Talk:List of purpose-built national capitals

Ottawa
When Ottawa was chosen to be the Capital of the United Province of Canada in 1857, it was just a logging camp called Bytown not really a city at all. Toronto, Montreal, Kingston, Quebec, and numerous others were all larger. Ottawa was chosen for it's neutral location. Of course since Ottawa was in the wilderness they couldn't move the capital there right away, and the Canadian government didn't move in until 1866, just in time to see the Province of Canada federate with two other British provinces Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to form the country we now call Canada in 1867. So while technically Ottawa did already exist when it became the capital of the Dominion of Canada in 1867, it clearly was a purpose-built capital. Kevlar67 02:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Still thinking it over. There was a fair-sized logging camp at a minimum there before Victoria chose the place, if I read the Ottawa article correctly.  Next time I'm at the library I'll look for a good history of Ottawa and follow up further. A2Kafir 01:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay now that I've taken a better look at the article, Ottawa was incoporated two years before being chosen as capital, and was already booming in population. Kevlar67 05:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think Ottawa counts. Most purpose built capitals and new towns have some kind of pre-existing settlement which they either build over or next to. Ottawa would be a quite nice provincial town like Cardston otherwise.-86.184.164.11 (talk) 16:54, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The Bytown article does not support the claim that it was just a logging camp in 1857. Bytown was founded in 1826. "Colonel By laid out the streets of Bytown, a pattern that mostly exists today", not for the purpose of being a capital. The College of Bytown (now University of Ottawa) was founded in 1848. Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica was completed in 1846 and designated a cathedral a year later. It is still the largest church in the city. Bytown became a town in 1850, and a city in 1855. It was chosen as the capital of the United Province of Canada two years after becoming a city.
 * I propose to remove Ottawa from this list. Ground Zero &#124; t 13:08, 12 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Done. Ground Zero &#124; t 16:11, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Sejong, Korea?
Should we add Sejong, Korea, to the list?
 * Not sure what you mean; Sejong seems to be a Korean person, not a place. While following up, though, I found Changwon, so that's another for the list. A2Kafir 01:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sejong was not just a "Korean person", but rather the King of the whole peninsula! Don't downgrade people. Sejong - or more likely, scholars under him - is credited with inventing the Korean alphabet and the whole way of writing Korean.24.121.195.165 (talk) 17:50, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, this is about Sejong City, which is indeed a purpose-built administrative capital city founded in 2007 in South Korea (it is named after king Sejong the Great). Asking whether or not it should be added to the list is actually a good question, since Sejong City was supposed to become South Korea's new capital city (that was the plan of the government at the time) but the country's Constitutional Court ruled that Seoul is the capital and that it would be unconstitutional to move the capital to another city. Despite that, the Korean Government did go on, and moved a lot of government offices, ministries and agencies to Sejong City over the past few years, making it an administrative capital of sorts. This means that South Korea's capital is still technically Seoul, but Sejong City was purposely built to replace it as the center of government. Whether it belongs on the list is debatable. 109.12.2.51 (talk) 00:18, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Edo, Japan?
Tokyo was not always the official capital of Japan, as is well known, but didn't Tokugawa Ieyasu create a purpose-built city out of the fishing village of Edo as a seat of government for the bakufu? &mdash; Rickyrab | Talk 16:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Austin, Texas: a planned capital city for country, later a state
Austin, Texas, was laid out from the start to be the capital of the new nation of Texas. It was founded on top of a very small hamlet called Waterloo, which had (AFAIK) little to no effect on the layout of the city. As soon as built up enough, the capital was relocated there permanently from whichever city it had temporarily been occupying. Like Brazilia and many other such cities, it was placed in the center of the country rather than near existing coastal settlements to encourage development of the center of Texas.

So in some sense, Austin belongs as a purpose-built capital for both a country (the Republic of Texas) and for a subnation (the State of Texas), when Texas joined the U.S.A.Benwing (talk) 10:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, purpose-built towns are almost the norm in places like the Persian Gulf, and also in northern Brazil when building cities in the Amazon rainforest. So, I'd be far from surprised if many of the capitals of Persian Gulf countries turned out to be purpose-built.Benwing (talk) 10:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Purpose-built cities & towns (as capitals) seem to be quite normal for places that were populated completely by nomads!24.121.195.165 (talk) 18:27, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Melekeok
Was Melekeok really nonexistent before 2006 ? Wentu (talk) 07:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Khmer Republic
Yasodharapura seems to have been a purpose-built capital.--189.121.183.72 (talk) 20:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Constantinople?
There was already a town at Byzantium when Constantine decided to locate the new capital Constantinople there, but the capital city as such was by all accounts specially constructed. I suppose this makes it a parallel case for Ottawa. Philbelb (talk) 10:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree! The same thing goes for Austin, Ottawa, Wellington, and several others,24.121.195.165 (talk) 17:56, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

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The Hague
When the Netherlands kingdom was founded in 1813 Amsterdam was created as The Netherlands' capital city. The Hague used to be the governmental city of the Netherlands. The Hague was a hunting lodge of the Holland counts, located between the Holland cities. The Hague grew bigger and is now the third largest city of the Netherlands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.100.71.36 (talk) 18:47, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Should The Hague not be added to the list of purpose-built national capitals? Although The Hague is not the official capital, which is Amsterdam, it is the seat of the governmental.
 * I would argue that it's not purpose-built. Lustigson (talk) 12:22, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Islamabad
According to the Wikipedia article on Islamabad, Islamabad should be added to the list. Dhirad (talk) 14:51, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, Islamabad was one of several capital cities that were built inland to move them away from the seacoast to a more pleasant and useful place, just as in the case of Brasilia, Canberra, and Abuja, the new capital of Nigeria, etc.24.121.195.165 (talk) 18:02, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Expressions like "From 1715" are poor English
Expressions like "From 1715" at the beginning of a sentence are poor English and should not be used. The true use of "from (some date or year) is as follows: "This is a painting by Rembrandt from 1654."; "Those are pieces of Venetian glassware from the 16th Century."; "That is an essay by Thomas Paine from 1780." "from (some date or year)" means that the whole event was done or completed at that time, and not that something was begun at that time. For these purposes, we have "beginning in (some date or year)" and "starting/commencing in (some date or year)". 24.121.195.165 (talk) 18:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)


 * @24.121.195.165 "From 1715 on," is grammatically correct... WikiIsKnowledge (talk) 11:48, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

The Russian Empire
The Russian Empire: For a long time, the capital of the Russian Empire moved back and forth between Moscow and Petrograd (St. Petersburg) annually. In a monarchy, nothing can make this clearer than the expressions "Winter Palace" and "Summer Palace", and most of the time, the Czar was an absolute monarch. The capital moved with him. Please do not confuse things by claiming that the Russian Empire had one capital city for long periods of time.24.121.195.165 (talk) 18:39, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

This is untrue. Both palaces, the winter one and the summer one are located in St.Petersburg. So, the capital was St.Petersburg only. ImmortalBG (talk) 08:28, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually you're wrong as well. A lot of countries have multiple capitals, and Moscow functioned as a kind of capital during the St Petersburg period. It was mostly as the head of the Orthodox Church (then a substantial force), but also for one or two other purposes. South Africa and the Netherlands currently maintain more than one capital today.-86.184.164.11 (talk) 16:53, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Washington, D.C.
Before it was moved to Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States was in New York City (NYC) and NOT in Philadelphia. For example, George Washington was inaugurated as the 1st President in NYC, Congress met in NYC, and foreign diplomats came to NYC. At that time NYC consisted only of Manhattan Island and its neighboring islets, and not the present boroughs on Long Island, on the mainland (the Bronx), and on Staten Island. Places like Brooklyn were cities in their own right. New York City was the agreed-upon temporary capital until the new permanent capital of Washington could be built in the District of Columbia, mostly on land formerly from Maryland. That was accomplished in the year 1800. NYC was also the capital of New York State through 1794, when the capital was moved inland to Albany, New York. Since 1800, NYC has not been the capital of anything, and the first President to live in Washington, D.C., was John Adams. Under our present Constitution of the United States (ratified in 1789), Philadelphia never has been then capital of the United States, though it was under the Articles of Confederation. Our Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the world, though it has been amended 27 times - with 10 coming very early (the Bill of Rights), and then the 18th & 21st Amendments canceling each other out. Since 1800, moving the Federal capital elsewhere has only been seriously considered once. That was right after the War of 1812, when in 1814 the British Army overran Washington and burned it down. At that point, the proposal was to move the capital inland to a defensible place near Cincinnati, Ohio, close to the Ohio River.24.121.195.165 (talk) 19:56, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Memphis, Egypt
An Ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the father of Tutankhamen, moved his capital from somewhere (Cairo?) to a different place, Memphis, Egypt. Is there any evidence, one way or another, whether Memphis existed already, or Memphis was created to be the new City of the Pharaohs? 24.121.195.165 (talk) 08:15, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Alexandria and Cairo were new cities made as new capitals by new rulers long after the pharaohs were gone. Memphis, in contrast, existed many centuries before the New Kingdom; its foundation is merely legendary. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:05, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Failed attempts to make purpose-built capital cities in the United States
Failed attempts to make purpose-built capital cities in the United States: Cahaba, Alabama, Willow, Alaska, Vallejo, California, Louisville, Georgia, Iowa City, Iowa. Possible successful attempts: Jefferson City, Missouri, Lincoln, Nebraska, Madison, Wisconsin, Oklahoma City, Austin, Texas, Olympia, Washington, Salt Lake City, Utah, Carson City, Nevada, Indianapolis. Look into these, please.24.121.195.165 (talk) 08:35, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Should Karlsruhe be considered a German capital?
Even if *de jure* Berlin is the only German city mentioned as “Hauptstadt der Bundesrepublik Deutschland”, at least *de facto* it is its judicial/constitutional capital, where its two highest courts, the Federal Constitutional Court and Federal Court of Justice, are located. Not really different from Sucre or Bloemfontein in this sense. VVVBoldrini (talk) 11:11, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

New Clark City
I can find no actual sources that confirm that Philippine capital is being moved to this city; the article linked as a source does not state it is, only that it will house some government buildings to act as a government backup in case of a larger scale disaster affecting Manila. As such I'm removing it until someone can provide valid, reliable sources for such a plan.