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Natural Earth 1:10m · 13 state capitals
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German State Capitals Quiz

Thirteen state capitals on a flat map of Germany. Each card names a city — click the Land it governs or drag the card onto it: Wiesbaden rather than Frankfurt, Hanover rather than Hamburg. Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg are city-states named after themselves, so they stay locked under their flags. Three tries per card; one flag, one hint and one skip are free for the round.

Read the capital on the card, then click its state or drag the card onto it. Flag turns the card into that state's flag, Hint opens all three facts about it; after three misses, or Skip, the map places it for you. Scroll or pinch to zoom in.

All 13 capitals and their states, the flags explained, more maps ↓

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German State Capitals Quiz

Thirteen capitals of the German Länder on a flat map of Germany: read the city on each card and click its state.

Residences of kings and dukes: capitals that came with the territory

Most of the thirteen capitals in this deck were seats of power long before the Federal Republic. Munich has been the Wittelsbach residence since the Middle Ages, Stuttgart that of the dukes and later kings of Württemberg, Dresden that of the Wettin electors and kings of Saxony, and Hanover gave its name to the dynasty that ruled Britain from 1714 to 1837. Schwerin's castle on its lake island housed the grand dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Potsdam was the Hohenzollerns' residence outside Berlin and the venue of the 1945 conference, and Wiesbaden was the capital of the Duchy of Nassau until Prussia annexed it in 1866. Mainz was ruled for centuries by its archbishop, one of the electors who chose the Holy Roman Emperor. Magdeburg goes back further: Otto the Great made it an archbishopric and lies buried in its cathedral.

Not the biggest city: Wiesbaden, Dusseldorf and Dresden

The traps are the states whose most famous city is not the capital. Hesse is governed from Wiesbaden, a spa town on the Rhine, not from Frankfurt, which is nearly three times larger; Wiesbaden was picked in 1945 under the American occupation, and Frankfurt went on to lose the vote for federal capital to Bonn four years later. North Rhine-Westphalia is run from Düsseldorf, chosen by the British when they created the state in 1946, rather than from Cologne, the largest city, or from Bonn, the federal capital for four decades but never a state capital. Rhineland-Palatinate's government sat in Koblenz until 1950 before moving to Mainz. Saxony's capital is Dresden even though Leipzig has now overtaken it in population, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is run from Schwerin, the smallest of all the state capitals, rather than from the port of Rostock. Saxony-Anhalt's new parliament chose Magdeburg over Halle in 1990; the two are today almost the same size.

Two capitals within sight of each other, and the ones left out

Mainz and Wiesbaden face each other across the Rhine, and three districts on the Wiesbaden bank are still called Mainz-Kastel, Mainz-Kostheim and Mainz-Amöneburg, because they belonged to Mainz until the occupation zones were drawn along the river in 1945. Erfurt became Thuringia's capital only in 1948, taking over from Weimar, and again when the state was refounded in 1990; Martin Luther studied at its university and entered its Augustinian monastery. Kiel, the navy's Baltic base at the eastern end of the canal that bears its name, replaced the old ducal town of Schleswig as the province's seat in the early twentieth century. Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are missing from the deck because they are city-states and their own capitals, though the state of Bremen has a second city, Bremerhaven, sixty kilometres downstream and cut off from Bremen by Lower Saxony.

All 13 capitals and their states

13 capitals are in the deck, listed in alphabetical order by city, each with its state. Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg are on the map but not in the deck.

  1. DresdenSaxony
  2. DüsseldorfNorth Rhine-Westphalia
  3. ErfurtThuringia
  4. HanoverLower Saxony
  5. KielSchleswig-Holstein
  6. MagdeburgSaxony-Anhalt
  7. MainzRhineland-Palatinate
  8. MunichBavaria
  9. PotsdamBrandenburg
  10. SaarbrückenSaarland
  11. SchwerinMecklenburg-Western Pomerania
  12. StuttgartBaden-Württemberg
  13. WiesbadenHesse

Questions about the capitals

Which German state capital is the smallest?

Schwerin, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, is the only one with fewer than a hundred thousand inhabitants; Saarbrücken and Potsdam come next, both under two hundred thousand. Of the thirteen capitals in this deck Munich is by far the largest, with about one and a half million people.

Is Frankfurt the capital of Hesse?

No. Frankfurt is Hesse's largest city and its financial centre, but the state is governed from Wiesbaden, the spa town across the Rhine from Mainz, which was chosen under the American occupation in 1945. Frankfurt also lost the 1949 vote to become the federal capital, to Bonn.

In which German states is the capital not the largest city?

Hesse, run from Wiesbaden rather than Frankfurt; North Rhine-Westphalia, from Düsseldorf rather than Cologne; Saxony, from Dresden rather than Leipzig; and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, from Schwerin rather than Rostock. Magdeburg and Halle in Saxony-Anhalt are so close in size that the answer there changes with the count.

More maps

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