Capital City Area Quiz

Capital-city land area is a weird metric: it depends almost entirely on where the official city limits were drawn. Beijing's 16,000 km² includes vast rural municipalities; Paris's 105 km² stops at the Périphérique. Vatican City is the smallest sovereign capital on Earth, smaller than most college campuses.

What to watch

Chinese and Australian capitals tend to be far larger than European ones because they include surrounding hinterland. Capitals in densely populated nations (Tokyo, Singapore) are surprisingly compact. African capitals vary wildly — Abuja was master-planned and is much larger than expected; Banjul, Gambia's capital, sits on a tiny island.

Did you know?

• Beijing is the largest capital by area at around 16,000 km² — bigger than the entire country of Montenegro.
• Monaco's capital, Monaco, is also its entire territory: just 2 square kilometres.
• Brasília was purpose-built in only 41 months in the 1950s as the new capital of Brazil.
• Washington, D.C. was a planned capital from the ground up, sited as a political compromise between Northern and Southern states.
• Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, has a tiny population but sprawls along a coastline longer than many full countries.
• Tokyo's 23 special wards cover a much smaller area than the broader Tokyo Metropolis.
• Naypyidaw, Myanmar's planned capital, has 20-lane boulevards and almost no traffic.
• Singapore is a city-state — the capital is the country.
• Vatican City is by far the smallest capital by both area and population.
• The City of London — the historic financial core — is only 2.9 km², distinct from Greater London.
• Berlin's official capital area is bigger than all of New York City's five boroughs combined.
• Tehran is one of the most populous capitals in Western Asia.
• Hanoi tripled in area in 2008 when surrounding provinces were absorbed.
• Riyadh has grown from a small desert town to one of the world's largest capitals by area in just decades.
• Canberra was created from scratch as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne for Australia's capital.

Where the data comes from

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