Talk:List of countries whose capital is not their largest city

Map
Australia is listed but not shown on the map. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.158.109.115 (talk) 10:23, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

August 2005
I'm not convinced about the presence of Brussels on this list - it clearly is the largest city in Belgium (by any sensible definition of the word "city"), even if it isn't incorporated as a single entity. I certainly don't imagine Antwerpers go around proudly claiming their city is the largest in Belgium. sjorford &rarr;&bull;&larr; 22:10, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

We should also use metropolitan area figures rather than city proper figures as they tend to be more representative. Sasquatch &#08596;&#35762;&#08596;&#30475; 23:16, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

South Africa
Why is Cape Town listed as South Africa's capital? AFAIK, Pretoria is the de facto capital. It would still mean SA is on this list, but the capital should be changed.

Burma
Shouldn't this be added now the capital is moving? --Horses In The Sky 21:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


 * And now Indonesia. Aminabzz (talk) 17:18, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Liechtenstein?
As of 2002, Liechtenstein's capital Vaduz had a population of 5,038 (5,129 in 2004 according to Encarta .  Schaan has 5,513 (2002), the official website  currently says about 5,800 and the official Liechtenstein website  says over 5,500. CityPopulation.de states Schaan is 5,639 and Vaduz is 5,005 (2003 census data). So I'd suggest we include it.  → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 20:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Philippines
Take note that the whole National Capital Region (NCR) or Metro Manila is the seat of national government. Since Quezon City and Manila are integral part of NCR, the Philippines should not be in this list. In the Philippines, most Filipinos refer to Metro Manila and the city of Manila simply as Manila or Maynila. Jordz 10:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, the legal capital as per Presidential Decree No. 940 moved the capital from Quezon City back to Manila. Although it must be stated there are major government offices in Quezon City and Pasay City. -- Howard  the   Duck  17:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There are major government offices slash executive department buildings all over Metro Manila. In Makati, the Department of Trade & Industry; in Pasig, the Dept. of Education; in Mandaluyong, the Dept. of Transportations. in Taguig, the Depts. of Energy and Science and Tech; etc etc. So i concur with the section starter that the Philippines should not be in the list. Quezon City is an obvious suburb of Manila, like Westminister is to the City of London, or Brooklyn to Manhattan. Pinoy politics is just Bizarro. (RioHondo (talk) 03:14, 21 June 2012 (UTC))

Metro areas vs. municipalities
I notice that we don't include several countries where the capital is the largest city, but not part of the largest metro area. I think specifically of Germany, where Rhine-Ruhr is the largest metro area (but a very de-centered one, certainly); of Italy, where Milan has a larger metro area than Rome; and of Poland, where the Katowice metro area is larger than that of Warsaw. I would also wonder about the Netherlands, whose seat of government is The Hague, while Amsterdam is both the largest city and the official capital. Something ought to be done about this, I think. The case of Germany is pretty questionable, I think, but for  Italy, at least, it seems fairly clear-cut that it should be listed somewhere on this page. john k 21:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Why is Belgium not on this list?
Belgium is clearly missing from this list. Its capital city, Brussels, has 143,000 inhabitants, way behind Antwerp (470,000), Ghent (230,000), Charleroi (200,000) and Liège (186,000).

Of course, some people like to view all 19 municipalities of the Brussels Capital Region as one city, and compare that to other individual cities without their suburbs. That is obviously a false comparison.

But some people dislike the idea of well-defined municipalities with unambiguous population figures, and prefer the hazy concept of ill-defined "metropolitan areas": they claim everything and everyone in a certain radius around their town as its "area". Ten miles? Fifty miles? A hundred?

In this logic, some say Flemish cities like Antwerp and Ghent belong to the Brussels metropolitan area, and others argue that Brussels is part of the Flemish metropolitan area.

I believe in real cities: their city limits are known, their populations are counted. And it is a fact that the city of Antwerp has THREE times the population of the city of Brussels has, though they are roughly equal in size8 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.198.172.230 (talk) 14:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * And now that it's included in the list it's not on the map yet. Aminabzz (talk) 17:17, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

By that same token, the U.K. also belongs on this list. The seat of power is Westminster. It is a city entirely contained within the Greater London Metropolis. The City of London itself has nothing to do with the U.K. government administration or the legislature. The Old Bailey, however, is in the city. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.186.238.44 (talk) 12:41, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Largest?
Shouldn't this article be called "List of countries whose capital is not their most populous city"? It seems to be about population rather than size. -- timc  talk   15:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Purpose
Since there isn't any reason to suppose in the first place that a country's capital would be its most populous city, and there are many reasons why it wouldn't be, what is the use of this article? &#8212;Largo Plazo (talk) 16:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

New Discussion
A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 12:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Include capital's ranking?
I was wondering if we should include what is the ranking of each capital city in the list of the country's largest cities. For instance, mentioning Quito is smaller only than Guayaquil in Ecuador. According to List of capitals and largest cities by country, this info would be:

Australia (Canberra is the 8th largest city), Belize (Belmopán is the 6th largest), Bolivia (2nd/3rd), Brazil (5th), Canada (5th), Malta (27th!), Monaco (3rd), Morocco (3rd), Myanmar (3rd?), New Zealand (5th), Nigeria (7th), Pakistan (9th), South Africa (Cape Town 2nd, Pretoria and Bloemfontein 4th and 5th), Switzerland (5th), Tanzania (Dodoma 3rd), Trinidad & Tobago (4th), United Arab Emirates (3rd), United States (metro 4th, DC 27th).

Also, there's only one city larger than the capital in Benin, Cameroon, PR China, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, India (Mumbai > Metro Delhi), Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Malawi, Micronesia, San Marino, Sudan, Swaziland, Turkey, Vietnam.

What do you think? Amorim Parga (talk) 10:09, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Outdatedness/inaccuracy/ambiguity?
There are no population estimate dates in this article. I suppose it doesn't matter that much in the context of this article. Still, this means that for example, as I write this, the figure for the population of Berne in this article (127,000) is not the same as on the Berne article (128,041). --85.5.154.155 (talk) 12:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Someone fix the formatting of Sucre!
It is impossible to reorder the list using the little boxes without combining Bolivia with some other country and putting "Sucre | 247,300" in its own column at either the beginning or the end of the list. If you look on the edit page, you see in line 28, " || Sucre || 247,300 || 6 | ", which noticeably stands out from the rest of the sourcing.--189.121.183.72 (talk) 01:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Tel Aviv is NOT the largest city in Israel.
Tel Aviv proper is just over 300,000. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.99.49.244 (talk) 00:11, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Tanzania
Tanzania should be added to the list. Capital is Dodoma (324,000), since 1996. The largest city is Dar es Salaam (2,500,000), was the capital before 1996.--83.94.210.7 (talk) 21:24, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, so I added it. However the map will need to be updated... AirOdyssey (Talk) 00:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Burma
Burma should also be added. The new capital Naypiydaw (925,000) is considerably smaller than Rangoon (4,400,000). --83.94.210.7 (talk) 19:07, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Canada
Since we are noting the cases where the largest *was* the capital as some point in time, it should be noted that Toronto (or York as it was known at the time) was the Capital of Upper Canada, which arguably could be considered the forerunner of Canada itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki-kun (talk • contribs) 09:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

South Sudan
South Sudan needs to be seperated — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.184.111.50 (talk) 11:44, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Montenegro
Why the entry for Montenegro, when even the page for Cetinje states it as a ceremonial capital? 86.29.125.38 (talk) 17:19, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Equatorial Guinea
I added Equatorial Guinea to the list but it is not shown on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.30.179.210 (talk) 11:51, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia
"Wikipedia articles on Khartoum and Omdurman contradict this." since when WP cites WP? -- ᛒᚨᛊᛖ ( ᛏᚨᛚᚲ ) 12:02, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Feedback from New Page Review process
I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: Hi, thanks for creating this! It needs more sources, which can probably be found at the city or country pages, but a good start..

Kingsif (talk) 17:39, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Upcoming changes
Should we add countries such as Egypt and Indonesia who have announced their intentions to move their capital cities in the future? Malcolmmwa (talk) 12:51, 27 April 2022 (UTC)


 * When they moved, yes. Aminabzz (talk) 17:32, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Bolivia???
Hey guys, I do not know how to make one of these maps, but can someone fix the issue where Ecuador is painted instead of Bolivia? Thank you 146.66.247.45 (talk) 15:42, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Republic of China
Should we really include Republic of China? Taipei is an enclave of New Taipei. Aminabzz (talk) 17:24, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Western Sahara
Should we really color Western Sahara on the map? It is a disputed territory between Morocco and Western Sahara local government. Aminabzz (talk) 17:31, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Taiwan
Taiwan is on the map but not listed; is this due to the Taipei-New Taipei City discrepancy or an unnecessarily contentious recognition of it as part of the PRC? 82.11.50.254 (talk) 00:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Ecuador
Ecuador's capital Quito is it's largest, yet it is highlighted on the map. 82.11.50.254 (talk) 00:33, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Isn't Guayaquil higher in population? Spatzenbrett (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Higer in population doesn't mean larger in area. Aminabzz (talk) 11:53, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Ratios
Are the ratios calculated automatically, or is each one calculated manually? The ones for The Gambia and Micronesia seem to be off. Spatzenbrett (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2023 (UTC)