Can you name the world capitals that aren't their countries' largest city?

created by hminion

Enter a capital in the box below
Correctly named capitals will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
159 capitals are their countries' largest cities. Name one capital that is its countries 2nd largest, 3rd largest, etc. Micronesia and Palau excluded.

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Show Missed Answers

Size	Capital	Number of Capitals
#2 Largest City		15
#3 Largest City		4
#4 Largest City		8
#5 Largest City		1
#6 Largest City		1
#8 Largest City		3
#10 Largest City		1
#11 Largest City		1
#24 Largest City		1
#189 Largest City		1

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World Capital Rank Quiz

by hminion

Created Jun 12, 2011 in Geography
Featured Jun 24, 2011
Game Plays 41,323

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Archived comments: show them

	Hooby:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:29 GMT	67 points
	how does it come to pass that san marino not the biggest city in san marino...come on san marino, get your **** together

	ClintT13:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:30 GMT	13 points
	The Pretoria one is an odd case, as South Africa has three capitals. I tried Cape Town and Johannesburg as my first two guesses. When neither of them showed up, I assumed South Africa was excluded from the quiz. How did you decide which of the three capitals to use for the quiz?

	sous_chef:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:31 GMT	3 points
	What! No Vatican City?!

	Tittymac_Maniac:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:37 GMT	2 points
	I knew it had to be the capital of Nigeria...just didn't know what that was.

	trogon:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:44 GMT	34 points
	@ClintT13, Pretoria is used as the capital of South Africa in all Sporcle capital quizzes. (And Johannesburg is not one of the capitals; Bloemfontein is the third.)

	Djibouti:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:46 GMT	20 points
	@ClintT13: Sporcle convention has always been that Pretoria is the accepted capital of South Africa, I think it's because it's the site of the executive branch. To further answer your question, Johannesburg is both the largest city in South Africa and not one of the capitals, so that answer is double wrong.

	joeflint82:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:46 GMT	4 points
	Excellent idea for a quiz, but tough as nails, I got 4 in one minute, and then watched 9 minutes tick by without any idea whatsoever. I got DC, but I was surprised it was as low as 24th.

	StupidBunny:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:51 GMT	4 points
	I swear I typed Abuja, but apparently I just thought it and moved on. Ah well, great quiz. I didn't realize New Delhi was so small (by Indian standards anyway.)

	Saints09:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 17:55 GMT	2 points
	Great quiz, maybe lower the time down a little

Comment below threshold: show it

	Hullabaloo:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 18:17 GMT	10 points
	I could have had all the time in the world, and I wouldn't have finished that. Nice quiz.

	gowhere:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 18:24 GMT	8 points
	@joeflint82: While DC itself is relatively small, that is partially because many of the people who work in DC live in surrounding cities and towns. The metropolitan statistical area ranks 8th. DC's population is only a little more than 10% of its metro area. @StupidBunny: New Delhi has a population of less than 300,000, about half the size of Washington. Its neighbor, Delhi proper, has 16,000,000.

	TAR2:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 18:28 GMT	3 points
	I cannot believe 10% actually got Sri Jayawardenapura on their own. I think there was some googling going on!

	imclala:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 18:31 GMT	37 points
	Sri Jayawardenapura? That was my next guess.

	cnyy12:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 18:33 GMT	5 points
	jerusalem?

	Austerlitz:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 18:34 GMT	44 points
	I do not know what I should be more surprised at: that San Marino is not the largest city in San Marino, or that there is actually room for 3+ cities in that country.

	moviegoer74:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 18:50 GMT	1 point
	How is it possible that Taipei is listed among the group of 4th largest cities? It has to be the largest city in Taiwan. I would love to see a source for including it among capitals that are the 4th-largest cities in their country.

	calm_incense:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 19:01 GMT	17 points
	@moviegoer74: New Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung are all larger than Taipei. @people surprised to see Sri Jayawardenapura so well guessed: "Colombo" is accepted for Sri Jayawardenapura.

	montecarlo:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 19:30 GMT	2 points
	funny, ive never seen "new taipei" as an answer to any other sporcle quiz. i understand this falls under nitpicking the source... but in some cases i think "sporcle common sense" should overrule source info. also, kotte is an acceptable answer for the sri lanka capital.

	Saints09:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 19:38 GMT	12 points
	I knew this is really random but I was watching the 2011 Geography Bee and one of the answers was Kyrgyzstan. ☺

	ffi:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 20:00 GMT	4 points
	Tell me I’m not the only one whose first guess on this quiz was “Yamoussoukro.”

	Onno:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 20:19 GMT	6 points
	@montecarlo: That may not be so funny at all, because "New Taipei had been administered as Taipei County of Taiwan until its reorganization as a special municipality on December 25, 2010." While Sporcle common sense is often handy, geography is subject to change and we have to go with it. Anyway, I'm surprised that this got released without even a mention of the source(s) used. I tend to use citypopulation.de a lot lately, and they state that Muscat is 17st largest in Oman (data from 2003, but unless it annexed a lot of neighbouring cities...), Suva is 2nd largest in Fiji and Brussels is 5th in Belgium. Of course these capitals all have the largest urban area of their country, but if that was the case, Manila/Khartoum/Taipei/Banjul/Damascus/Port of Spain/Valletta shouldn't be here either.

	chikka2:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 20:23 GMT	3 points
	Could not have got this quiz without years of Sporcling preparation. It feels good. And it's Friday!

	qifblackbeard:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 20:26 GMT	-4 points
	Ok, I typed in San Marino as a joke because I couldn't think of anything else......... what just happened? And seriously, what the hell is Sri Jayawardenapura??

	katmandew:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 20:44 GMT	3 points
	every source i've ever seen has had Khartoum as the largest city in Sudan, so is there other larger city i've never heard of or is this a mistake?

	pablitomiguez:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 20:54 GMT	3 points
	which is the source of this quiz?

	NvjdsIsSmart:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 21:38 GMT	7 points
	If you can spell Sri Jaywardenepura or whatever then you are a true sporcler.

	Onno:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 21:41 GMT	3 points
	@katmandew: That's Omdurman. Admittedly it's only a few miles from Khartoum, so that explains its lack of fame...

	Bober:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 22:05 GMT	3 points
	Onno, I guess if Brussels is 5th, then London is .. wherever it ranks with its 10000 inhabitants. Never heard anyone ever even mentioning Brussels being 5th. But I see, that's how citypopulation.de lists it. Some very odd town/city borders usage, I guess.

	dxdtdemon:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 22:19 GMT	12 points
	Tel Aviv is the most populous city in Israel, so how did Jerusalem not make this list?

	matthew_dixon:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 22:19 GMT	2 points
	So hang on - I thought Colombo was the largest city in Sri Lanka and also the capital. Kicking myself on Abuja, and I thought New Delhi, but didn't type it!

	nashedpotatoes:	Jun 24th, 2011 at 22:31 GMT	2 points
	honestly the last capital I thought of was San Marino since I know mainly European countries and just laughed at the possibility... it got the last laugh smh