🌍 Capital Cities Trivia Questions & Answers
From Canberra to Kathmandu — the capitals every quizzer should know. Below are 30 free capital cities trivia questions with answers — part of Geography trivia on BUZZ. Want a real challenge that adapts to what you know? Play the Geography quiz — no signup needed to start.
30 Capital Cities trivia questions
Q1. What is the capital city of Australia?
Answer: Canberra
💡 Canberra was specially built as the capital because Sydney and Melbourne couldn't agree which city should have the honour.
Q2. What is the capital of France?
Answer: Paris
💡 Paris is sometimes called the 'City of Light' for its role during the Age of Enlightenment.
Q3. Which Nordic capital, founded by Vikings over 1,000 years ago, is the world's northernmost capital?
Answer: Reykjavik
💡 Reykjavik sits just north of the 64th parallel — Greenland's Nuuk is slightly further north, but Greenland isn't a sovereign state.
Q4. What is the capital of South Korea?
Answer: Seoul
💡 Seoul has served as Korea's capital since 1394, making it one of the world's longest-running capital cities.
Q5. What is the capital of Egypt?
Answer: Cairo
💡 Cairo has served as Egypt's capital for over 1,000 years, since its founding by the Fatimids in 969 AD.
Q6. What is the capital of Germany?
Answer: Berlin
💡 Berlin has more canal and river bridges than Venice, thanks to its many waterways.
Q7. What is the capital city of Japan?
Answer: Tokyo
💡 Tokyo became the capital of Japan when Emperor Meiji moved there in 1869.
Q8. What is the capital of Canada?
Answer: Ottawa
💡 Ottawa was chosen as capital by Queen Victoria in 1857.
Q9. What is the capital of Brazil?
Answer: Brasília
💡 Brasília was purpose-built and became the capital in 1960, replacing Rio de Janeiro. It was designed by urban planner Lúcio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Q10. What is the capital of Argentina?
Answer: Buenos Aires
💡 Buenos Aires means 'Good Airs' or 'Fair Winds' in Spanish. It has the widest avenue in the world — Avenida 9 de Julio, with 14 lanes of traffic.
Q11. This West African giant's purpose-built capital, at its centre, replaced its old one in 1991.
Answer: Abuja
💡 Abuja was chosen for its central, neutral location among Nigeria's many ethnic and religious groups.
Q12. Washington, D.C. sits inside a special federal district named what?
Answer: District of Columbia
💡 Congress created this federal district in 1790, partly from land ceded by Maryland and Virginia.
Q13. The city of Juba, on the White Nile, is the capital of which African country?
Answer: South Sudan
💡 Juba became a national capital in 2011 and sits in the country's far south near Uganda.
Q14. What is the capital of New Zealand?
Answer: Wellington
💡 Wellington is the world's southernmost capital city and is famous for its extreme winds — locals joke that you can always tell a Wellingtonian because they walk at an angle.
Q15. This Southeast Asian capital, once Thang Long, has a name meaning 'Between Two Rivers' — which city?
Answer: Hanoi
💡 Hanoi became capital of a reunified Vietnam in 1976, after the fall of Saigon.
Q16. Which Swiss city is the seat of government, even though it isn't the country's largest city?
Answer: Bern
💡 Switzerland's constitution never officially names a capital at all — Bern is technically just the 'federal city,' chosen in 1848 partly so no single economic powerhouse held all the political power too.
Q17. Yamoussoukro is Ivory Coast's official capital, but which coastal city is its de facto capital?
Answer: Abidjan
💡 The capital moved to Yamoussoukro in 1983 partly because it was President Houphouët-Boigny's birthplace, but government functions shifted there only slowly — Abidjan has around 4.7 million people to Yamoussoukro's roughly 360,000.
Q18. Turkey's capital was moved from Istanbul to which centrally located Anatolian city in 1923?
Answer: Ankara
💡 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk based his nationalist movement in Ankara during Turkey's War of Independence — moving the capital there symbolically broke from Istanbul's Ottoman imperial past.
Q19. Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, translates from Amharic to what English phrase?
Answer: New Flower
💡 Legend credits Empress Taitu, wife of Emperor Menelik II, with naming the city in 1887 after being struck by a flower she'd never seen before near the site's hot springs.
Q20. Which country has Nairobi as its capital?
Answer: Kenya
💡 Nairobi was founded in 1899 as a railway camp during construction of the Uganda Railway. Its name comes from the Maasai phrase meaning 'cool water'.
Q21. Pakistan moved its capital from Karachi to which purpose-built city in the 1960s?
Answer: Islamabad
💡 A Greek architect, Konstantinos Doxiadis, designed Islamabad's triangular grid master plan.
Q22. India's capital, built by the British in the early 20th century, is formally called what?
Answer: New Delhi
💡 It was inaugurated in 1931, after King George V ordered the capital moved from Calcutta in 1911.
Q23. Moscow became Russia's capital in 1918, taking over from a city then called what?
Answer: Petrograd
💡 That city had dropped its German-sounding name 'Saint Petersburg' for 'Petrograd' back in 1914.
Q24. Which city is Sri Lanka's commercial capital, distinct from its official capital?
Answer: Colombo
💡 Colombo remains Sri Lanka's largest city and main port, even after losing official capital status in 1982.
Q25. Which Philippine city was capital from 1948 to 1976, before Manila resumed the role?
Answer: Quezon City
💡 Quezon City is named after Manuel L. Quezon, the Philippines' second president.
Q26. Tanzania's capital is Dodoma, but which coastal city remains its largest and de facto seat?
Answer: Dar es Salaam
💡 Dodoma wasn't fully completed as the working capital until 1996, over 20 years after the move was announced.
Q27. Which Nordic capital is spread across 14 islands linked by some 50 bridges?
Answer: Stockholm
💡 Its island setting on Lake Malaren meeting the Baltic earns it the nickname 'Venice of the North.'
Q28. Valletta, one of Europe's smallest capitals, was founded by which crusading order?
Answer: The Knights of St John
💡 They built it after the 1565 Great Siege of Malta and named it for Grand Master Jean de Valette.
Q29. Which city does Bolivia's constitution name as its capital, though government sits elsewhere?
Answer: Sucre
💡 La Paz has held the seat of government since 1898, but Sucre keeps the title of constitutional capital and hosts Bolivia's Supreme Court.
Q30. Which country uniquely has three capital cities, split by executive, judicial, and legislative branch?
Answer: South Africa
💡 Pretoria hosts the executive, Cape Town holds Parliament, and Bloemfontein houses the Supreme Court of Appeal — a compromise struck when the Union of South Africa formed in 1910.
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