World Capitals Quiz

One country is left out of the capital questions: Palestine proclaims East Jerusalem as its capital, while its government sits in Ramallah, and the question is part of an unresolved dispute.

Capitals that are not the famous city

• Australia: Canberra, not Sydney.
• Canada: Ottawa, not Toronto.
• Brazil: Brasília, not Rio de Janeiro.
• Türkiye: Ankara, not Istanbul.
• Nigeria: Abuja, not Lagos.
• Pakistan: Islamabad, not Karachi.
• Morocco: Rabat, not Casablanca.
• New Zealand: Wellington, not Auckland.
• Kazakhstan: Astana, not Almaty.

Countries with a footnote

A few countries split the jobs of a capital between cities, or are in the middle of moving. The quiz asks for the capital in the data table; these notes say what else is true.

• Bolivia: Sucre is the constitutional capital; La Paz is the seat of government.
• South Africa has three capitals: Pretoria (administrative), Cape Town (legislative) and Bloemfontein (judicial).
• Netherlands: Amsterdam is the capital; the government and parliament sit in The Hague.
• Côte d'Ivoire: Yamoussoukro is the official capital; most government offices and embassies are in Abidjan.
• Equatorial Guinea: Decree-Law 1/2026 (January 2026) made Ciudad de la Paz, on the mainland, the capital in place of Malabo; the move is still under way, so Malabo is also accepted.
• Myanmar: Nay Pyi Taw has been the capital since 2005; Yangon (Rangoon) is the largest city.
• Sri Lanka: Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte is the legislative capital; Colombo is the commercial capital and largest city.
• Switzerland: Bern is the federal city, the seat of government; Swiss law names no formal capital.

Memory hooks

Some capitals share the country's name, and learning them as one set is a cheap handful of points: Djibouti, Kuwait City, Luxembourg, Mexico City, Monaco, Panama City, San Marino, Singapore, Guatemala City and Vatican City.

Watch the near-twins. Kingston is Jamaica, Kingstown is Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Georgetown is Guyana, Saint George's is Grenada. Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo) and Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) face each other across the Congo River, which is a good way to remember that the two Congos have two capitals, one on each bank.

One region at a time

Learn capitals a region at a time, starting with the one you know best. South America is a good early win: 12 countries, and the main trap is Bolivia. Central Asia and West Africa are the hard stretches, where the names are unfamiliar and the countries are neighbors, so Bishkek and Dushanbe, or Niamey and Bamako, blur together. Give those regions extra Learn-mode time before a scored run.

The countries and capitals list is the full table, with a source link for every row. The world capitals worksheet prints one sheet per continent group in two shuffled versions with answer keys, which suits a class working through the world over several weeks.

Related quizzes

This page asks for capitals. To name every country from memory, try the countries of the world quiz; to find each one on the map, the world map quiz. Click mode here does a version of that inside this quiz, and Learn mode shows any country's name, capital and flag on hover.

All the countries and capitals in this quiz

The 193 UN member states and the 2 UN observer states (Vatican City and Palestine). Borders and names policy.

Names and capitals: CIA World Factbook (final edition), checked against Wikidata and Natural Earth. Flags: flag-icons, each checked against Wikimedia Commons. See sources. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.