Random Capital City Generator

Enter a number from 1 to 10 and press the button. You get that many capital cities, each on its own card with the country underneath, drawn from a list of 194 national capitals that runs alphabetically by country from Afghanistan (Kabul) to Zimbabwe (Harare). No repeats within a draw, no filters, no trivia text: just the city and the country, which is what a geography quiz or a "where next" pick needs.

What's in the list

The list covers the UN member states plus Vatican City, Kosovo, Taiwan and Palestine, for 194 entries in all (three countries are missing from the source list). Each entry is one city, so countries with more than one capital appear once, using the seat the country itself designates. That means Sucre for Bolivia (the constitutional capital, not La Paz), Pretoria for South Africa (the executive capital, not Cape Town or Bloemfontein), Amsterdam for the Netherlands (not The Hague) and Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte for Sri Lanka (not Colombo). Recent moves are reflected: Astana for Kazakhstan, Naypyidaw for Myanmar, Gitega for Burundi and Dodoma for Tanzania. Jakarta is still listed for Indonesia; the transfer to Nusantara is not yet complete.

Country names are printed in capitals as they appear in the data (UNITED STATES, CÔTE D'IVOIRE, CONGO, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE). The city keeps its usual English spelling with punctuation: Washington, D.C.; Saint John's; Andorra la Vella; N'Djamena.

Ways to use it

• Capitals quiz, both directions. Draw ten, read out the city and have players name the country, or cover the city and give the country. The obscure ones (Palikir, Funafuti, Ngerulmud, Nuku'alofa) separate the geography nerds from the rest.
• Classroom warm-ups. One capital per day: find it on the map, name the continent, look up its population. Ten draws fill two weeks.
• Travel and writing prompts. Draw a city and plan a fictional three-day trip there, or set a scene in it.
• Sporcle-style practice. Draw ten and time yourself typing the countries. Repeat until the Pacific and Caribbean ones stop tripping you up.
• Choosing a country to learn about. A capital is a better hook than a country name for finding news, food and music from somewhere you know nothing about.

If you'd rather start from the country and then look up its capital, use the Random Country Generator, or narrow it by continent with the European, Asian and African country pickers. For a picture-based round, the Random Flag Generator pairs well with this one.

A few capitals that catch people out

The list has plenty of quiz traps. Some of the ones that come up most often in practice rounds:

Browse all country, city & place generators for more, including the Random City Generator, which is not limited to capitals.