-kyō in 794 on the model of the Tang capital Chang'an, remained the emperors' seat until the court moved east after the Meiji Restoration, earning the nickname 'thousand-year capital'.

Peter the Great moved Russia's capital away from which city in 1712?

Moscow lost the capital to Peter the Great's new Baltic city, St Petersburg, in 1712 and won it back for good in March 1918, when Lenin moved the government inland, out of reach of the German forces threatening the city.

Dhaka, once a Mughal provincial capital, is now the capital of which country?

Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh; under the Mughals it grew rich on the muslin trade, and it was the capital of East Pakistan until the 1971 war of independence made it a national capital.

Tbilisi, named for its sulphur hot springs, is the capital of which country?

Tbilisi is the capital of Georgia; its name comes from the Georgian word for 'warm', and legend says King Vakhtang Gorgasali founded the city in the 5th century after finding its hot springs while hunting.

Which capital on the Caspian Sea lies about 28 metres below sea level, the lowest in the world?

Baku stands on the shore of the Caspian Sea, a landlocked lake whose surface lies well below the level of the oceans, so the whole waterfront sits below sea level.

Which European capital was devastated by an earthquake on 1 November 1755?

Lisbon was struck on All Saints' Day, when its churches were packed for mass; the earthquake, a tsunami and days of fire wrecked most of the city, and the Marquis of Pombal rebuilt the centre to a modern plan.

Which capital's Old Town, razed in World War II, was rebuilt so faithfully that it became a UNESCO site?

Warsaw's Old Town was rebuilt from the rubble after 1945, with builders working from 18th-century city views painted by Bernardo Bellotto; UNESCO listed the reconstruction in 1980.

Which capital was created in 1873 by merging three towns on opposite banks of the Danube?

Budapest was formed in 1873 by uniting Buda and Óbuda on the west bank with Pest on the east; the Chain Bridge, opened in 1849, was the first permanent crossing of the Danube there.

Which capital is nicknamed the 'City of a Hundred Spires'?

Prague is called the 'City of a Hundred Spires' for the church towers that crowd its skyline; in the 14th century Charles IV, king of Bohemia, made the city the capital of the Holy Roman Empire.

Which capital is home to the Palace of the Parliament, the heaviest building on Earth?

Bucharest's Palace of the Parliament was begun in 1984 on Nicolae Ceaușescu's orders, with a whole district of the old city flattened to make room; he was overthrown and shot in 1989, before it was finished.

The name of which capital comes from Irish words meaning 'black pool'?

Dublin takes its name from the Irish Dubh Linn, 'black pool', a tidal pool on the River Poddle where Viking ships moored, on the site of the Dubhlinn Gardens beside Dublin Castle today.

Which city replaced Nafplio as the capital of the newly independent Greek state in 1834?

Athens, then a small, war-damaged town, became the Greek capital in 1834 under King Otto, chosen largely for its classical past; Nafplio had been the seat of government before it.

Which city took over from Turin in 1865 as capital of the newly united Kingdom of Italy?

Florence held the title for about six years; to fit it for the role, architect Giuseppe Poggi pulled down the medieval walls for a ring of boulevards and built Piazzale Michelangelo above the city.

Which city on the Rhine was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990?

Bonn beat Frankfurt in 1949 with the backing of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, whose home region it was; a small university town also made the arrangement look temporary until the country could be reunited.

Tirana, proclaimed a capital in 1920 by the Congress of Lushnjë, is the capital of which country?

Tirana is the capital of Albania; the 1920 congress, called while the great powers discussed dividing the country among its neighbours, picked the inland town as a temporary seat, made permanent in 1925.

Which capital was named Titograd from 1946 to 1992?

Podgorica was renamed Titograd in 1946 in honour of Josip Broz Tito and made capital of the Socialist Republic of Montenegro in place of Cetinje; it took back its old name in 1992.

Mother Teresa was born in which present-day national capital?

Skopje, where Mother Teresa was born in 1910, opened a Memorial House to her in 2009 on the site of the Sacred Heart church where she was baptised.

The bohemian Užupis district, a self-declared republic since the 1990s, is in which capital?

Vilnius's Užupis district declared itself a republic in the late 1990s; it has its own constitution, posted on a wall in many languages, and celebrates its independence day every 1 April.

Which city replaced Turku as Finland's capital in 1812?

Helsinki replaced Turku as capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1812; Emperor Alexander I ordered the move to reduce Swedish influence and bring the capital closer to St Petersburg.

Which capital was officially called Kristiania until 1925?

Oslo was rebuilt and renamed Christiania after a 1624 fire, in honour of King Christian IV; after three centuries as Christiania, later spelt Kristiania, the original name Oslo was restored on 1 January 1925.

Which Caribbean capital was founded in 1692 to house survivors of the Port Royal earthquake?

Kingston was laid out in 1692 on Jamaica's south coast for survivors of the Port Royal earthquake, and grew rapidly only after fire destroyed what was left of Port Royal in 1703.

Which capital was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan?

Mexico City rose on the ruins of the Aztec capital, founded around 1325 on an island in Lake Texcoco; after the 1521 siege the Spanish razed it and rebuilt to their own plan.

Which South American capital, founded in 1537, is known as the 'Mother of Cities'?

Asunción, Paraguay's capital, was founded on 15 August 1537, the Feast of the Assumption that gave it its name; expeditions sent out from it founded Santa Fe, Corrientes and other cities, hence the nickname.

Simón Bolívar, the Liberator, was born in which present-day capital city?

Caracas was Simón Bolívar's birthplace in 1783; orphaned young in a wealthy criollo family, he went on to lead six present-day countries to independence from Spain, one of which took his name.

Which capital hosts the headquarters of the African Union?

Addis Ababa has housed the continent's main political body since 1963, when the Organisation of African Unity was founded there under Emperor Haile Selassie; the African Union replaced it in 2002 and kept the seat.

Which capital stands at the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile?

Khartoum began in 1821 as an Egyptian army camp at the meeting of the two Niles; in 1885 Mahdist forces stormed it and killed its British governor-general, Charles Gordon.

Which city became the capital of the world's newest country on 9 July 2011?

Juba became the capital of South Sudan at independence on 9 July 2011; its population had multiplied in the preceding years, and that September the government announced plans to move the capital to Ramciel.

Which capital sits directly across the Congo River from Kinshasa?

Brazzaville is named after Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, the Italian-born explorer who founded it for France in the 1880s; the far larger Kinshasa grew up on the Belgian side of the river.

The ruins of ancient Carthage lie on the outskirts of which modern capital?

Tunis grew up in the shadow of Carthage, which the Romans razed in 146 BC at the end of the Third Punic War; the ruins now lie in one of the Tunisian capital's seaside suburbs.

Which African capital was called Lourenço Marques until 1976?

Maputo carried the name of Lourenço Marques, a Portuguese explorer who reached the area in the 1540s, until 1976, when Mozambique, newly independent from Portugal, gave it a name said to come from the Maputo River.

Which capital was founded in 762 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur as a round city?

Baghdad was founded in 762 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur as a circular city on the Tigris; he named it Madinat as-Salam, the 'City of Peace', and astrologers chose the founding date.

Which city, rather than Dubai, is the capital of the United Arab Emirates?

Abu Dhabi's ruler, Sheikh Zayed, became the first president when the emirates united in 1971, and the oil-rich emirate has housed the federal government ever since.

The name of which capital means 'Northern Capital'?

Beijing means 'Northern Capital'; the third Ming emperor gave the city that name in 1403 to set it apart from Nanjing, the 'Southern Capital', and then built the Forbidden City there as his new seat.

Which Central Asian capital's name means 'Monday' in Persian?

Dushanbe means 'Monday' in Persian and Tajik; the Tajik capital grew from a village whose large bazaar was held every Monday, and it was called Stalinabad from 1929 to 1961.

Malé, a city that covers almost every metre of its small island, is the capital of which country?

Maldives' capital holds about a third of the country's people on one small island; to relieve the crush, the government has built Hulhumalé, an artificial island raised from the sea floor nearby.

Which capital's full ceremonial name is listed by Guinness as the world's longest place name?

Bangkok's full ceremonial name, beginning Krungthepmahanakhon, runs to 168 letters, the longest place name listed by Guinness; many Thais learned it from a 1989 rock song by Asanee-Wasan built around it.

Which capital, founded in 1496, is the Americas' oldest continuous European settlement?

Santo Domingo, founded in 1496 by Bartholomew Columbus, is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas; its Colonial City was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990.

Since 2012, South Korea has moved many ministries from Seoul to which planned city?

Sejong, launched in July 2012 as a Special Self-Governing City about 120 km south of Seoul, became South Korea's de facto administrative capital as ministries moved in, while the National Assembly kept its seat in Seoul.

Which capital traces its origins to the fortress of Erebuni, founded in 782 BC?

Yerevan traces its origins to Erebuni, a fortress founded in 782 BC by King Argishti I of Urartu on the Ararat Plain; the name Erebuni is thought to have evolved into Yerevan.

Which capital opened the world's first underground passenger railway in 1863, with gas-lit carriages hauled by steam?

London's Metropolitan Railway first ran between Paddington and Farringdon. The network it grew into is nicknamed the Tube after its deep circular tunnels.

Which city-state, expelled from Malaysia in 1965, counts as its own capital because it is a single city?

Singapore became an independent country in 1965, two years after joining the Malaysian federation. It is the world's largest and most populous city-state.

Which capital is home to NATO's headquarters and the Atomium, a landmark made of nine giant steel spheres?

Brussels is also the de facto capital of the European Union. The Atomium was built for the 1958 World's Fair and depicts an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.

The Little Mermaid statue, inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen tale, sits by the harbour of which country's capital?

Denmark's capital, Copenhagen, unveiled the bronze in 1913. It was commissioned by Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg, after a ballet of the fairy tale fascinated him.

The Nobel Prizes for science and literature are presented in which country's capital, a city of fourteen islands?

Sweden's capital, Stockholm, holds the ceremony in its Concert Hall and the banquet in its City Hall. The islands lie where Lake Mälaren flows into the Baltic Sea.

Which capital's Independence Square, known as the Maidan, was the centre of the 2004 Orange Revolution?

Kyiv saw hundreds of thousands of protesters fill the square in late 2004, pitching tents for weeks in the cold and snow. The same square was the heart of the 2013–14 Euromaidan.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's largest, was the capital of South Vietnam under which earlier name?

Saigon was renamed after reunification in 1976 to honour the late Ho Chi Minh. The old name remains in informal use and still belongs to the city's largest river.

Edinburgh, whose castle sits on the plug of an extinct volcano, is the capital of which nation?

Scotland has recognised Edinburgh as its capital since at least the 15th century. A 2014 study counted 26 sieges of the castle, giving it a claim to be the most besieged place in Great Britain.

Which capital's 101-floor skyscraper was the world's tallest building from 2004 until the Burj Khalifa overtook it?

Taipei 101 steadies itself with a 660-metric-ton steel pendulum that serves as a tuned mass damper. Visitors can see it from the 88th floor upwards.

Which capital's skyline is dominated by the Ryugyong Hotel, a 330-metre pyramid that sat empty for years?

Pyongyang began the pyramid-shaped hotel in 1987 but halted work in 1992 during an economic crisis. Foreign media dubbed the windowless shell the 'Hotel of Doom'.

Mozart, Beethoven and Sigmund Freud all lived in the capital of which country, once ruled by Habsburg emperors?

Austria's capital, Vienna, was the seat of the Habsburg emperors for centuries. Brahms, Haydn, Mahler and Schubert lived there too.

Which city on Java, made Indonesia's capital at independence, was called Batavia under Dutch colonial rule?

Jakarta was rebuilt as Batavia by the Dutch East India Company in 1619. The name honoured the Batavi, a Germanic people the Dutch regarded as their ancestors.

Which port on the Yangtze estuary is China's most populous city, though the capital lies far to the north?

Shanghai began as a fishing village and market town, then grew into a global port through 19th-century trade. The Huangpu River cuts the city in two.

Which Atlantic port, home to the towering Hassan II Mosque, is Morocco's largest city but not its capital?

Casablanca's great mosque stands on a promontory over the ocean. Its 210-metre minaret is topped by a laser whose beam points towards Mecca.

Which of China's ancient capitals, long known as Chang'an, has the Terracotta Army buried on its outskirts?

Xi'an served as capital under dynasties including the Qin, Han and Tang. Farmers digging a well in 1974 uncovered the clay soldiers, buried to protect the first emperor in his afterlife.

Zagreb is the capital of which country, whose Adriatic coast includes the walled city of Dubrovnik?

Croatia's capital grew from two separate settlements, clerical Kaptol and merchant Gradec, which were united only in the mid-19th century.

Which capital, standing where the Sava joins the Danube, was Yugoslavia's capital for that country's whole existence?

Belgrade is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe. Its medieval names in Latin, Hungarian and Venetian were all variations of 'white fortress'.

Phnom Penh, where the Tonlé Sap river meets the Mekong, is the capital of which Southeast Asian country?

Cambodia's capital takes its name from Wat Phnom, a Buddhist temple, and Lady Penh, said to have founded the city in 1372.

Mogadishu, a port that has linked Indian Ocean traders for millennia, is the capital of which country?

Somalia's capital is nicknamed Xamar by locals, a name that may refer to the colour red. It was once the seat of a sultanate that dominated the region's gold trade.

Which city on the Vistula, crowned by Wawel Castle, was Poland's official capital until 1596?

Kraków became the seat of Polish monarchs in 1038, and its full official name still translates as 'Royal Capital City of Kraków'.

Tallinn, long known as Reval and famed for its medieval Old Town, is the capital of which Baltic country?

Estonia's capital has one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It received Lübeck city rights in 1248.

Which Baltic port at the mouth of the Daugava, Latvia's capital, is noted for its Art Nouveau architecture?

Riga's historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for 19th-century wooden buildings as well as Art Nouveau. The city was a European Capital of Culture in 2014.

Ljubljana, whose coat of arms shows a dragon atop a castle tower, is the capital of which country?

Slovenia became independent in 1991, when Ljubljana became the capital of the new state. The dragon also appears on the Dragon Bridge across the Ljubljanica.

Which capital on the Danube is the only national capital with land borders to two other sovereign states?

Bratislava's St Martin's Cathedral crowned eleven Hungarian monarchs, Maria Theresa among them, and eight royal consorts. For centuries the city was mostly known in English as Pressburg.

Nicosia, the last divided capital in Europe, is split by the Green Line and is the capital of which island country?

Cyprus's capital was divided into Greek and Turkish Cypriot quarters by a line named after the colour of the pen a United Nations officer used to draw it on a map.

Sofia, known as Serdica in antiquity and set at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, is the capital of which country?

Bulgaria's capital takes its name from the Saint Sofia Church, unlike most of the country's cities and towns, whose names are Slavic in origin.

Which city, its historic centre replaced by grand Stalinist avenues and squares, is the capital of Belarus?

Minsk is also one of the administrative capitals of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Its old centre gave way to broad avenues and wide squares in the 1940s and 1950s.

Chișinău, host of a national wine festival every October, is the capital of which Eastern European country?

Moldova has a history of winemaking dating back to at least 3,000 BC. Much of its capital is built from limestone quarried at Cricova, which left a famous wine cellar there.

Which city, home to the Newborn monument unveiled on independence day in 2008, is the capital of Kosovo?

Pristina unveiled the typographic sculpture on 17 February 2008, the day Kosovo formally declared its independence from Serbia.

Which city, where tame sika deer roam the streets, was established as Japan's first permanent capital in 710?

Nara's deer have long been regarded as heavenly animals protecting the city. Some have learned to bow for the crackers that visitors buy to feed them.

Cardiff, a coal port only proclaimed a capital in 1955, is the capital of which Celtic nation?

Wales's capital was a small town until the early 19th century. Its Coal Exchange later set the price of coal on the British market and is said to have hosted the first million-pound deal.

Kampala, originally built on seven hills near the shore of Lake Victoria, is the capital of which country?

Uganda's capital is named after the impala. British officials called one of its hills 'The Hill of the Impala', which local people translated as Akasozi k'empala.

Luanda, the world's most populous Portuguese-speaking capital, lies on the Atlantic coast of which African country?

Angola's capital was founded in January 1576 by the Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais, making it one of the oldest colonial cities in Africa.

Lusaka, which began in 1905 as a water stop on a railway to the Copperbelt mines, is the capital of which country?

Zambia's capital is named after Chief Lusaaka, leader of a nearby Lenje village. The British later moved their colonial capital there from Livingstone because it was more central.

Gaborone, named after a Tlokwa chief and founded only in 1964, is the capital of which southern African country?

Botswana's colonial government sat in Mafeking until 1965, so a new capital was built from mid-1964, shortly before full independence in 1966.

Maseru, founded by the British as a small police camp in 1869, is the capital of which southern African country?

Lesotho's capital has a name meaning 'red sandstones' in the Sesotho language. It sits on the Caledon River, right on the country's border.

Lilongwe, named after a river, replaced Zomba in 1975 as the capital of which southeast African country?

Malawi's first president, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, picked the town in 1965 as a growth point for the north and centre of the country. The move from Zomba took another decade.

Victoria, a town on Mahé called L'Établissement until 1841, is the capital of which Indian Ocean island nation?

Seychelles saw French colonists settle the site in 1778. The British, who made it the seat of their colonial government, renamed the town after their queen.

Yaoundé, founded by German explorers as a trading base for rubber and ivory, is the capital of which African country?

Cameroon's capital was chosen in 1922, after Germany's defeat in the First World War left France holding the eastern part of the territory as a mandate.

Libreville, settled in 1849 by slaves freed from a captured Brazilian ship, is the capital of which country?

Gabon's capital has a name that is French for 'Freetown'. Fifty-two freed slaves were resettled there, and a former slave named Mountier was elected its mayor.

Dili, the capital of a Portuguese colony from 1769, became the capital of which newly independent country in 2002?

Timor-Leste's capital had been the territory's economic hub and chief port since 1769. Its Cristo Rei statue was built during the years of Indonesian rule.

Asmara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its Italian colonial modernist architecture, is the capital of which country?

Eritrea's capital sits at an elevation of 2,325 metres. It first rose to prominence in the 20th century, when it became the capital of an Italian colony.

N'Djamena, founded by the French under the name Fort-Lamy, is the capital of which African country?

Chad's capital was first named after Amédée-François Lamy, a French army officer killed in the Battle of Kousséri shortly before the town was founded.

Which country moved its capital in 2026 from Malabo, on Bioko island, to a planned city built inland?

Equatorial Guinea chose the site for its easy access, milder climate and inland position, after a 2004 coup attempt raised fears about reaching the old capital by sea.

Which country made Gitega, its old royal seat, the political capital in 2019, leaving Bujumbura as economic capital?

Burundi's parliament made the change official on 16 January 2019. Gitega had been the royal capital of the old kingdom until the monarchy was abolished in 1966.

Moroni, a port near the Karthala volcano on the island of Ngazidja, is the capital of which island nation?

Comoros's capital has a name meaning 'at the river' in the local Shingazidja language. Ngazidja is the largest of the republic's three main islands.

Bangui, founded as a French outpost in 1889 beside rapids on the Ubangi River, is the capital of which country?

The Central African Republic was the French colony of Ubangi-Shari until 1958. The rapids cut off the posts further upstream, so the town below them became the colonial headquarters in 1906.

Which city on the Perfume River was Vietnam's capital under the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to 1945?

Hue's walled Imperial City, on the north side of the river, encloses the Forbidden Purple City, which was once the emperor's home.

Which Siamese capital, centre of a 417-year-old kingdom, fell to Burmese armies in 1767 after a 14-month siege?

Ayutthaya takes its name from Ayodhya, the invincible city of Rama in the Hindu epic Ramayana. Its ruins are now preserved as a World Heritage Site.

Which African country shares its name with its capital, a port the French founded on the Gulf of Tadjoura in 1888?

Djibouti's capital was built on a previously uninhabited stretch of coast. Early Western texts spelled its name Jibuti.