thumbnail

Closest Capital City Pairs #1

Enter the nearest capital city to each capital city listed below.
Closest capital city of a different country
Answer must correspond to highlighted box
As the crow flies
Quiz by hardforgeography
Rate:
Last updated: February 12, 2019
You have not attempted this quiz yet.
First submittedJanuary 31, 2013
Times taken65,194
Average score70.0%
Rating4.95
5:00
Enter national capital here:
0
 / 20 guessed
The quiz is paused. You have remaining.
Scoring
You scored / = %
This beats or equals % of test takers also scored 100%
The average score is
Your high score is
Your fastest time is
Keep scrolling down for answers and more stats ...
Capital
Nearest Other
Washington DC
Ottawa
Buenos Aires
Montevideo
London
Brussels
Helsinki
Tallinn
Athens
Skopje
Beijing
Pyongyang
New Delhi
Islamabad
Capital
Nearest Other
Baghdad
Kuwait City
Rome
Vatican City
Panama City
San Jose
La Paz
Lima
Cairo
Jerusalem
Lisbon
Madrid
Copenhagen
Berlin
Capital
Nearest Other
Moscow
Minsk
Reykjavík
Dublin
Tokyo
Seoul
Damascus
Beirut
Taipei
Manila
Kingston
Port-au-Prince
67 Comments
+7
Level 74
Nov 25, 2012
Interesting
+1
Level 81
Sep 30, 2015
If you found this interesting you may enjoy this quiz I made:

Adjacent Capital Pair Superlatives

+2
Level 24
Mar 30, 2022
That quiz knocked my soul off to Dormammu
+1
Level 81
Mar 31, 2022
cool
+2
Level 14
Dec 11, 2012
very interesting quiz! 100%
+3
Level 53
Jan 28, 2013
that was a great quiz!!! really had to use the brain. How about try nearest large city?? or nearest US capitals
+1
Level 60
Jan 28, 2013
Very interesting.
+2
Level 63
Jan 28, 2013
Much harder than I thought it would be and some unexpected answers!
+1
Level 75
Jan 28, 2013
ageed. Quite difficult.
+1
Level 76
Jan 28, 2013
I'd like to see another, bigger one of these. Including a few more difficult capitals might be good too.
+1
Level 81
Jan 14, 2021
A sub-saharan Africa or Oceania one would definitely ratchet it up
+1
Level 69
Jan 28, 2013
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!
+8
Level 32
Jan 30, 2013
Sucre, 435 miles is closer to La Paz than Lima, 680 miles.

There is nothing in the description that says they can't be from the same country.

+13
Level 40
Jan 31, 2013
Ye, I had avoided countries like that to avoid ambiguity exactly like this but this was added in by the admin guy after I submitted it.
+1
Level 46
Feb 1, 2024
I was thinking the same thing!
+1
Level 87
Jan 31, 2013
Loved this, but I could've used another minute or two! Great job.
+1
Level 26
Feb 1, 2013
You should except Kuwait for Kuwait City.
+1
Level 22
Feb 13, 2014
I'm with geoman2. Kuwait alone should be accepted as well.
+1
Level 50
Mar 8, 2014
Yes, I tried that too..
+1
Level 29
Aug 15, 2015
you seem to have my username
+1
Level 16
Feb 2, 2013
Nice quiz! I think there should have been more time, though
+3
Level 29
Apr 8, 2013
how didn't i think of vatican city! got all but that one! feel very stupid
+1
Level 40
Mar 21, 2014
Very good, interesting consept!
+4
Level 28
Apr 1, 2014
That Rome question almost tripped me up
+1
Level 71
Jan 14, 2021
Same. For a long time I completely forgot Vatican City existed :P
+3
Level 76
May 20, 2014
Very smart to forget about both Canada and the Vatican. I tried all of Balkans and North Africa for Rome. Should've tried Valletta too but didn't think of that one.
+1
Level 66
Oct 24, 2014
Got them all with 00:05 left. It took me a long time to think about Taipei and Reykjavík ones.
+2
Level 65
Sep 30, 2015
I was stuck on Rome forever...it was a tricky question
+1
Level 71
Sep 30, 2015
how did i not get panama
+1
Level 55
Oct 1, 2015
First try, no warm up.
+2
Level 70
Oct 1, 2015
one of the funnest quizzes I've ever completely failed
+1
Level 70
Apr 11, 2016
Good quiz, enjoyed that,........ By the way, if you find this quiz easy, try my........ 'Mal's European Closest Capitals Hopscotch' ..........quiz
+2
Level 82
Sep 15, 2016
Totally blew the Rome one. I was guessing every capital and getting mad they were not working. Duh!
+2
Level 71
Jun 15, 2017
Good quiz. It would make it much better if you could find the distances and get them to appear after the capital is guessed, so as not to give it away. Well done though.
+1
Level 40
Jul 13, 2017
I liked this one got them in a good time as well well pleased
+2
Level 83
Jan 20, 2018
On the next one, you should put 'Tel Aviv' as the clue and have the answer 'Jerusalem', that'd stir up the whole Israel and Palestine debate.
+2
Level 24
Jan 20, 2018
You should have Kinshasa/Brazzaville, since that's the closest pair of capital cities in the world (they're right across a river from each other, you can literally see one from the other)
+5
Level 70
Jan 20, 2018
What about Rome and the Vatican City? You can literally step from one to the other.
+1
Level 48
May 13, 2022
Kinshasa/Brazzaville is not the closest pair, as Vatican city is 100% inside Rome
+2
Level 51
Jan 20, 2018
I keep forgetting that Toronto is not the Capital of Canada........
+1
Level 67
Oct 28, 2020
Lol we hear so much about Toronto, that often Canadians forget that too
+1
Level 47
Jan 22, 2018
Not trying to be too political, but is there any reason why tel aviv is not recognised here as the capital despite it being recognised by most UN municipalities as the defacto capital until Israel-Palestine sort their desputes which will be never? I think it's only the US and Israel that consider it to be the capital yeah?
+8
Level 81
Jan 22, 2018
It's not a de-facto capital at all. The official functioning capital of Israel is Jerusalem. The Knesset is in Jerusalem. Foreign embassies are in Tel Aviv, but the capital of a country, de facto or otherwise, is not defined as where foreign embassies are located. The only reason embassies are located in Tel Aviv is to avoid pissing off Muslim countries that don't want to recognize Israeli control over Jerusalem.
+6
Level 83
Jan 22, 2018
Yeah, not sure why this is so hard. Israel gets to choose the location for their capital, not the UN and not anyone else. And it's in Jerusalem. Kalbahamut is 100% right that the embassy locations are all about pressure from Muslim countries.
+2
Level 85
Mar 30, 2022
Quite a few countries have their embassy in Gatineau. An even larger number of countries don't have an embassy in Canada, but have an embassy in Washington, D.C. or a mission in New York City which covers Canada. I don't see any argument that the capital of Canada is actually Gatineau, Washington, or New York! Embassies have nothing to do with it. The capital is wherever the government is.
+7
Level 69
Jan 22, 2018
Hey! What gives! None of these places is closest to Paris!.... Ohhh, sorry, title said "Closest Pairs."
+2
Level 55
Dec 21, 2018
I always read Closest Capital City Paris
+1
Level 60
Mar 30, 2022
Same here :D
+1
Level 59
Jan 13, 2019
You should add more different spellings for Pyongyang. At least Pchyongyang and Pchjongjang and probably more, it's a difficult one to rewrite.
+1
Level 83
Dec 13, 2019
I got Vatican City just as time expired, but not fast enough to type it in. Vatican City......the most obvious!
+1
Level 62
Dec 26, 2019
Very easy quiz as I've been to most of those during my business and personal travels. #filthyrich
+1
Level 42
Jan 14, 2021
Good job! This quiz is amazing.
+1
Level 67
Jan 14, 2021
Good quiz and nice job getting featured second one!
+2
Level 54
Jan 15, 2021
Omg i got them all. There needs to be #2 of this
+1
Level 70
Jan 15, 2021
Great quiz, of the type I like where you actually have to use your brain to connect the dots.
+1
Level 50
Jan 16, 2021
Agree, I love this quiz idea
+1
Level 61
Feb 23, 2021
Love the quiz. Not enough Africa or Oceania though.
+1
Level 53
Mar 25, 2021
for some reason i mixed lisbon the capital of portugal with beirut the capital of lebanon because lisbon and lebanon sound so similar

haha im so tired, oughta go to sleep now

+1
Level 65
Jun 4, 2021
Cool knowledge:

Panama City is a city located in Northern Florida,too.

+1
Level 38
Aug 16, 2021
Internationally recognised capital of Israel is Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem, otherwise 19/20
+4
Level 85
Mar 30, 2022
Nope.
+1
Level 77
Apr 11, 2022
It was, until Trump. All my life I've seen everywhere that Tel Aviv was the capital. Maps showed it that way.
+1
Level ∞
Feb 1, 2024
No. Where the U.S. government happens to place their embassy has no importance whatsoever. The capital of Israel is Jerusalem because that's where the government of Israel says it is.

Imagine if the U.S. said "Paris is not the capital of France, it's Dijon". Would that make any sense?

The capital of a country is where the government of that country says it is. End of story. No one can change the capital of a foreign country. Not even Trump.

+4
Level 67
Nov 6, 2022
You may like or not, but the capital of a country is their choice. Jerusalem is the capital choosen by the Israeli government. Other countries don't recognize Jerusalem and I won't say that's right or wrong but this doesn't change the fact that Jerusalem is Israel's capital.
+2
Level 82
Jun 18, 2023
People should scroll through previous comments before making this inane statement.
+1
Level 59
Oct 16, 2021
This is was pretty easy for me, just a couple ones I struggled with a little.
+1
Level 60
Feb 1, 2024
..nice but too easy...