drawing the map…
Flagglobe
Natural Earth 1:10m · 13 regional capitals
Modes About this quiz ↓ Privacy

Spanish Regional Capitals Quiz

Thirteen regional capitals on a flat map of Spain. Each card names a city — click the autonomous community it governs or drag the card onto it: Mérida, not Badajoz; Santiago de Compostela, not A Coruña. Madrid, Murcia, Valencia, Ceuta and Melilla share their names with their regions, and the Canary Islands have two capitals, so these six 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 region or drag the card onto it. Flag turns the card into that region'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 regions, the flags explained, more maps ↓

↑ Back to the map

Spanish Regional Capitals Quiz

Thirteen capitals of Spain's autonomous communities on a flat map: read the city on each card and click its region.

Named in the statutes, with two exceptions

Nearly every statute of autonomy names its capital, and most picked the obvious city: Seville, Zaragoza, Barcelona, Palma, Santander, Logroño and Pamplona are also the largest in their regions. Two statutes named none. The Basque parliament and government were placed in Vitoria-Gasteiz by a law of 1980, a compromise between the three provinces. Castile and León settled on Valladolid, which houses the Cortes and the Junta and is in any case the region's biggest city; it was also the capital of Spain from 1601 to 1606 under Philip III. Six communities stay locked in this round: Madrid, Murcia, Valencia, Ceuta and Melilla, whose capitals carry the region's own name, and the Canary Islands, which share theirs between Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Small capitals beside big cities

The cards that catch people out are the capitals chosen over a bigger neighbour. Bilbao is by far the largest Basque city, but the answer is Vitoria-Gasteiz. Vigo and A Coruña are the big cities of Galicia; the capital is Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrimage city with the apostle's shrine. Badajoz is the largest city of Extremadura; the capital is Mérida, founded in 25 BC as Augusta Emerita for veterans of the Roman legions, whose theatre and bridge still stand. Albacete is the largest city of Castilla-La Mancha; the capital is Toledo, the Visigothic royal city and seat of the Spanish court until Philip II moved it to Madrid in 1561. Gijón has more people than Oviedo, but Oviedo, the old capital of the kingdom of Asturias, is the seat.

Kingdoms remembered in the capitals

Several of these cities were capitals of states long before they were capitals of regions. Oviedo was the seat of the kings of Asturias until the court moved to León early in the tenth century. Pamplona was the capital of the kingdom of Navarre, taken by Castile in 1512. Zaragoza was the capital of the kingdom of Aragon and Palma of the short-lived kingdom of Majorca. Barcelona has housed the Generalitat since the fifteenth century in the same palace on the Plaça de Sant Jaume. Seville ran Spain's trade with the Americas through the Casa de Contratación from 1503. Santander gave its name to the whole province until 1982, when the province of Santander became the autonomous community of Cantabria.

All 13 capitals and their regions

13 capitals are in the deck, listed in alphabetical order by city, each with its region. Canary Islands, Ceuta, Madrid, Melilla, Murcia and Valencia are on the map but not in the deck.

  1. BarcelonaCatalonia
  2. LogroñoLa Rioja
  3. MéridaExtremadura
  4. OviedoAsturias
  5. PalmaBalearic Islands
  6. PamplonaNavarre
  7. SantanderCantabria
  8. Santiago de CompostelaGalicia
  9. SevilleAndalusia
  10. ToledoCastilla-La Mancha
  11. ValladolidCastile and León
  12. Vitoria-GasteizBasque Country
  13. ZaragozaAragon

Questions about the capitals

Why is Vitoria-Gasteiz the Basque capital and not Bilbao?

The 1979 Statute of Gernika named no capital, and a Basque law of 1980 fixed the seat of the parliament and the government in Vitoria-Gasteiz, in Álava. Placing them there, rather than in Bilbao in Biscay or San Sebastián in Gipuzkoa, kept the balance between the three provinces. The double name gives the Spanish and Basque forms of the city's name.

Why is Mérida the capital of Extremadura rather than Badajoz or Cáceres?

Extremadura has two provinces, Badajoz and Cáceres, and their capitals were rivals for the seat of the new community. The 1983 statute chose Mérida, a smaller city in Badajoz province with a claim of its own: as Augusta Emerita it was the capital of Roman Lusitania, and its theatre, amphitheatre, aqueduct and bridge across the Guadiana are still standing.

Why are the Canary Islands left out of the capitals round?

Because they have two capitals. Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria have shared the title since the 1982 statute, which settled a rivalry dating from the split into two provinces in 1927: the parliament sits in Santa Cruz and the seat of the presidency alternates between the two cities each term. One card cannot carry both names, so the islands stay locked under their flag.

More maps

Flags of the same map: Spanish regions. Other maps: US state capitals, European capitals, Asian capitals, Capitals of the Americas, African capitals, French 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.