I knew all of these except for Tanzania and Ivory Coast which I think were changed recently, and the "de facto" capital of Benin whatever that means. But still only got 37 because I can't remember them all quickly enough. If I work on mastering this quiz then I should be able to get through the capitals of the world quiz pretty easily because Africa and Oceania are always what trip me up there..
[...looks something up on Wikipedia...] It was announced in 1983 that Cote d'Ivoire would change its capital to Yamoussoukro, so over 30 years ago. I imagine the reality of moving government departments there though took a little time. Like you, I also learned that the capital was Abidjan, and that was after 1983.
For everyone who is wondering: "de facto" means "technically it isn't, but actually it is" i.e. when there is a successful coup in a country the old president may still be the official president but the new president, while not technically the president is the "de facto" president. He's the one making the decisions that the president should make.
Come on. That's like asking for Ottowa for Ottawa or Washengton DC for Washington DC. See how ridiculous that sounds. Its spelling isn't that hard. Ouagadougou or Yamoussoukro on the other hand...
No, it's completely different. Firstly, the two you named are far more famous than Gaborone and are more widely known. Secondly, the same argument could be made for Ouagadougou and Yamoussoukro.
I agree SkyjumperTalon. To me it's a joke. Why is it not required to write the full name: "Ouagadougou". People would learn it better this way and would be less confused, with these partial names, that only have value (if any) on this quiz site.
I've always thought Abidjan was the capital. It turns out that most of the political institutions are still in Abidjan while Yamoussoukro is the official capital. What's the deal with having a capital with barely any political institutions in it anyway?
The problem with society these days, looking for alternate spellings - exactly why one of my favorite quizzers here is Malbaly. Try his hardest capitals...
The problem with society these days, seems to have gone beyond looking for alternate spellings. Though I will agree all of societies problems do have their roots in looking for alternate spellings.
Yup, look up "de facto capital of Tanzania" and you will get: "Dodoma is the official and legislative capital of Tanzania, while Dar es Salaam is the de facto seat of government." from a site asking what Tanzania's capital is, while if you look up "de facto capital of Benin" you will get: "Although the capital is located at Porto-Novo, Cotonou is still the nation's economic and population centre. It also attracts many government institutions and embassies, regardless of Porto-Novo's status, leading to the city being referred as Benin's de-facto capital." from a cotonou travel site. There is an even stronger case for including Dar Es Salaam than Cotonou.
I always struggle to remember that Freetown is the capital city of Sierra Leone and not Liberia's . In my mother tongue the word for Freedom resembles 'Liberia', so I keep associating Liberia and Freetown.
I used to make the same mistake for the same reason. If it helps, Liberia was founded by American slaves who were returned to Africa (either to give them the best chance at freedom or to remove them from American society, depending on which view you take), and the capital, Monrovia, is named after American president James Monroe. So I remember that Liberia is where the liberated American slaves went. Obviously, Freetown would still fit, but...if you remember they were American slaves, you can remember Monroe.
oh my god, i literally use J Monroe to remember the name of Liberia's capital just to make the association from liberia > the "land of freedom" (the usa) > monroe + fancy ending "via". i had no idea it was an actual correlation, that's very cool!!
well instead of south africa, it doesn't swallow up the whole continent and there are many other countries in there that are just as popular and interesting than South Africa... just saying I don't really hate South Africa
I did not know that! More big news are possibly gonna follow. The Papua New Guinean island of Bougainville is going to hold an independence referendum on June 15!
I spent way too much time trying a bunch of spelling variations of “Bujumbura” until deciding that that was probably the changed capital that had caused the quiz to be reset :/
Since you’re offering separate answers for Benin and South Africa’s capitals, please note that Eswatini also has two capitals - Mbabane (executive) and Lobamba (legislative, where parliament is located).
Of course, officially. I meant if we start listing de facto capitals, it opens a can of worms. Georgia has the government in Tbilisi, parliament in Kutaisi and constitutional court in Batumi, Dutch government is in The Hague, German constitutional and supreme courts are in Karlsruhe and a few ministries are apparently headquartered in Bonn etc etc.
I was trying Bujumbura for Burundi, considering that is the former capital, and I didn't know that they changed it to Gitega, so I spent about a minute trying various different spellings, until I had to look it up.
It's just an old quiz, it won't be easy for quizmaster to rename all the countries that have Swaziland in it, but people still call it Swaziland, it's not a big deal mate
I really need to improve my knowledge of African capitals... Thank you for asking for all 3 South African capitals separately. That upped my answers dramatically. :D
I'd like to second those calling for Abidjan to be allowed/Cotonou disallowed. Wikipedia refers to Abidjan as a capital, while it only refers to Cotonou as an "economic capital", which seems a looser term.
The Wikipedia entry for the Ivory Coast says "Ivory Coast's political capital is Yamoussoukro, in the center of the country, while it's economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan." So Wikipedia also classifies Abidjan as an economic capital. However if we're including Cotonou, then other economic capitals should be included for consistency, at least that's what I think.
I got every single one of them except Accra, Juba, Victoria, Libreville, Gaborone, Yaoundé, N'Djamena, Porto-Novo, Asmara, Praia, Niamey, Bangui, Dodoma, Banjul, Port Louis, Moroni, Yamoussoukro, Nouakchott, Maseru, Malabo, Gitega, and Cotonou.
Man, I was sooo close to nearly getting a really high percentage of most of these.
I got to the end with a whole minute left, except I was missing Mali, convinced it was one of the six letter M capitals. Finally remembered Bamako with seconds left, was very close to failing this one. I will one day know the capitals of the world entirely fluently, but I have a way to go yet.
just because the seat of government isnt in the official capital it doesnt mean that the seat of government is also a de facto capital. the capital of the netherlands isnt den haag
Only missed Moroni, Comoros. For some reason, Its always so hard for me to memorize that city. I learn it, then when I actually try to remember it just doesn't come to my head, but the others do.
If Benin is going to have its "de facto" capital listed, this site needs to start listing The Hague as the "de facto" capital of the Netherlands. I'm not sure why that bothers me so much, but it has an air of snide colonialism about it. As though the distinguished monarchy of the Netherlands is unassailably right about the location of its capital, but a young, post-colonial regime in Africa can't be trusted to tell us where its capital is.
Either you list all capitals as where the government literally is, or you list them all as where the country says its capital is.
I finally did it. Ive been practicing for awhile, today came in first try, first two rows but missed 7 on 3rd row. Refreshed and did it perfect. Then 2 tries I was able to get them all. So now ready for world test, which will be harder cause of the timer. I know rest the world pretty well, so hopefully have enough time to think about the Africa ones.
The volume of countries just makes this so hard. I actually forgot how bad struggled to learn the countries in first place, but its why I went and learned capital and flags of rest the world, and put off more Africa til now. The flags actually weren't that bad, I still struggled with a few but I can pass that test every time.
These Africa and Asia capitals been hardest thing so far. I know to master them need to do the map tests like I did rest the world.
i got 51/57!! i forgot the capitals of eswatini and lesotho, also i keep forgetting that de facto capital of benin, i didn’t know that it really can be called a “capital”
For everyone who is wondering: "de facto" means "technically it isn't, but actually it is" i.e. when there is a successful coup in a country the old president may still be the official president but the new president, while not technically the president is the "de facto" president. He's the one making the decisions that the president should make.
(I say as someone beats me)
Man, I was sooo close to nearly getting a really high percentage of most of these.
Either you list all capitals as where the government literally is, or you list them all as where the country says its capital is.
The volume of countries just makes this so hard. I actually forgot how bad struggled to learn the countries in first place, but its why I went and learned capital and flags of rest the world, and put off more Africa til now. The flags actually weren't that bad, I still struggled with a few but I can pass that test every time.
These Africa and Asia capitals been hardest thing so far. I know to master them need to do the map tests like I did rest the world.
This was the only thing stopping me from getting the world capitals