{{count}} political capitals · proper city
Political capitals, meaning the seat of executive power — not the economic capital, and not necessarily the largest city.
One city per state. Multi-capital cases are settled on the seat-of-government criterion: Pretoria for South Africa, The Hague for the Netherlands.
The capital is rarely the largest city in federal states, and never in capitals built from scratch. Moving a capital is a political act: rebalancing regions, leaving an exposed coast, or founding a new legitimacy.
Brazil built Brasília out of nothing in 1960 to turn the country inland, Nigeria did the same with Abuja in 1991, Egypt is moving into a new capital east of Cairo, and Indonesia is relocating its own to Nusantara because Jakarta is sinking.