Geography Quiz Arcade

Capital Quizzes

Match capitals to countries and back.

Every capital city quiz on the site — both directions, all six continents, and the full name-them-all challenge. Pick a region or take the world.

Which way round should you practise?

Country to Capital gives you the country and asks for the city. This is the direction almost every general-knowledge quiz uses, and the one worth being good at.

Capital to Country goes the other way, and it is harder. There are more capitals you have never heard of than countries you have never heard of, so the prompt itself can be unfamiliar.

Practise Country to Capital for usefulness and Capital to Country for depth.

Work a continent at a time

Shuffling all 197 countries every round feels productive and is not. Your misses scatter and you never clear a region. Working one continent at a time means you can actually finish something:

  • European Capitals — the most familiar block, the best starting point.
  • South American Capitals — only twelve, and several are genuinely tricky. Bolivia's constitutional capital is Sucre, not La Paz, which catches nearly everyone.
  • North American Capitals — the mainland is easy, the Caribbean is not.
  • African Capitals — 54 countries and the block that will most improve a world score.
  • Asian Capitals — includes the ones that moved, which quizzes love.
  • Oceania Capitals — small but unfamiliar.

The capitals that catch people

Some are traps because the obvious answer is the largest city rather than the seat of government:

  • Turkey — Ankara, not Istanbul.
  • Switzerland — Bern, not Zurich or Geneva.
  • Australia — Canberra, not Sydney.
  • Canada — Ottawa, not Toronto.
  • Brazil — Brasília, not Rio de Janeiro.
  • United States — Washington, D.C., not New York.
  • Morocco — Rabat, not Casablanca.
  • Nigeria — Abuja, not Lagos.
  • Myanmar — Naypyidaw, not Yangon.
  • Côte d'Ivoire — Yamoussoukro is the official capital; Abidjan is the largest city and seat of much of the government.
  • Kazakhstan — the capital has been renamed more than once and quizzes are inconsistent about it.
  • South Africa — three capitals: Pretoria (executive), Cape Town (legislative) and Bloemfontein (judicial).
  • Bolivia — Sucre is constitutional, La Paz is the seat of government.

Those roughly a dozen account for a large share of all capital-quiz errors. Learning just that list is unusually good value.

How to memorise capitals efficiently

Attach the city to something, not to nothing. A capital paired with a fact — a river, a founding story, a meaning in translation — is far more durable than a name paired with a name.

And review only the misses. Re-testing yourself on capitals you already know feels good and teaches nothing.

Beyond the quizzes

If you want the raw reference rather than a game, the World Capitals List tool gives every country and capital in one searchable table, and each country has its own page with its capital, flag, population, currency and languages.

Frequently asked questions

How many capital cities are there in the world?

Around 195 to 197, roughly matching the number of sovereign states. The number is not exact because several countries have more than one official capital — South Africa has three and Bolivia has two — and a few designate a capital that is not the seat of government.

Which country has three capitals?

South Africa. Pretoria is the executive capital, Cape Town the legislative capital where parliament sits, and Bloemfontein the judicial capital. Quizzes usually accept Pretoria but the full answer is all three.

What is the most commonly missed capital?

The traps are almost always countries whose largest city is not the capital: Turkey (Ankara, not Istanbul), Australia (Canberra, not Sydney), Switzerland (Bern), Canada (Ottawa), Brazil (Brasília) and Myanmar (Naypyidaw).

Should I learn capitals or countries first?

Countries first. Capitals attach to countries, so learning the cities before you have a solid map of the world means memorising names with nothing to hang them on. Once you can name the countries of a continent, its capitals go in far faster.

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