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African Capitals Quiz

Fifty-three African capitals on a flat map of Africa: read the city on each card and click its country. Three tries each.

Capitals that are not the biggest city

On this map the largest city and the capital are often two different places. Casablanca outweighs Rabat, Douala outweighs Yaoundé, Lagos outweighs Abuja, Abidjan outweighs Yamoussoukro, Dar es Salaam outweighs Dodoma, Bujumbura outweighs Gitega, Cotonou outweighs Porto-Novo, Bata on the mainland outweighs Malabo on the island of Bioko, Serekunda outweighs Banjul, and Johannesburg is bigger than all three of South Africa's capitals. The card names the official capital every time.

Capitals built to order

Many of those capitals were chosen precisely because they were not the big city. Abuja was built in the centre of Nigeria and replaced Lagos in 1991. Nouakchott grew from a small settlement picked in 1958 for a Mauritania about to become independent. Gaborone was laid out in the mid-1960s because Bechuanaland had been run from Mafeking, across the border in South Africa. Tanzania decided in the 1970s to move from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma, in the middle of the country, and took decades to complete the transfer. Yamoussoukro was the home village of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Côte d'Ivoire's first president, who made it the capital in 1983 and gave it a basilica listed as the largest church in the world. Lilongwe replaced Zomba in 1975, Gitega replaced Bujumbura as Burundi's political capital in 2019, and Equatorial Guinea has been building Ciudad de la Paz on the mainland to take over from Malabo.

Three capitals, two capitals, and what the card says

South Africa has three: Pretoria holds the government, Cape Town the parliament and Bloemfontein the highest courts, and the card says Pretoria. eSwatini has two: Mbabane is the administrative capital, while Lobamba, seat of the parliament and of the royal residence, is the one on the card. Benin's constitution names Porto-Novo, though the ministries sit in Cotonou. Two units take no card at all: Djibouti's capital is also called Djibouti, so the name would give the answer away, and Western Sahara's claimed capital, Laayoune, is administered by Morocco.

Rivers, islands and renamed cities

Brazzaville and Kinshasa face each other across the Congo River, the closest pair of national capitals anywhere. Khartoum stands where the Blue and White Nile meet; Bamako and Niamey both sit on the Niger. Banjul occupies an island at the mouth of the Gambia, Lomé lies hard against the Ghanaian border, and Dakar is the westernmost capital on the mainland. Addis Ababa, at about 2,300 metres, is among the highest capitals in the world and hosts the African Union. Freetown, founded in 1792, Libreville, founded in 1849, and Monrovia, named after the American president James Monroe, all began as homes for freed slaves. Several names are younger than their cities: Harare was Salisbury until 1982, Maputo was Lourenço Marques until 1976, and N'Djamena and Banjul were Fort-Lamy and Bathurst until 1973.

All 53 capitals and their countries

53 capitals are in the deck, listed in alphabetical order by city, each with its country. Djibouti, Somaliland and Western Sahara are on the map but not in the deck.

1. AbujaNigeria
2. AccraGhana
3. Addis AbabaEthiopia
4. AlgiersAlgeria
5. AntananarivoMadagascar
6. AsmaraEritrea
7. BamakoMali
8. BanguiCentral African Republic
9. BanjulGambia
10. BissauGuinea-Bissau
11. BrazzavilleCongo
12. CairoEgypt
13. ConakryGuinea
14. DakarSenegal
15. DodomaTanzania
16. FreetownSierra Leone
17. GaboroneBotswana
18. GitegaBurundi
19. HarareZimbabwe
20. JubaSouth Sudan
21. KampalaUganda
22. KhartoumSudan
23. KigaliRwanda
24. KinshasaDemocratic Republic of the Congo
25. LibrevilleGabon
26. LilongweMalawi
27. LobambaeSwatini
28. LoméTogo
29. LuandaAngola
30. LusakaZambia
31. MalaboEquatorial Guinea
32. MaputoMozambique
33. MaseruLesotho
34. MogadishuSomalia
35. MonroviaLiberia
36. MoroniComoros
37. N'DjamenaChad
38. NairobiKenya
39. NiameyNiger
40. NouakchottMauritania
41. OuagadougouBurkina Faso
42. Port LouisMauritius
43. Porto-NovoBenin
44. PraiaCabo Verde
45. PretoriaSouth Africa
46. RabatMorocco
47. São ToméSão Tomé and Principe
48. TripoliLibya
49. TunisTunisia
50. VictoriaSeychelles
51. WindhoekNamibia
52. YamoussoukroCôte d'Ivoire
53. YaoundéCameroon

Questions about the capitals

Why is the capital of South Africa given as Pretoria?

Because South Africa splits the job three ways. Pretoria houses the president and the ministries, Cape Town the parliament and Bloemfontein the Supreme Court of Appeal, and the card follows the executive seat, as most references do. Johannesburg, the largest city, is none of the three.

Which two African capitals can see each other?

Kinshasa and Brazzaville. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo keep their capitals on opposite banks of the Congo River, a few kilometres apart, close enough for each skyline to be visible from the other's waterfront. No other pair of national capitals stands so close.

Which African capitals were purpose-built?

Abuja, laid out in Nigeria's centre and made capital in 1991; Nouakchott, chosen in 1958 for Mauritania's independence; Gaborone, built in the 1960s so that Botswana would not be governed from South Africa; Dodoma, Tanzania's planned capital since the 1970s; and Yamoussoukro, the president's home village that Côte d'Ivoire named capital in 1983.

More maps

Flags of the same map: Africa. Other maps: US state capitals, European capitals, Asian capitals, Capitals of the Americas, French regional capitals, Spanish regional capitals, Italian regional capitals, Brazilian state capitals, German state capitals, Canadian provincial capitals. All 235 flags of the world with their capitals: Flags of the world · all modes.