Why Some Countries Have Two (or Three) Capitals

3 min read · 3 steps · Updated 1 October 2026

Quick question. What's the capital of South Africa? If you said Pretoria, you're one third right. South Africa has three capitals. One for the government, one for parliament, and one for the courts.

This is Countries Compared. Today: why some countries have two or even three capitals, and why others build a brand new one from scratch.

Step by step

1. 

   Capitals of compromise

   In 1910, four British colonies joined to form the Union of South Africa. None of the big cities wanted to lose its status. So they split the job. Pretoria got the government. Cape Town got parliament. And Bloemfontein got the appeal court. More than a hundred years later, that deal still stands. Members of parliament and ministers still travel between the cities.

   Bolivia has a similar story, but with a war. Sucre is the official capital in the constitution, and it's home to the Supreme Court. But after a short civil war in 1899, the government moved to La Paz, and it never went back. So the president and congress sit in La Paz, high in the Andes.

   The Netherlands is even stranger. Its constitution names Amsterdam as the capital. But the government, the parliament, the supreme court, and the King's working palace are all in The Hague. Amsterdam has the title. The Hague has the power.

   And Switzerland? Legally, it has no capital at all. Bern is officially just the federal city, where the government sits.

   Done

2. 

   There are countries that move the government out

   Malaysia's capital is still Kuala Lumpur. But from 1999, the prime minister's office and most ministries moved to Putrajaya, a planned city about 25 kilometers south. In Sri Lanka, parliament sits in Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, while Colombo remains the business capital. Montenegro's constitution even names an old royal capital, Cetinje, next to the real one, Podgorica.

   Done

3. 

   Some countries build a capital from nothing

   Australia couldn't decide between Sydney and Melbourne. So it built Canberra, roughly between them. Parliament moved there in 1927. Brazil built Brasilia in the middle of the country, and opened it in 1960, to pull people and money away from the coast.

   Done

Good to know

Pakistan did the same. Karachi was the first capital, on the coast. In the 1960s, a new city was built at the foot of the Margalla Hills, next to Rawalpindi: Islamabad. Nigeria moved its capital from crowded Lagos to Abuja, a planned city in the centre of the country, in 1991.

And it's still happening. Myanmar moved its government to a new city, Naypyidaw, in 2005 and 2006. Egypt is building a new administrative capital east of Cairo. And Indonesia passed a law in 2022 to move its capital from sinking Jakarta to Nusantara, on the island of Borneo. But progress has slowed, and for now Jakarta is still the capital.

So why do countries do it?

There are four big reasons. Compromise, when no single city can win. Security, moving away from a coast or border. Development, to grow a poor interior region. And sometimes, a new start, a capital with no history of old rulers.

But it's expensive. New capitals cost billions, and they can feel empty for decades. Canberra and Brasilia were mocked for years. Today they're home to hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people.

In short: A capital isn't always one city. Sometimes it's a deal, sometimes it's a project, and sometimes it's still under construction.