Talk:Capital city/Archive 1

TOKYO A CITY!

Remove it because it's just stupid. It's an administrative region and if you read the link that redirects it to the Wiki Tokyo site, it specifical says it's not a city! Change it if you want the article to be correct.

-G

東京都. 都 is a 'large city'.... (-__-") 222.165.73.184 (talk) 19:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Capital- Architecturally Speaking

I followed a link in the Secular Medieval Architecture section and ended-up with the political definition of capital. For those of you who have suffered the same fate, here is the correct link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_(architecture)

Although, I don't see what is circular about definining a political or economic capital. It is the major (jointly or alone) or sole location of decision making processes. Or perhaps I am being overly simplistic? Also, I tend to think not only in terms of modern society, but also ancient and medieval as well.

Brendan Sullivan

Definition of "capital"

Can a capital be the entirety of an entity? — Instantnood 04:01 Mar 2 2005 (UTC)

I suppose so, in the case of small nations like Vatican City, Singapore, etc. Funnyhat 01:17, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Montréal named in the capital cities of Canada ?

I'm sorry but Montréal is not a capital, so it should be erased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.84.35 (talk) 22:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Rio de Janeiro

The city of Rio de Janeiro was never corrupt. The Brazilian politicians wanted to move away from the eyes of the population, when they moved to Brasília. The politicians were the ones corrupt in that case not the city itself.

it was never corrupt no matter what anyone says.

---new user--- also, isnt a political capital spelled c-a-p-i-t-O-l —Preceding unsigned comment added by Candypro6886 (talk • contribs) 21:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The capital city of Brazil didn't move to Brasília to countain the growth of Rio de Janeiro. The size of Rio wasn't considered a problem by itself in 1956, when the construction of the new capital started. Politicians usually justified the transfer in the need to develop the interior and even military strategy. Other factor pointed by journalists, but never pointed as an official reason, was the fear of the use of the masses as a pressure tool by political groups or even by revolutionaries. But it was never mentioned in the official speeches during the transferring process. I found out that Naypyidaw, the new capital of Burma, was built with the excuse that Yangon, the former capital, was too crowded, so I will just change the example. Phcgontijo (talk) 03:56, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have some reasonable arguments. It would be great if you could back them up by references and provide those, rather than just deleting the entire story about Brasilia. Tomeasy _{T C} 12:13, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Political capital

I noticed Political capital redirects here. I was searching for the things politicians spend, such as when they nominate Supreme Court Justices who are close friends. Wonder why this is not covered? Is it a neologism? [[User:JonMoore|— —JonMoore 20:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)]] 02:38, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Largest capital cities

Some of the largest cities in the world are not national capitals. The largest capital cities in each continent, by urban/metropolitan area are: South America: Buenos Aires (13,349,000) Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina. The biggest city of South America was supposed to be São Paulo... Diotti 02:04, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

That portion of the article was referring to a national capital, so Sao Paulo, as a state capital, would not be applicable. I'll clarify that in the article. - Hinto 03:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Can someone make a disambiguation page?

I came here from political philosopy section, looking for capital (economic). There are different meaning of capital and it certainly deserve disambiguation page. I don't know how though. FWBOarticle

• There already is a link at the top of the article to a disambiguation page. - Hinto 22:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Stop calling Ottawa a neutral city.

Stop it. Ottawa, the capital of Canada, is in the province of Ontario. It does not have its own jurisdiction, thus it is not a "neutral" city. This is the third time I have corrected the article because of this. Jareand 06:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that what was meant by "neutral city" in the case of Ottawa is merely that it was chosen as the site of the capital city as a political compromise owing to its location near the border between the two dominant provinces at the time. I don't think "neutral city" is a political geography term that has any specific meaning with regard to local government arrangements; it's just two descriptive words. =J //Big Adamsky 08:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The Map Is Wrong

I can find at least one problem with that map. The capital of Trinidad and Tobago (Port of Spain) is not it's largest city. The largest city in the country is Chaguanas (pop. 67,433), next is San Fernando (pop. 55,419) and then is Port of Spain with a population of 49,031. Jvlm.123 16:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Actualy, there is at least an other big mistake: Canada. The federal capital, Ottawa, with a population of 859,704 is only the 4th largest city in Canada, after Toronto (2,481,494), Montréal (1,583,590) and Calgary (991,759).Boris Crépeau 11:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Russia in Europe

In many cases, It is appropriate to list Russia and especially Moscow as European. I do not beleive, however, that if I was looking for the largest European capital, Moscow would be quite the kind of answer for which I was looking. I was looking for that information, actually. I think it's London, but I'm not sure. Euroster 23:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Where did these 14 million originate? The London page says 9 million, the Moscow page says 10 million (in fact, the Moscow number has been claimed to be underestimated by at least half a million, possibly by two million). I suppose the London figure includes suburbs, but Moscow too has those. I am reverting. --Pan Gerwazy 14:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Could we stop the racism and bigotry here? Mosocw is the largest city in Europe and get over it. You lose.

-G —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.117.157.7 (talk) 22:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

Wasn't aware it was a championship on city sizes. Oh and "being Russian" is not a race. Mishka Shaw (talk) 11:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Seoul

The government of South Korea announced in 2004 it would move its capital from Seoul to Yeongi-Gongju — even though the word Seoul itself means "capital" in the Korean language.

1. I don't think this is true. Seoul will stay the capital of Korea. 2. I doubt Seoul means "capital" in the Korean language. I asked a Korean and she confirmed 'soo-do'.

Who can confirm this?

Cetinje

see Article 7 of Constitution of Montenegro. 217.198.224.13 21:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Buenos Aires isn't the biggest city of South America

The city with the largest population in South America is São Paulo, not Buenos Aires.

Capital not the largest city...

Seeing as neither the USA or Canada has its capital as its largest city, but the vast majority of people on the Internet are USAns, and Canada is a good second, which leads to an image that USAns and Canadians do not know, or care, much about the world outside North America, does this mean that they consider the capital not being the largest city as entirely natural and would be completely astonished if they were to learn that the vast majority of the world's countries do, in fact, have their capital as their largest city? JIP | Talk 19:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC) I don't think the vast majority of people on the Internet are American actually - China has overtaken US on Internet usage. Additionally Canada will be well behind UK, Germany —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.176.97.11 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Largest Capital Cities

The population for largest capital cities is wrong. When we are talking about capital cities, we should just consider the city population, not the population of the metro area of them. If so, Tehran has more population as it has 14,000,000 and Tokyo has 12,570,000.

For example according to wikipedia the population of these cities are:

1. Africa: Cairo (16,100,000?)=> 7,500,000
2. Asia: Tokyo (21,237,000?)=> 8,520,000
3. Europe: London (14,400,000?)=> 8,500,000
4. North America: Mexico City (19,809,471) => 8,720,916
5. Oceania: Wellington (445,400) => 410,328
6. South America: Buenos Aires (12,430,000) => 2,776,138
7. USA: Washington, D.C. (5,290,400) => 550,521

Secondly, I live in Tokyo and I am sure Tokyo has not 21,370,000 people population. Its Population is 8,520,000 in special 23 wards and for the metro area it is 12,570,000 people.

And at last, why we have US capital here? Is the US a new continent? I think if we are talking about regions, we should consider regions much bigger than single countries like the Middle East, Western Europe, and the Eastern Europe. --Najand 20:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

picture of Countries whose capital city is not the most populous city

The picture shows that Belgium is NOT a country whose capital city is not the most populous city. That is wrong; Brussels, the capital of Belgium, has only got around the 140,000 inhabitants, while Antwerp, the biggest city in Belgium, has got around the 470,000 inhabitants. Brussels has a larger agglomeration, but if only the city self is counted, Brussels is the fifth city of Belgium (Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and Liege are all bigger than Brussels). I hope to see the picture is changed, or perhaps the picture should even be removed, for it is not a correct one. --Robster1983 15:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

What's the difference?

I think it might be of some usage if there was an explanation to the difference between capital and capitol. Reginmund 05:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

a capital can also be the capital of ta major company and it can also be..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.123.207.50 (talk) 21:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Are Capitol[ian] an capital realy related? I don't think so, they're merely similar in writing, Capitol is a name of hill, capital comes from head - coincidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.87.148.196 (talk) 06:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

They are both etymologically related to "caput", Latin for "head". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "capitol", as applied to a building, meant literally a "citadel on the head or top of a hill", after the building for which the Capitoline Hill was named. Its use to name a kind of building is its sole use. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Distances Between Capital Cities (Nearest & Farthest)

• Farthest

Please pay attention that "the capital of a sovereign country which is farthest from the nearest other country's capital" is not the same as "the greatest distance between the capitals of two countries that share a border". We are talking about different categories. Both are correct.

An example should make it crystal clear: Pyongyang is only 197 Km far from Seoul, 810 Km from Beijing, 1300 Km from Tokyo, and so on. But the closest other capital Wellington is Canberra, 2330 Km far away. Do you understand the difference? Luis wiki (talk) 20:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Capitals that are not seats of government

The introduction should be changed to reflect that while the capital is most commonly the seat of government it is not always the case. An example is the Netherlands. The capital is Amsterdam but the seat of government is The Hague. Indeed, one can argue that the definition of capital as described in this WP article and most dictionaries is in fact incorrect. AJKGORDON«» 17:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems I misread the intro. It does say that it is typically the seat of government but there are some exceptions. Please ignore my comment above! AJKGORDON«» 15:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

This all leaves open what it means for a city to be a capital, if not "seat of government". —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:22, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

"a city whose own country has endowed it with a unique and higher legal or honorific status, above that of all other cities in the same country" ? This fits e.g. the City of London in England under both descriptions. "Seat of government" might be impossible to fix universally if e.g. functions are dispersed and/or a national Parliament has no single location or is the single government presence in a city; in any case the definition should be effectively decided by the relevant country not by Wikipedia. --MBRZ48 (talk) 00:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a no brainer. Okay - some countries nominate capital cities by law or through the constitution, while in other cases no such de jure provisions exist. But there are plenty of official sources that specify what is the capital of each country. The definition "a city whose own country has endowed it with a unique and higher legal or honorific status, above that of all other cities in the same country" does not sound convincing (would Kyoto be regarded for heritage purposes as having a higher status than Tokyo?), and I would be loathe to use a definition made up on Wikipedia. The City of London, which predates by centuries the establishment of the United Kingdom, is an integral part of London for all intents and purposes. And even if the City of London was a sovereign country like the Vatican City it would not dispute the fact that both the head of State (in Buckingham Palace) and the head of Government (Downing Street) reside a few kilometres to the west in the same city (ie London). Kransky (talk) 00:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Busywork

What is the purpose of having students memorize lists of names of capitals? Are they really that important? Once you know the name of a capital, what else do you know about it? (nothing). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.122.63.142 (talk) 20:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

So you can do well on Sporcle quizzes. Redsxfenway (talk) 17:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Burma, Belgium , and Trinedad & Tobago are missing

The three above mentioned countries all apply to the map showing states whose largest city is not the capital. However, they are not colored in orange.
Two of these states were mentioned already much earlier on this talk page and nobody capable seemed to care enough to amend the map. Also no discussion arose from the mention of the flaw. Since it appears impossible to maintain the desired level of quality regarding this map, I propose to take it out. Of course, I would be more than happy if someone could fix the mentioned problems and color those countries. After all, I am not against this map per se. Tomeasy_talk 15:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I would remove the map within one week, if it cannot be corrected. Tomeasy_talk 07:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Unorthodox capital city arrangements

This section has grown to a long list of all sorts of peculiarities. I would like to propose to either, take the list completely out and integrate its (as far as appropriate) information into List of countries with multiple capitals, which is anyways linked from this section. Or, to restrict ourselves to at least existing sovereign states. Now we have historical cases, like the colony Bechuanaland, protectorats like American Samoa, and first level subdivisions like Punjab. If we allow all these cases than, I am afraid, the list might be extended ad infinitum. Tomeasy_talk 16:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I think those instances should be removed and plan to do so. If you object this, let me know. Tomeasy_talk 18:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Wel, I will do the job then. Tomeasy_talk 18:29, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

London is not very unconventional

The section on unconventional capital cities discusses London, and particularly the fact that neiher parliament nor any royal palaces are contained in the City of London. While this is true, 'City of London' is the medieval city, and is just a small part of the modern city of London (note the capitalisation!). The UK's parliament, principal government buildings and main royal palace are all located in London. Any thoughts? TheAstonishingBadger (talk) 04:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. Discriminating between the City of London and the City of Westminster, saying that they are different Cities, does not make much sense in this place. Actually, it sets readers on the wrong track thinking that they are really different cities, whereas both Cities are of course nothing else than boroughs of the city of London. Again, note the capitalisation. Tomeasy_talk 07:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Talking about the City of London and the city of London being 2 separate entities is confusing. The square mile is almost always referred to as the "City of London". The place that includes the City, Westminster, the West End, Southwark, Camden etc etc... is usually referred to as "London town", or just "London". It's probably true to say that historically, the City of London and the City of Westminster are two different places, they now remain the centres of economy and politics respectively. However since they are both part of central London, they are very rarely regarded as 2 separate capitals. 91.84.82.44 (talk) 21:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take it out. TheAstonishingBadger (talk) 20:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not arguing for special treatment for London, but the City of London is not a London Borough, it has its own entirely separate arrangements. What is more, while "London" now is used to refer to the whole conurbation, the City of London has not for a very large number of centuries been in any sense the capital of England or the United Kingdom. The Kingdom's legislature, main courts, and executive government have not been based there for centuries. That, to me, is at least mildly interesting. Francis Davey (talk) 15:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Greater London aka London Region is not and never has been a "city" as that word specifically applies in the UK; calling it a "capital city" is thus a nonsense. Saying that all of the metropolitan area constitutes only of "London" (outwith the specific context of a local government "region" of England) clashes with e.g. the continued recognition of the cities of Manchester and Salford as separate entities.--MBRZ48 (talk) 23:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't think all the institutions and organs of New Zealand are located within the City of Wellington. And I bet not all institutions and organs of the Australian state of New South Wales are located within the City of Sydney. The same is probably the case of Victoria and the City of Melbourne. 203.198.25.118 (talk) 11:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Vatican city and rome.

These aren't technically the closest capitals because The Vatican city isn't really a capital city but an entire country. Bratslavia and Vienna are thus the closest together capitals in europe and the wording should reflect these two points.(Morcus (talk) 02:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC))

Unsourced section

The section Capital (political)#Largest national capital cities lacks citation. Therefore, I had put a template on this section a while ago. This section is inviting people to change data according to their feeling. We constantly observe cities being exchanged (i.e. different opinions on which is the largest city of a region) and figures being changed (i.e. people make a city smaller or larger). This is somehow inherent to th topic of this section. The problem might even prevail if sources were provided, as different sources report quite different population data. However, without references it's a complete mess.

If nobody can provide sources for at least half of the entries within a month, I will remove the section. References are needed that back up the reported figure as well as the claim that the city is the largest in the region. Tomeasy _{T C} 08:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

OK i removed it. Unless someone can come up with a good idea how this information can be presented in a stable way we should not bring in such a section anymore. Tomeasy _{T C} 18:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Distances Between Capital Cities (Nearest & Farthest)

Isn't this trivia? What useful purpose does it serve?

The mention that the Vatican City is the nearest "capital" city to Rome contradicts the point made earlier in the article that, as the Vatican City is a city-state, it does not have a capital city distinct from the country itself (and hence it is meaningless to talk about the capital city of the Vatican City). — 217.46.147.13 (talk) 17:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Brasilia

The intro says: "Capitals are sometimes sited to discourage further growth in an existing major city. Brasília was situated in Brazil's interior because the old capital, Rio de Janeiro, and southeastern Brazil in general, were considered over-crowded."

Is there a source for this statement? Because the article about Brasilia says that "President Juscelino Kubitschek ordered the construction of Brasília, fulfilling an article of the country's constitution stating that the capital should be moved from Rio de Janeiro to a place close to the center of the country" --Yerpo (talk) 19:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

List of capitals by area

List of capitals by area is not yet write (11 january 2009), here we have List of European capital cities by area, copy paste and expand that, i think area of a capital city is a revevant point, thank you, please up the area of capital of your nation to the list. (sorry i not logged in that languaje of wikipedia, i can read that;))--201.255.37.223 (talk) 15:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Definition of Capital unsatisfactory

It appears that the definition of capital in the article "the area of a country, province, region, or state, regarded as enjoying primary status" is unsatisfactory. The meaning of primary status is unclear - what is primary status and who defines it? In the case of The Netherlands it appears that Amsterdam is the capital because it says so in the constitution, even though Amsterdam has no particular role in the government of the country. In the case of Canada, Brasil and Australia, at least, the seat of government defines the capital although the city in which the government resides has self-evidently no "primary status" within the country, apart from being the seat of government. With due respect to the citizens of Ottawa, Brasilia and Canberra, their cities are very minor in the scheme of things. Indeed Brasilia and Canberra did not exist until it was decided to move the government to that location. Accordingly, primary status is not an adequate definition of capital and in common language capital means the seat of government and nothing else.

I suggest that capital is redefined as the seat of government (parliament or executive, if no parliament exists) and that anomalies such as The Netherlands are singled out. For example, "although Amsterdam is defined as the capital of the Netherlands in the constitution, it has no particular role in government and therefore The Hague is the de facto capital". Indeed, in Dutch, the word in the constitution translated into English as "capital" may have a different meaning to political capital. Perhaps a native Dutch speaker could advise?

203.1.16.193 (talk) 10:32, 13 April 2009 (UTC) Frank Formby

It is a bit surreal to see people discussing whether Amsterdam should be regarded as the capital of the Netherlands on the basis of encyclopedia and disctionary definitions when you happen to live there. But you asked for input by native speaker, which I am.

The Dutch word for capital is "hoofdstad", literally translating as "head city" or "main city". This is the word that is used for all capital cities in the world, and also for Amsterdam (I checked the constitution: also there).

Dutch children learn at school that Amsterdam is the capital of their country, whereas I doubt whether an 8-year old would know that the government is in The Hague. By the way, not that it really matters, Amsterdam does have a specific role in the state organisation: according to the constitution, the King/Queen must be crowned there, by which he/she becomes the Head of State.

HStreek (talk) 11:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

hi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.53.138 (talk) 22:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Relevance?

QUOTE: "Not to be confused with LOHAS Park." Relevant? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 2010

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. Ucucha 19:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

---

Capital (political) → Capital city — To avoid confusion with the completely unrelated concept of political capital, which the extremely ambiguous "(political)" disambiguation seems to imply. Capital city is a perfectly common and unambiguous term for a country's seat of government, and all national capitals are by their very nature cities anyway. The differences in terminology can be noted in the article itself. —84.92.117.93 (talk) 16:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Fine with the proposed move.

However, Capital city is a perfectly common and unambiguous term for a country's seat of government is not as generally true as it seems. Just think of the Dutch capital. Tomeasy _{T C} 16:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, where the capital and seat of government are different places. But both The Hague and Amsterdam are cities, so that doesn't make any real difference in this case. The same is true of South Africa's multiple capitals. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 17:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Statistics and trivia

Do we really need all the lower sections regarding distances between capitals et cetera? Unsourced WP:OR aside, I don't see how any of this is relevant or important to the topic itself, other than being a fun trivial fact to know. Do we really need these points in an encyclopedic article? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Pitcairn Islands and London

So the distance between the Pitcairn Islands and London is rather great. That's kinda cute, but while the PI may not be sovereign, their capital city is still Adamstown. Hence I'm much in favor of removing this. And the entire section, because that's rather pointless trivia. --MushroomCloud (talk) 14:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I second that -- and for the additional reason that the Pitcairn Islands are NOT a part of the UK as the article says. There is a very important difference (which many people seem unable to comprehend) between being a part of of a country and being a dependent territory of a country. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all parts of the UK; the Pitcairn Islands, the Cayman Islands, pre-1997 Hong Kong etc etc are most decidedly NOT. Not only is it pointless trivia, it is factually incorrect. Apodeictic (talk) 00:41, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The “pointless trivia” referred to the whole distance to capital section. --MushroomCloud (talk) 00:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Farthest capital from largest city

The article says that the capital which is farthest from its country's largest city is Hanoi, Vietnam (largest city is Ho Chi Minh City). However, putting the distance into GPS Visualizer gives a shorter distance than the one listed, and the distance between New Delhi, India and Mumbai appears to be slightly longer. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:41, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. I think this information is trivia hat is not needed at all in the article, be it Vietnam, India, or another country. Tomeasy _{T C} 07:47, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Germany

Neither Frankfurt nor Heidelberg nor Bonn is a capital of a German Land (state). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.0.192.120 (talk) 18:29, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Rename "capital city" to "capital"

I think this makes sense since there are a number of capitals that are not cities: London, Brussels, etc. Also, the word "capital" by itself means "seat of government" according to some dictionaries (Legal Dictionary, World English Dictionary, according to dictionary.com). The article itself does mention that a capital is usually a city, but does not need to. What do you guys think about renaming the article to capital instead of capital city? Gabiteodoru (talk) 17:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 2011

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page not moved. NW (Talk) 03:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

---

Capital city → Capital — There are a number of capitals that are not cities: London, Brussels, etc. Also, the word "capital" by itself means "seat of government" according to some dictionaries (Legal Dictionary, World English Dictionary, according to dictionary.com). The article itself does mention that a capital is usually a city, but does not need to..--Gabiteodoru (talk) 04:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose capital is a disambiguation page. Further, capital is money. 65.93.14.196 (talk) 04:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose The city is there as a disambiguator. Capital can equally be the architectural term, and perhaps most commonly, a Capital letter. Capital city is not the clear primary use of the word. It can also commonly refer to the financial/economic term. Skinsmoke (talk) 11:16, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, point taken. However, the other articles say for example Capital (architecture) as opposed to Column capital. So let's be consistent: what about renaming the article to Capital (government) or Capital (politics), or something else of that form? Gabiteodoru (talk) 13:42, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Keep Capital city Parenthesis are ugly and should be avoided if possible. Consistency in article titles has no intrinsic value, as exceptions are too probable and unavoidable.^walk victor falk ^talk 19:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Please consider also the initial argument for the change, not just the counter-counter argument. Also, I think parentheses are beautiful -- please don't state your aesthetic values as if they were an objective, widely-accepted fact. Gabiteodoru (talk) 23:42, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

What about National Capital or National Capital (government)? Luis wiki (talk) 18:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Nor are all capitals the seat of a government.^walk victor falk ^talk 19:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Not all capitals are national. The word "capital" functions more as an adjective in front of "letter" or "city", whereas the term for money or the top of a column is a noun all on its own. 216.8.133.60 (talk) 19:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

This sense of capital is both a noun and an adjective (from dictionary.com). Gabiteodoru (talk) 23:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I see that a Capital (political) page already exists, although it redirects here. Gabiteodoru (talk) 23:46, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose; I don't think there's a clear primary topic for Capital. Powers ^T 13:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose When I think of "capital" my first thought is the economic term. I don't think I am alone in this. Even if most people would consider the political term to be the main term, I don't think it is clear enough to have it as the primary term. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 02:43, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Statutory definition

Does a capital have to be statutorily defined by legislation(s)? Is there any law that provide for London to be the capital of the UK, e.g.? And what about Wellington, Adamstown, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Paris, Munich, etc.? 203.198.26.23 (talk) 09:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Short answer: no. Long answer: There are 2 different things that make a city (or region) a capital: 1) Some law/constitution says this city is the capital (Belgium, Netherlands), 2) City has major political institutions. These two can be in conflict (as in the case of the Netherlands), in which case situation #1 takes precedence. Gabiteodoru (talk) 21:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

What about the case of Hong Kong? The name Victoria City has fallen out of daily usage since the urban areas have expanded way across its borders. But it is still defined in law with clear borders, and almost all government departments have their main offices there. All consulates-general to the territory, as well as the headquarters of the communist Chinese military forces sent into the territory, the supreme court and other senior courts of the territory, the legislative council, etc., are also located within the borders of the City of Victoria. The same also applies for Singapore. There used to be a City of Singapore, with its own city charter and council. The city's administration and the council were abolished by Lee Kuan Yew, yet the government and many organizations are still located within the city. 58.153.97.88 (talk) 23:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Would it be interesting to highlight a list of capitals that are / are not statotorily defined? The latter is the case in many English-speaking countries, as well as former British posessions such as Valletta, and cases like Lisbon. I'd suppose the latter is comparatively rarer. 58.153.97.145 (talk) 22:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Would be worthwhile clarifying how capital cities are recognised. Or do they need to be recognised? For example, Jerusalem is a disputed city in that the UN says it's not, Israel says it is. There have been a few complaints to the BBC because they didn't list Jerusalem as Israel's capital for their pages on the Olympics. (http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1424/according_to_the_bbc_israel_has_no_capital_city) 92.27.94.107 (talk) 10:58, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Jerusalem always been the capital of the Jewish people. The problem is that the world not recognize this and therefore Jerusalem has only 1 country decide to built there embassy in Jerusalem. פארוק (talk) 11:31, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Divided capitals

how about Nicosia  ? פארוק (talk) 18:48, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Capital as symbol

I removed the whole section as dubious unreferenced original research. Eg., speculations that the capital "was easy to move" yet kept. Also, capital restored to Moscow by Bolsheviks because StPetersburg was very vulnerable location. They would have been very much happy to leave the capital at the what they called "The Craddle of the Revolution", i.e., the logic of selection was exctly the opposite to this section title. And so on. Please do not restore without solid references. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Jerusalem

I thought it might be simple simple to prefix Jerusalem with "Ancient" to avoid the present conflict, but that doesn't jibe with what was contained in the parenthetical content, so I deleted the parenthetical content. The mention under the Origins" section of this article is unproblematic, but implying that to the present is problematic.

See the related discussion at Jerusalem talk page.--Ubikwit (talk) 10:14, 25 December 2012 (UTC)Ubikwit

I don;t see what the problem is or how your changes improve anything. Jerusalem was and still is a religious center. Dixy flyer (talk) 19:14, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

"Findings"

The Western Wall is one of the greatest findings of the Jewish history in Jerusalem.

What does "findings" mean here? I understand it to mean "discoveries", but it's a bit hard to lose track of something as big as the Western Wall, so presumably it's not that. Marnanel (talk)