Capitals
Capitals that moved, and countries with more than one.
- Bern, Switzerland’s “federal city”No fixed seat: the Diet met in turn at Baden, Frauenfeld and elsewhere → Aarau, then Lucerne, then Bern → Six cities in turn → Zurich, Bern and Lucerne in turn → Bern, as “federal city”Switzerland’s constitution names no capital. Two ordinary laws just say government meets in Bern.
- Manila and Quezon CityManila → Quezon City → ManilaFrom 1948 to 1976 the Philippines’ capital was the planned city next door. Then Marcos moved it back.
- Nanjing and Beijing, the southern and northern capitalsDadu (Beijing) → Nanjing → Beijing → Nanjing → BeijingSouthern Capital and Northern Capital: China’s seat of government has swung between the two.
- Ngerulmud, Palau’s capitol on a hillKoror → Ngerulmud (Melekeok)A domed capitol on a donated hill, in a state of a few hundred people. Taiwan paid most of the bill.
- Tokyo, the capital no law namesKyoto → TokyoAsked in 2018 which law makes Tokyo Japan’s capital, the government’s answer was: none.
- When Rio de Janeiro ruled PortugalLisbon → Rio de Janeiro → LisbonIn 1808 Portugal’s royal family fled Napoleon and ran the empire from Rio for thirteen years.
- Why Ankara replaced IstanbulIstanbul → AnkaraA small Anatolian town that ran the fight for a new Turkey, and stayed the capital.
- Why Australia built CanberraMelbourne → CanberraSydney and Melbourne each refused the other, so Australia built a third city.
- Why Belize built BelmopanBelize City → BelmopanA hurricane wrecked the old capital in 1961, so Belize built a new one 80 km inland.
- Why Bolivia has two capitalsSucre · La PazThe constitution says Sucre. The president, the government and Congress say La Paz.
- Why Brazil built BrasíliaSalvador → Rio de Janeiro → BrasíliaWritten into the constitution in 1891, built from nothing, and finished in 1960.
- Why Burundi moved its capital to GitegaGitega · BujumburaThe old seat of Burundi’s kings became its political capital again in 2019.
- Why Canada’s capital is OttawaKingston → Montreal → Toronto and Quebec → OttawaCanada couldn’t agree on a capital for 25 years, so Queen Victoria picked a lumber town.
- Why Côte d’Ivoire’s capital is YamoussoukroAbidjan → YamoussoukroA president made his home village the capital in 1983. Forty years later, the government is still in Abidjan.
- Why Egypt built a new capitalCairo · The New CapitalEgypt’s government has moved to a city in the desert, but the constitution still says Cairo is the capital.
- Why Germany’s capital moved from Bonn to BerlinBonn → BerlinA 338–320 vote in 1991 ended four decades of Bonn as a stopgap capital, though it kept six ministries.
- Why India’s capital moved to New DelhiCalcutta (Kolkata) → Delhi, then New DelhiA king’s announcement in 1911, over twenty years of building, and a name that only came in 1926.
- Why Indonesia is building NusantaraJakarta → NusantaraJakarta is sinking, so Indonesia is building a capital from scratch in Borneo.
- Why Kazakhstan moved its capital to AstanaAlmaty → AstanaA new capital on the steppe, with six names since 1830 and the same one twice.
- Why Madrid became Spain’s capitalToledo → Madrid → Valladolid → MadridMadrid had no university and no archbishop when Philip II moved his court there in 1561.
- Why Malawi moved its capital to LilongweZomba → LilongweZomba ran Malawi from a colonial hill town until Banda built a new capital in the tobacco country.
- Why Malaysia built PutrajayaKuala Lumpur · PutrajayaMalaysia’s Prime Minister works in Putrajaya, yet by law the federal capital is still Kuala Lumpur.
- Why Myanmar built NaypyidawYangon (Rangoon) → NaypyidawMyanmar’s generals moved the government to a brand-new city in 2005. Nobody quite knows why.
- Why Nigeria moved its capital to AbujaLagos → AbujaA capital in the middle, belonging to no major ethnic group. It took from 1976 to 1991 to move in.
- Why Pakistan built IslamabadKarachi → Rawalpindi → IslamabadPakistan swapped a crowded port for a planned city under the Margalla Hills, named in 1960.
- Why Russia’s capital moved back to MoscowMoscow → St Petersburg (Petrograd from 1914) → MoscowPeter the Great left Moscow for his new city in 1712. Lenin moved back in 1918, fleeing the German army.
- Why South Africa has three capitalsPretoria · Cape Town · BloemfonteinGovernment in Pretoria, Parliament in Cape Town, the appeal court in Bloemfontein.
- Why South Korea built SejongSeoul · SejongA court ruled that Seoul is the capital by 600 years of custom, so Korea built a capital that isn’t one.
- Why Sri Lanka’s Parliament sits in Kotte, not ColomboSri Jayewardenepura Kotte · ColomboSri Lanka’s Parliament meets on a 16-acre island in a lake, in a 15th-century royal capital.
- Why Tanzania’s capital is DodomaDar es Salaam → DodomaTanzania picked Dodoma in 1973. The president’s office only moved in 2023, fifty years later.
- Why the Netherlands is governed from The HagueAmsterdam · The HagueAmsterdam is the capital, but the country is run from The Hague.
- Why the United States built WashingtonNew York → Philadelphia → WashingtonA dinner-table deal over war debts picked the site; a mutiny inspired the district.
What makes a capital
A capital is usually where the government sits, but some countries split the job. The Netherlands' constitution names Amsterdam, while the government and parliament sit in The Hague. Bolivia's government is in La Paz while Sucre is the constitutional capital, and South Africa divides its capital between Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein.
Capitals also move, and some were built from scratch for the job: Washington, Canberra, Brasília and Abuja were all planned as capitals. The articles here cover capitals that moved, capitals with more than one city, and the reasons governments ended up where they are.