Capital City Quiz

The quiz draws from 193 countries — every UN member state that has a capital city. That is the standard list used by exam boards and atlases, so a perfect score here means you genuinely know the world's capitals rather than a shortened list of the famous ones.

There are 193 UN member states plus Vatican City, which is a UN observer, and the quiz includes it because its capital is well established. Wider lists of 250 territories include dependencies such as Greenland, Puerto Rico and Bermuda, plus a handful of places with no capital at all, like Antarctica. Restricting the quiz to sovereign states with a capital keeps every question fair and every answer indisputable.

Yes. Choose Africa (54 countries), Asia (46), Europe (44), the Americas (35) or Oceania (14). Continent mode is the fastest way to close a specific gap, and most people find that one continent is where nearly all their mistakes live.

'Name the capital' shows you a country and asks for its capital city — the direction most people practise. 'Name the country' reverses it, showing a capital and asking which country it belongs to, which is noticeably harder because you cannot lean on the country's shape or fame. Mixed mode alternates between the two.

Distractors come from the same continent as the correct answer wherever possible, so you cannot rule options out by geography alone. Guessing that the capital of Laos must be the only Asian-sounding option will not work here, because all four options are usually Asian. If a continent is too small to supply three distractors, the remainder come from the wider pool.

Your streak increases with every correct answer in a row and resets to zero the moment you miss one. It appears next to your score once you reach two in a row, and your best streak of the session is shown on the results screen. It rewards sustained accuracy rather than a single lucky guess.

Yes, and this is the part that actually teaches. The results screen lists every question you answered, marks it correct or incorrect, shows the answer you chose, and links to the full country guide so you can read about the place rather than just memorising a word.

A few countries have multiple seats of government — South Africa has three, with Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein each holding a branch. The quiz uses the primary capital as its answer to keep multiple choice unambiguous, and the country guide explains the full arrangement.

Five countries share their name with their capital: Singapore, Monaco, Luxembourg, Djibouti and Vatican City. These are city-states, or close to it, and 'the capital of Singapore is Singapore' is a real fact rather than a glitch. They are kept in deliberately, because knowing which countries are city-states is worth knowing — but they are the easiest five questions in the quiz, so do not read too much into getting them right.

Completely free, with no account, no download and no limit on how many rounds you play. The site is funded by advertising, which is why you will see clearly marked ad slots between the content sections.

Yes. The options are large tap targets, the layout stacks to a single column on narrow screens, and nothing depends on hovering or a keyboard. It works equally well projected onto a classroom board.

Work one continent at a time until you can score above ninety per cent, then move on, and only switch to the whole world once every continent is solid. Reverse the direction regularly, because recognising a capital and recalling it are different skills. Above all, follow the links from your wrong answers — a capital attached to a real country with a population, a language and neighbours is far stickier than a word on a flashcard.

The classic traps are countries whose largest city is not the capital. Türkiye's is Ankara, not Istanbul; Brazil's is Brasília, not Rio or São Paulo; Australia's is Canberra, not Sydney; Switzerland's is Bern, not Zurich or Geneva; Canada's is Ottawa, not Toronto; Nigeria's is Abuja, not Lagos; and Myanmar's is Naypyidaw, not Yangon. Purpose-built administrative capitals catch almost everybody at first.

Both the question order and the option order use a Fisher-Yates shuffle, which gives every arrangement an equal chance. The correct answer is never biased towards a particular position, so you cannot pattern-match your way through it.

No. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Your score exists for as long as the page is open, which also means you can retake the quiz as often as you like with a clean slate.