Capital vs largest city
In 35 countries the capital is not the largest city. In the other 151 it is, and for 5 the answer depends on how you measure a city.
Ankara, not Istanbul. Washington D.C., not New York. Bern, not Zurich. The assumption that a country’s capital is also its biggest city holds most of the time, but it breaks for some of the largest nations on Earth, and it catches people out constantly. Below is the complete list, taken country by country from the same dataset behind the rest of Flagdex.
Countries where the capital is not the largest city
These 35 countries have a capital that is not their most populous city. Each capital links to its own page, with the flag, currency and codes of the country.
| Country | Capital | Largest city |
|---|---|---|
 Australia | Canberra | Sydney |
 Belize | Belmopan | Belize City |
 Benin | Porto-Novo | Cotonou |
 Bolivia | Sucre | Santa Cruz de la Sierra |
 Brazil | Brasília | São Paulo |
 Burundi | Gitega | Bujumbura |
 Cameroon | Yaoundé | Douala |
 Canada | Ottawa | Toronto |
 China | Beijing | Shanghai |
 Ecuador | Quito | Guayaquil |
 Equatorial Guinea | Malabo | Bata |
 Eswatini | Lobamba | Manzini |
 Gambia | Banjul | Serekunda |
 India | New Delhi | Mumbai |
 Ivory Coast | Yamoussoukro | Abidjan |
 Kazakhstan | Astana | Almaty |
 Liechtenstein | Vaduz | Schaan |
 Malta | Valletta | St. Paul's Bay |
 Micronesia | Palikir | Weno |
 Morocco | Rabat | Casablanca |
 Myanmar | Naypyidaw | Yangon |
 New Zealand | Wellington | Auckland |
 Nigeria | Abuja | Lagos |
 Pakistan | Islamabad | Karachi |
 Palau | Ngerulmud | Koror |
 Philippines | Manila | Quezon City |
 San Marino | City of San Marino | Serravalle |
 South Africa | Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Cape Town | Johannesburg |
 Switzerland | Bern | Zurich |
 Tanzania | Dodoma | Dar es Salaam |
 Trinidad and Tobago | Port of Spain | Chaguanas |
 Türkiye | Ankara | Istanbul |
 United Arab Emirates | Abu Dhabi | Dubai |
 United States | Washington D.C. | New York City |
 Vietnam | Hanoi | Ho Chi Minh City |
Countries where it depends on the definition
For 5 countries there is no honest yes or no, because the winner changes with the boundary you draw. Rather than pick a side and present it as fact, here is what actually makes each one awkward.
- 🇧🇪 Belgium: Brussels vs Brussels
- The Brussels-Capital Region, the 19 municipalities usually meant by the name, is the country's largest urban area at roughly 1.2 million people. But Brussels is a region rather than a single municipality, and the largest single municipality in Belgium is Antwerp, at roughly 565,000. The City of Brussels municipality on its own is far smaller than either.
- 🇨🇾 Cyprus: Nicosia vs Nicosia
- Nicosia is the larger urban area, at roughly 245,000 against Limassol's 185,000, and is the city normally named as Cyprus's largest. By municipality alone the order flips: Limassol's municipality has about 111,000 residents against Nicosia's 55,000, because Nicosia's population is spread across several municipalities.
- 🇰🇼 Kuwait: Kuwait City vs Kuwait City
- Kuwait City is the capital and the heart of an urban area of roughly 3 million, which is where almost the whole country lives. But Kuwait City has no administrative status of its own, so city-proper rankings instead put Hawalli or Al Ahmadi first. Which city is 'largest' therefore depends entirely on the definition.
- 🇳🇷 Nauru: Yaren vs Denigomodu
- Nauru has no cities and no officially designated capital. Yaren is the district that holds parliament and is accepted by the United Nations as the main district, so it is listed as the capital by convention. Denigomodu is the most populous of the country's 14 districts, at roughly 1,900 people.
- 🇸🇩 Sudan: Khartoum vs Khartoum
- Khartoum is the capital and the centre of the country's largest metropolitan area, which spans roughly 5 million people. But that area is three joined cities, and by city-proper population the largest of the three is Omdurman, at roughly 2.9 million, across the Nile from Khartoum itself.
How this page defines the largest city
“Largest” here means the most populous city inside its own administrative boundaries, the figure normally called the city proper. That is the convention almost every reference work uses, and it is the one that makes the comparison consistent across 190-odd countries with wildly different local government structures.
It is worth knowing what that choice does. Measured by metropolitan areainstead, several answers flip: the Delhi agglomeration is bigger than Mumbai even though Mumbai is the larger city proper, and Khartoum’s metro dwarfs Omdurman even though Omdurman is the larger city on its own. Where the definition genuinely decides the outcome, the country is in the section above rather than in the main table, and the reason is spelled out. Where a figure is disputed or dated, the note on the country’s capital page says so.
The 3 city-states are left out of all three lists: Monaco, Singapore and Vatican City. The country and the city are the same place, so the question has no meaning for them.
Countries where the capital is the largest city
The other 151 countries follow the pattern people expect: one city is both the seat of government and the biggest place to live.
Frequently asked questions
Which countries have a capital that is not their largest city?
Why is the capital often not the largest city?
Is the capital usually the largest city?
What counts as the largest city?
See also the A to Z list of every capital city, the most populous countries and the largest countries by area.
Capital and country data from open datasets, cited on the data page. Largest-city values are curated by hand against each country’s public population reporting, using the city-proper convention described above. Covers 191 countries with a capital, plus 3 city-states.