Why a Capital Is a Head
The word capital comes from the Latin caput, meaning 'head'. The idea of one city as the head of a land is very old. The Roman poet Ovid was already using the phrase Roma Caput Mundi, 'Rome, head of the world', in the 1st century BC. The oldest capital still in existence is Damascus, which has been around since roughly 2500 BC.
A capital is usually the city that holds a country's seat of government: its offices, its meeting places and its top institutions. News reports even use the capital's name as shorthand for the whole government, a trick called metonymy. 'London-Washington relations' simply means relations between the United Kingdom and the United States.
Capitals were not always fixed in place. In medieval Western Europe, it was common for the government to wander from town to town instead of staying put in one city.
Capitals by Habit, Not by Law
Here is a surprise: many famous capitals have no law saying they are capitals. Bern, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Paris and Wellington hold the title by custom. They count because nearly all the national institutions, such as ministries, the top court, the parliament and the embassies, sit in or near them.
Some countries go even further. The French constitution does not recognize any capital city. By law, Paris hosts both houses of parliament, but when the two meet together, they gather at the Palace of Versailles. Portugal's constitution never mentions a capital either. Lisbon holds the parliament, every government department, all the embassies and the highest courts, yet no official Portuguese document states that it is the capital.
Most national capitals are also their country's biggest city, like Cairo, Tokyo, Seoul and Mexico City. But that is far from a rule, as the next stories show.
Cities Picked to End an Argument
Sometimes no existing city will do, so a country builds a new one. A planned capital is designed from scratch to house the government. Reasons include an overcrowded old capital or the wish for a better, usually less tropical, climate.
Often the real reason is a rivalry. Canberra was chosen as a middle ground between Melbourne and Sydney. Washington, D.C. came out of the Compromise of 1790, which placed a national capital on the Potomac River on land given by Maryland and Virginia. Ottawa sits on the old line between mostly English-speaking Upper Canada and mostly French-speaking Lower Canada.
US states played the same game. Tallahassee was picked as the midpoint between Pensacola and St. Augustine, then Florida's two largest cities. Jefferson City became Missouri's capital in 1821, almost halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis, even though Kansas City was not incorporated until 1850.
One Country, Several Capitals
Some countries split the job between cities. South Africa has three capitals: Pretoria for the administration, Cape Town for parliament and Bloemfontein for the courts. This setup came from the compromise that created the Union of South Africa in 1910. Yet its highest court, the Constitutional Court, sits in Johannesburg, the largest city.
The Netherlands is stranger still. Amsterdam is the capital under the constitution, but the cabinet, the parliament, the King's Noordeinde Palace and all the embassies are in The Hague. In Bolivia, Sucre is the constitutional capital, while the government and the legislature work from La Paz.
Germany keeps various ministries in Bonn, its former West German capital, which now carries the title 'Federal City'. Its top constitutional court sits in Karlsruhe, sometimes called the 'judicial capital'. In Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur is still the constitutional capital, but the federal administration and courts moved 30 kilometres south to Putrajaya.
Ghost Towns, Tiny Nations and Bold Moves
A few capitals are odder still. Plymouth, a ghost town, is the de jure capital of Montserrat. Nauru covers only 21 square kilometres and has no capital city at all, just a capital district. A city-state such as Monaco or Singapore is the whole country, so it has no separate capital.
Moving a capital can send a message. Athens was ruined and almost empty when it became the capital of newly independent Greece in 1834, chosen to revive the glory of ancient Greece. The first capital had been Nafplio, back when Athens was an unimportant village. Peter the Great moved his government from Moscow to Saint Petersburg to turn Russia toward Europe. Wellington replaced Auckland in 1865 to sit closer to the South Island.
Even names hold surprises. Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is thought to come from Taani linn, which first meant 'Danish Castle' and now means 'Danish Town'.
