The capitals of Oceania

Oceania has only 14 countries — three times fewer than Europe, four times fewer than Africa. It is also the least known: outside Australia and New Zealand, almost nobody can name a single capital. Twelve names are enough to cover everything else.

The two famous traps

Canberra, not Sydney. The choice dates from 1908 and answers the same problem as Ottawa or Washington: Sydney and Melbourne were fighting over the title, so a new city was built exactly between them. Wellington, not Auckland: New Zealand moved its capital to the Cook Strait in 1865, to get closer to the centre of the country and to the South Island, which was threatening to secede.

The atoll capitals

The rest of Oceania sits on islands whose total area does not exceed that of a small county. Nauru, 21 km², officially has no capital: Yaren, where parliament sits, is the name kept by convention. Palau moved its seat in 2006 to Ngerulmud, a capital of barely a few hundred inhabitants, the least populous in the world. Tuvalu has Funafuti, an atoll whose runway doubles as a playing field between flights.

These tiny countries weigh heavily in a quiz: in a random draw, Tuvalu has exactly the same chance of appearing as Australia. It is also why some GeoG modes exclude Oceania from their most demanding variants — the pool simply is not wide enough.

The complete list

Frequently asked

Read next

• The capitals of Asia
• The capitals of South America
• The flags of Oceania
• The countries of Oceania: population, area, neighbours
• The capitals of the world and their traps
• The capitals quiz