How it works
This world capitals quiz asks for the capital of every United Nations member state and both observer states, 195 questions in all. Each question offers four cities, and the wrong ones are chosen to tempt you: Sydney for Australia, Istanbul for Turkey. After you answer, a short note explains the right city. Every capital you miss goes into a Missed pile and stays there until you answer it correctly.
Read the full guide
Practice mode and exam mode
Practice mode marks each answer as soon as you tap a city. A note then says where the city sits, which larger city it gets confused with, or when it took over. For a timed run, press Exam mode below the question, then Start the exam. The clock starts on that press: five minutes and up to 20 questions, fewer when the continent you chose has fewer. Nothing is marked until the end. Then you see your score, the score for each continent and every question you missed. There is no pass mark. Questions and choices are shuffled, so you cannot learn the position of an answer.
Start with one continent
The Start from menu, below the question, limits the questions to Africa (54 countries), Asia (48), Europe (44), North America (23), South America (12) or Oceania (14). Countries that straddle two continents follow the United Nations geoscheme, so Turkey, Cyprus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are under Asia and Russia is under Europe. Central America and the Caribbean count as North America. Trick capitals, under Question set above the question, swaps in a shorter set. It holds 34 countries where a better-known city is often mistaken for the capital. It has the same Start from menu and its own Missed pile.
Countries with more than one capital
A few countries split the job between cities, and a plain question would have two defensible answers. For those, the question names the role. It asks for the constitutional capital of Bolivia (Sucre), the official capital of the Netherlands (Amsterdam) and one of the three capitals of South Africa. Where a capital is disputed, as with Jerusalem, the question asks where the government sits, and the note sets out the dispute without taking a side. Nauru has no official capital, so its question asks for the district that holds the government offices.
- Learn the trick capitals early. Canberra, Ottawa, Ankara, Brasília, Bern and Wellington catch most people once.
- Pair the ones that sound alike. Bratislava is Slovakia and Ljubljana is Slovenia. Budapest is Hungary and Bucharest is Romania.
- Do one continent per sitting, then switch from All to Missed and empty that pile before you stop.
- Read the note even when you are right. A river, a coast or a date gives the name something to hang on.
- Check the date of your atlas. Equatorial Guinea moved its capital to Ciudad de la Paz in January 2026, and the capital of Kazakhstan has been called Astana again since 2022.
Questions and answers
How many countries are in this country capital quiz?
There are 195: the 193 United Nations member states plus the two observer states, Vatican City and Palestine. States with limited recognition, such as Kosovo and Taiwan, and territories such as Greenland or Puerto Rico are left out, because the quiz follows the sovereign states marked in its source list.
When were the capitals last checked?
On the date shown under the quiz, against the list of national capitals on Wikipedia and the articles it links to. Two recent changes are reflected. The capital of Equatorial Guinea is Ciudad de la Paz, which replaced Malabo in January 2026. The capital of Indonesia is still Jakarta, because the planned move to Nusantara on Borneo had not taken effect. Malabo and Nusantara are never offered as wrong choices, so nobody is marked down for an answer that was right until recently.
Why is the answer Amsterdam and not The Hague?
Amsterdam is the capital named in the Dutch constitution, while the government and parliament sit in The Hague. The question asks for the official capital, so only one answer is right. The same approach is used for Bolivia, Benin, Ivory Coast, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Burundi, Eswatini, Tanzania and South Africa, and the note after each answer names the other city and what it does.
Can I print the quiz?
Yes. After a round, Print lists its questions, from whatever you have chosen, one continent, the trick capitals or all 195, with four choices under each. A tick on With answer key gives the matching key on a separate sheet, with the right city, its note and the source.
Is this a capitals of the world quiz on a map?
No. This one is text only: a country name and four cities. For map work, the US states quiz and the state capitals quiz on this site use a clickable outline map of the United States.