drawing the map…
Flagglobe
Natural Earth 1:50m · 50 state capitals
Modes About this quiz ↓ Privacy

US State Capitals Quiz

Fifty state capitals on a flat map of the United States. Each card names a city — click the state it is the capital of, or drag the card onto it. Three tries per card, then the map shows the answer. Three flags, three hints and three skips 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 50 capitals and their states, the flags explained, more maps ↓

↑ Back to the map

US State Capitals Quiz

Fifty US state capitals, one card at a time: read the city and click its state on a flat map. Three tries each, no labels.

Why the capital is so rarely the biggest city

In only about a third of the states is the capital also the largest city: Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Honolulu, Boise, Indianapolis, Boston, Columbus, Nashville, Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City are the obvious cases. Elsewhere the choice was made for other reasons. Several capitals were laid out on empty ground near the centre of the state so that legislators could reach them in a day or two on horseback: Columbus, Indianapolis, Jefferson City, Columbia and Raleigh all started that way. Tallahassee was picked as the midpoint between St. Augustine and Pensacola, the old capitals of East and West Florida. And in the older states the legislature often preferred a modest inland town to a big port: Albany rather than New York, Harrisburg rather than Philadelphia, Annapolis rather than Baltimore, Sacramento rather than San Francisco.

The cards that catch players out

The hard cards are the small capitals of states with a famous city elsewhere. Springfield is the capital of Illinois, not of any of the other states with a Springfield. Kansas City is the capital of neither Kansas, which has Topeka, nor Missouri, which has Jefferson City. Portland is the largest city of both Maine and Oregon, whose capitals are Augusta and Salem. Charleston is the capital of West Virginia; the Charleston in South Carolina is not a capital, Columbia is. Nevada is run from Carson City, not Las Vegas or Reno; Alaska from Juneau, not Anchorage; Washington from Olympia, not Seattle; Kentucky from Frankfort, not Louisville; Vermont from Montpelier, not Burlington; New Hampshire from Concord, not Manchester; and South Dakota from Pierre, pronounced like the word pier, not Sioux Falls.

Names, sizes and one capital with no road

Four capitals are named after presidents: Jackson, Jefferson City, Lincoln and Madison. Two give the state away on the card, Oklahoma City and Indianapolis. Bismarck was named after the German chancellor in 1873 in the hope of attracting German money to the Northern Pacific Railway. Phoenix is the most populous state capital by a wide margin; Montpelier, with fewer than ten thousand people, is the smallest. Santa Fe is the oldest, founded by Spanish colonists around 1610, and at about 2,200 metres the highest. Juneau has no road to the rest of the continent and is reached by air or by sea. Annapolis housed the Continental Congress in 1783 and 1784, when Washington resigned his commission there and the Treaty of Paris was ratified, and its State House is still in use by the Maryland legislature.

All 50 capitals and their states

50 capitals are in the deck, listed in alphabetical order by city, each with its state. District of Columbia is on the map but not in the deck.

  1. AlbanyNew York
  2. AnnapolisMaryland
  3. AtlantaGeorgia
  4. AugustaMaine
  5. AustinTexas
  6. Baton RougeLouisiana
  7. BismarckNorth Dakota
  8. BoiseIdaho
  9. BostonMassachusetts
  10. Carson CityNevada
  11. CharlestonWest Virginia
  12. CheyenneWyoming
  13. ColumbiaSouth Carolina
  14. ColumbusOhio
  15. ConcordNew Hampshire
  16. DenverColorado
  17. Des MoinesIowa
  18. DoverDelaware
  19. FrankfortKentucky
  20. HarrisburgPennsylvania
  21. HartfordConnecticut
  22. HelenaMontana
  23. HonoluluHawaii
  24. IndianapolisIndiana
  25. JacksonMississippi
  26. Jefferson CityMissouri
  27. JuneauAlaska
  28. LansingMichigan
  29. LincolnNebraska
  30. Little RockArkansas
  31. MadisonWisconsin
  32. MontgomeryAlabama
  33. MontpelierVermont
  34. NashvilleTennessee
  35. Oklahoma CityOklahoma
  36. OlympiaWashington
  37. PhoenixArizona
  38. PierreSouth Dakota
  39. ProvidenceRhode Island
  40. RaleighNorth Carolina
  41. RichmondVirginia
  42. SacramentoCalifornia
  43. Saint PaulMinnesota
  44. SalemOregon
  45. Salt Lake CityUtah
  46. Santa FeNew Mexico
  47. SpringfieldIllinois
  48. TallahasseeFlorida
  49. TopekaKansas
  50. TrentonNew Jersey

Questions about the capitals

Which state capital has the fewest people?

Montpelier, Vermont, with fewer than ten thousand residents; Pierre, South Dakota, is next. At the other end Phoenix, Arizona, has well over a million people and is the largest state capital, ahead of Austin, Texas.

Which state capital is the oldest?

Santa Fe, New Mexico, founded by Spanish colonists around 1610, a decade before the Mayflower reached Plymouth. It is also the highest capital, at about 2,200 metres above sea level, and one of the few whose name a card gives away with no state attached.

Which state capital cannot be reached by road?

Juneau, Alaska. No road connects it to the rest of Alaska or to Canada; people and cars arrive by ferry or by air. Honolulu is on the island of Oahu, so it is also off the road network, but Juneau is the one on the mainland.

More maps

Flags of the same map: US states. Other maps: European capitals, Asian capitals, Capitals of the Americas, African capitals, 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.