Capitals of North America

Canada’s capital was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1857, after Canadian politicians spent years failing to agree.

From the Arctic to Panama

North America runs from the Arctic islands of Canada and Greenland down to the narrow Isthmus of Panama, and it includes Central America and the islands of the Caribbean. With about 24.7 million square kilometres it is the third largest continent. Its highest peak is Denali in Alaska at about 6,190 metres, and the Mississippi and Missouri together form one of the longest river systems in the world. Greenland, the largest island on Earth, is geographically part of North America but belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark, so the quiz leaves it out.

There are 23 independent countries. Three are large: Canada, the United States and Mexico. Seven small countries line Central America, from Guatemala and Belize in the north to Panama in the south. The rest are island states in the Caribbean, from Cuba, the largest, to tiny countries in the eastern arc of islands. Learning the capitals from north to south along Central America is a quick win: Guatemala City, Belmopan, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa, Managua, San José and Panama City.

Large and small countries

Canada is the second largest country in the world at about 9.98 million square kilometres. The United States and China are close in size, and which of them ranks third depends on how coastal and inland water is counted. The smallest country in the Americas is Saint Kitts and Nevis, two islands with 261 square kilometres between them. Seven island countries are too small to see on the globe here: Antigua and Barbuda (capital St. John’s), Barbados (Bridgetown), Dominica (Roseau), Grenada (St. George’s), Saint Kitts and Nevis (Basseterre), Saint Lucia (Castries) and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Kingstown).

Why the capital is not the biggest city

Canada’s biggest city is Toronto, and for years the Province of Canada moved its parliament between Kingston, Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City because no choice could win a majority. In 1857 the politicians asked Queen Victoria to decide, and she picked Ottawa. It stood on the line between English-speaking Canada West and French-speaking Canada East, and it was farther from the United States border, which made it easier to defend. Ottawa became the capital of the new Dominion of Canada in 1867.

The United States made a similar compromise. In 1790 Congress chose a site on the Potomac River between the northern and southern states, and the government moved to Washington in 1800. The District of Columbia belongs to no state, so no single state can claim the capital. New York is far larger, which is why it is the usual wrong answer. Mexico City is the opposite story: it was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, and at about 2,240 metres it is both the capital and by far the largest city.

Easy to mix up

Two names cause trouble in the Caribbean. Dominica is a small island country in the eastern Caribbean whose capital is Roseau. The Dominican Republic is a much larger country that shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and its capital is Santo Domingo, the oldest European-founded city in the Americas that is still inhabited.

Panama City sits at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914 and lets ships cross between the Atlantic and the Pacific without sailing around South America. Havana, on the north coast of Cuba, is the most populous city in the Caribbean islands, though the wider metropolitan area of Santo Domingo holds more people.