Capital City Population Quiz

The capitals quiz compares metro-area populations — not the city-proper line on the map, but the contiguous urban region that depends on the capital for jobs and infrastructure. Tokyo's 37 million people make Greater Tokyo the largest metro on Earth; Vatican City's few hundred residents make it the smallest.

Surprising contrasts

Cairo has more people than the entire country of Greece. Lima holds nearly a third of Peru's entire population. Jakarta is sinking literally faster than any other major capital. Brasília, purpose-built in the 1960s, is far smaller than the country's commercial center, São Paulo. Brunei's capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, has roughly the same population as a mid-sized American suburb.

Did you know?

• Tokyo's metro area is home to more people than the entire population of Canada — about 37 million.
• Cairo has been continuously inhabited for over 1,000 years and is still the largest city in the Arab world.
• Vatican City's capital is also its only city — and most of its residents are clergy.
• Malé, the capital of the Maldives, packs 250,000 people into 8 square kilometres of land.
• Beijing was the world's largest city in the 1700s, three centuries before its modern boom.
• Jakarta is sinking so fast that Indonesia is relocating its capital to a planned city called Nusantara.
• Mexico City was built on a drained Aztec lake; parts of it still sink several centimetres per year.
• Brasília was designed in the shape of an aircraft when viewed from above.
• Ottawa is Canada's capital despite Toronto and Montreal both having far larger populations.
• Seoul's metropolitan area contains half of South Korea's entire population.
• Wellington is the southernmost capital city of any sovereign nation.
• Tehran sits at the foot of the Alborz Mountains — you can see ski slopes from downtown.
• Manila has some of the highest population densities ever recorded — over 70,000 per km² in some districts.
• Reykjavík's entire population is smaller than that of many American suburbs.
• Astana (renamed Nur-Sultan, then back to Astana) was built almost from scratch starting in 1997.

Where the data comes from

Every figure in this category is drawn from Capital-city metro populations. Data is refreshed quarterly; if a number looks wrong, tell us and we will check the source.