The list of countries whose capital is not their largest city refers to the list of sovereign states whose capital is not their most populated city.
| Country | Capital | Population | Largest city | Population | Ratio | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canberra | 426,704 | 5,312,163 | 12.6 | A planned city, Canberra has been Australia's capital city since its foundation in 1913. However, the national parliament was based in Melbourne, Victoria until 1927. | ||||||
| Belmopan | 20,621 | 61,762 | 3.07 | Belize City was the capital until 1970. | ||||||
| Porto-Novo | 264,320 | 761,100 | 3.4 | Cotonou is the de facto capital with seat of government. Both cities are part of the same metropolitan area | ||||||
| Sucre | 259,388 | Santa Cruz de la Sierra[1] | 1,453,549 | 7.1 | La Paz is the de facto capital with seat of government, is the third largest city of Bolivia and is the center of the second metropolitan area. | |||||
| Brasília | 3,500,000 | 12,252,023 | 4.25 | Brasília is a planned city and has been the capital city since its inauguration in 1960. Rio de Janeiro was the capital from 1763 until 1960. Brasília is the third most populous city in Brazil, and the seventh largest metropolitan area. | ||||||
| Gitega | 41,944 | 1,092,859 | 26.06 | Bujumbura was the capital until 2019. | ||||||
| Yaoundé | 1,430,000 | 2,000,000 + | 1.4 | Yaoundé is the second largest city of Cameroon. | ||||||
| Ottawa | 1,017,449 | 2,794,356 | 3.08 | Toronto was the capital of the United Province of Canada from 1849 to 1852 and 1856–1858. For some years prior, Kingston was the de facto capital, but when it came time to form the United Province of Canada in 1841 this needed to be official. There was a lot of disagreement, but Queen Victoria made her ruling (supported by a vote with a majority of 3) that it should be Ottawa.[2] | ||||||
| Beijing | 22,000,000 | 30,484,300 | 1.39 | Beijing is the third largest city proper of China, after Chongqing and Shanghai, although the population of Chongqing includes a significant number of rural residents and the urban area has around 18 million people. Shanghai has more urban population at 24 million. | ||||||
| Quito | 1,763,275 | 2,650,288 | 1.5 | |||||||
| Malabo | 187,302 | 250,770 | 1.34 | The capital Malabo is the second largest city of Equatorial Guinea. It is to be replaced by the planned city of Oyala, currently under construction. | ||||||
| Banjul | 31,301 | 337,000 | 2.18 | |||||||
| New Delhi | 249,998 | 12,442,373 | 49.77 | In 1912, the capital was moved from Calcutta (now Kolkata) to New Delhi. The neighbouring city of Delhi already existed, and it had previously served as the capital of the Mughal Empire. | ||||||
| Nusantara | 0 | 11,350,328 | - | Jakarta was the capital until 2024. | ||||||
| Jerusalem (limited recognition) | 363,095 (excluding East Jerusalem) | 460,613 | 1.2 | Jerusalem would be Israel's largest city if East Jerusalem were to be included (increasing the population to 936,425), however the annexation of East Jerusalem into Israel is not internationally recognized. If East Jerusalem were to be excluded from Israel, Tel Aviv would be the largest city. | ||||||
| Yamoussoukro | 200,659 | 4,348,000 | 21.7 | Abidjan was the capital until 1983. | ||||||
| Astana | 743,014 | 1,450,095 | 1.95 | Almaty was the capital from 1927 to 1997. Astana was named Nur-Sultan from 2019 until 2022. In September 2022, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced that the city would revert to the former name Astana. On 17 September, he signed a law that amended the constitution to restore the name Astana. | ||||||
| Vaduz | 5,109 | 6,039 | 1.14 | Vaduz is the second largest city of Liechtenstein. Both cities are part of the same metropolitan area. | ||||||
| Palikir | 5,000 | 13,000 | 1.4 | Palikir is the second largest city of Micronesia. | ||||||
| Valletta | 5,827 | 29,097 | 6.62 | Valletta is part of the Central Region, a conurbation with a population of 111,994. | ||||||
| Rabat | 627,000 | 4,150,000 | 6.62 | Rabat is the seventh largest city of Morocco. | ||||||
| Naypyidaw | 925,000 | 4,346,000 | 4.7 | Yangon was the capital until 2006. Naypyidaw is de facto mainly rural county rather than contiguous urban area | ||||||
| Wellington | Auckland was the capital 1841–1865, and Russell in 1840–41. | |||||||||
| Abuja | 778,567 | 7,937,932 | 10.2 | Lagos was the capital until 1991. | ||||||
| Warsaw | 1,430,000 |  Pakistan[3] [4] [5] | Islamabad | 1,014,825 | 14,910,352 | 14.69 | Karachi was the capital from 1947 to 1958. | |||
| Ngerulmud | 0 | 11,200 | - | Koror was the capital until 2006. | ||||||
| Manila | 1,780,148 | 2,936,116 | 1.67 | Quezon City, a suburb of Manila on its northeast planned as the future post-colonial capital of the Philippines, was officially declared the capital after independence from 1948 until 1976 when both cities were made part of the Metropolitan Manila region. It overtook Manila as the largest city proper of the Philippines by the 1990 census. | ||||||
| San Marino | 4,211 | 10,601 | 2.52 | |||||||
| Pretoria | 2,345,908 | 3,888,180 | 1.66 | Cape Town (pop. 3.5 million) and Bloemfontein (pop. 370,000) serve as legislative and judicial capitals, respectively. | ||||||
| Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte | 115,826 | 642,163 | 5.54 | Colombo was the official administrative capital until 1982, when it became the commercial capital. | ||||||
| Bern | 138,041 | 397,698 | 2.88 | Switzerland does not have a de jure capital, but Bern has been designated as "federal city" with the seat of the two parliament chambers in 1848, when for the first time the independent Swiss states established standing federal authorities. Today, important federal authorities are also located in Lausanne (most notably: the Federal Supreme Court), Zürich, Lucerne, Bellinzona and St. Gallen. Until 1798, the council of the Swiss states met in various places - most frequently in Lucerne, Zürich, Baden and Frauenfeld. Between 1798 and 1803 there were three subsequent cities of government: Aarau, Lucerne and Bern. Between 1815 and 1848 the meeting place of the council changed every two years between Zürich, Bern and Lucerne. | ||||||
| Taipei | 2,668,572 | New Taipei | 4,004,367 | 1.5 | [6] | |||||
| Dodoma | 324,347 | 2,497,940 | 7.70 | Dar es Salaam was the capital until 1974. | ||||||
| Port of Spain | 49,000 | 67,400 | 1.37 | Both cities are part of the same metropolitan area | ||||||
| Ankara | 5,150,072 | 14,377,018 | 3.4 | Istanbul (as Constantinople) was the capital of the Ottoman Empire from 1453 to 1922. | ||||||
| Abu Dhabi | 896,751 | 2,262,000 | 2.52 | Abu Dhabi is the second largest city of United Arab Emirates. | ||||||
| Washington, D.C. | 705,749 | 8,398,748 | 12.72 | New York was the capital 1785–1790 and the largest city in 1790 (narrowly edging out the next capital, Philadelphia, which served as capital from 1790 to 1800). Philadelphia was the nation's second-largest city when it was the capital. Washington is the 20th-largest city in the United States, but the Washington metropolitan area is the sixth-largest (estimated 6,216,589 in 2017). | ||||||
| Hanoi | 8,053,663 | 8,993,082 | 1.1 | Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, was the capital of South Vietnam prior to reunification. |