• 14 capitals
  • Checked October 2026

German States and Capitals Quiz

Pick the capital of the German state the question names and lights up.

German States and Capitals Quiz

Name Date

What is the capital of Bavaria?

1 of 7

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
More options

Write the name of each numbered capital.Answer key

  1. Munich
  2. Bremen
  3. Stuttgart
  4. Dresden
  5. Hanover
  6. Düsseldorf
  7. Kiel
  8. Potsdam
  9. Mainz
  10. Saarbrücken
  11. Erfurt
  12. Magdeburg
  13. Wiesbaden
  14. Schwerin

Drawn for this site from Natural Earth 5.1.2. Licence: public domain.

Each capital is a button. Use the arrow keys to move between them and Enter to choose. Names are read out in Study, and once a capital is answered.

Next step Same map, no capitals: find the 16 statesPrint this map blank, numbered or named

All 14 capitals on the diagram

Show the list
  1. Munich Capital of Bavaria and its largest city. German name: München.
  2. Bremen Capital of the state of Bremen, which also includes Bremerhaven.
  3. Stuttgart Capital of Baden-Württemberg and the largest city in the state.
  4. Dresden Capital of Saxony. Leipzig, in the same state, is larger.
  5. Hanover Capital of Lower Saxony and its largest city. German spelling: Hannover.
  6. Düsseldorf Capital of North Rhine-Westphalia. Cologne, in the same state, is larger.
  7. Kiel Capital of Schleswig-Holstein and its largest city.
  8. Potsdam Capital of Brandenburg and its largest city.
  9. Mainz Capital of Rhineland-Palatinate and its largest city.
  10. Saarbrücken Capital of Saarland and its largest city.
  11. Erfurt Capital of Thuringia and its largest city.
  12. Magdeburg Capital of Saxony-Anhalt. Halle, in the same state, is close in size.
  13. Wiesbaden Capital of Hesse. Frankfurt, in the same state, has more people.
  14. Schwerin Capital of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Rostock has about twice as many people.

How this list was compiled: The 14 state capitals were read on 2026-10-01 in the list of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), Bundesländer mit Hauptstädten nach Fläche, Bevölkerung und Bevölkerungsdichte am 31.12.2024, https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Laender-Regionen/Regionales/Gemeindeverzeichnis/Administrativ/02-bundeslaender.html, and in the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Germany; the GeoNames gazetteer (the seat of each state, https://download.geonames.org/export/dump/cities15000.zip) agrees. The sources differ on the city-states: Destatis prints Berlin and Hamburg as their own capital, the Wikipedia table gives neither a capital, so neither is asked. Which capitals are the largest city of their state and which are not, Munich as the third largest German city and Schwerin's population under 100,000: Destatis, Städte (Alle Gemeinden mit Stadtrecht) am 31.12.2024, https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Laender-Regionen/Regionales/Gemeindeverzeichnis/Administrativ/05-staedte.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Germany_by_population and the table at https://www.citypopulation.de/en/germany/cities/ (estimate of 31 December 2025), all read on 2026-10-01; Magdeburg and Halle change places between them, so that line says only that the two are close in size. The German spellings München and Hannover are the ones Destatis prints. The map, the state points and the ring for Bremen are copied from this site (Natural Earth), with one label point moved a little inside its shape so that a name fits; positions named in the hints were read off the drawing. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces (scale 1:10,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19. Surrounding land from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_10m_admin_0_countries (scale 1:10,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_10m_admin_0_countries.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19. Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection centred on 51.2°N 10.4°E. Outlines simplified; small islands are left out. Licence: public domain (Natural Earth terms of use: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/)

How it works

This German states and capitals quiz names a state, lights it on the map and asks for its capital, such as Wiesbaden or Erfurt. Fourteen capitals are asked. Berlin and Hamburg are city-states, each a city that is itself a state: drawn, but not asked.

Read the full guide

Capitals that are not the largest city

Four capitals are smaller than another city in their state: Wiesbaden (Frankfurt), Düsseldorf (Cologne), Dresden (Leipzig) and Schwerin (Rostock). Those are the ones a German capitals quiz catches people on. The list under the map pairs every capital with its state.

Both directions on one map

Find it names a capital and you tap its state, which makes this a German states and capitals map quiz. Name it lights a state and asks for its capital, from four choices or typed. Typed answers count in German too: München for Munich and Hannover for Hanover.

  • Bremen is the quick one: the state and its capital share a name. It is the smallest shape, inside Lower Saxony.
  • Saarbrücken and Saarland begin with the same four letters, and Schwerin is the only capital here with fewer than 100,000 people.
  • Most capitals are also the largest city in their state, among them Munich, Stuttgart, Hanover and Kiel.

Questions and answers

What are the capitals of the German states?

Stuttgart (Baden-Württemberg), Munich (Bavaria), Potsdam (Brandenburg), Bremen (Bremen), Wiesbaden (Hesse), Hanover (Lower Saxony), Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), Düsseldorf (North Rhine-Westphalia), Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate), Saarbrücken (Saarland), Dresden (Saxony), Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt), Kiel (Schleswig-Holstein) and Erfurt (Thuringia). Hamburg and Berlin are city-states with no separate capital.

Does this Germany states and capitals quiz include Berlin?

Berlin is on the map but is not asked. Berlin and Hamburg are city-states: each is one city that is also a state, so there is no separate capital to find. Bremen is asked, because its state holds two cities, Bremen and Bremerhaven.

Is Frankfurt the capital of Hesse?

No. Wiesbaden is the capital of Hesse. Frankfurt is the largest city in the state, with more than twice as many people as Wiesbaden.

What is the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia?

Düsseldorf. Cologne, in the same state, is larger: it is the fourth largest city in Germany, after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich.

More quizzes

Show 6 more

Browse Geography Quizzes