50 US States and Capitals

Find a capital. Keep the data.

The map shows all 50 states with a point at each capital. Selecting a state brings up its name, its two-letter postal code, its capital and the coordinates stored for that capital. On a phone, states that are too small to hit with a finger carry a marker, and a tap near them zooms the map in before the answer registers.

Washington, D.C. and the territories are not part of this dataset. What the dataset does hold is a clean pairing: 50 states, 50 capitals, one capital for each state. Seventeen of those capitals are also the largest city in their state, and in the remaining 33 states the seat of government is a different city. The same 50 rows come as a filterable table, as a printout and as CSV, JSON and XML files, so a quick lookup and a spreadsheet start from the same list.

All states and their capitals, in alphabetical order

Each row gives a state, its USPS postal abbreviation, its capital and the latitude and longitude used to place the capital on the map. The rows run alphabetically by state name, so Alabama comes first and Wyoming last. The filter accepts a state name, a two-letter code or part of a capital, and it narrows the rows as you type. The print button outputs every row, even if the filter is hiding some on screen.

The capitals were compared pair by pair with the state list in the style manual of the U.S. Government Publishing Office, and all 50 agree. One spelling differs: the Government Publishing Office writes St. Paul for Minnesota, while the table writes Saint Paul. Both forms are in use. Washington, D.C. has no row because it is not a state, and the territories are listed separately under US territories and their capitals. The nicknames of the states are collected under state nicknames.

Capitals can be cross-checked in the U.S. Government Publishing Office style manual, postal codes in USPS Publication 28, Appendix B. The coordinates are reference points for placing a capital on a map. In a comparison of 49 of the 50 capitals with the centre points the Census Bureau lists for the municipalities, they differ by 2.4 km at the median and by up to 16.2 km for Juneau, so they suit maps and examples and not surveying.

Which capitals belong to which region?

The Census Bureau sorts the 50 states into four regions: the Northeast with nine states, the Midwest with twelve, the South with sixteen and the West with thirteen. That adds up to 50. The District of Columbia is counted in the Census South region, but it is not one of the 50 states.

The Northeast contains the six New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, plus New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Their capitals are Hartford, Augusta, Boston, Concord, Providence, Montpelier, Trenton, Albany and Harrisburg. The Midwest has Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin in the East North Central division, with Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota in the West North Central division.

The South is the largest region. Eight of its states make up the South Atlantic division: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee form the East South Central division, and Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas the West South Central division. The West splits into eight Mountain states, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, and five Pacific states, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington.

Other lists draw regional borders differently. A state called Midwestern in one source may sit elsewhere in another, so the Census definition is the one used throughout. The four groups also hold 9, 12, 16 and 13 capitals, which makes each a workable unit for studying.

How many capitals does the United States have?

There are 50 state capitals, one for each state, and one federal capital on top of them. That federal capital is Washington, D.C. It is a federal district and not a state. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution allows Congress to take over a district of up to ten miles square as the seat of the government, and Congress has met in Washington since 17 November 1800.

The name produces a steady stream of mix-ups. Washington, D.C. is the capital of the country, while the state of Washington, in the Census Pacific division, has Olympia as its capital. Anyone asked for the capital state of the USA is really being asked about this district, which belongs to no state.

The territories are a third group. They have capitals of their own but are not states, and USA.gov lists the 50 states, the District of Columbia and eight territories and freely associated states as separate groups. The details are on the territories page.

States that are commonly confused with their largest city

A state capital is the seat of its government, and that is not always the biggest or best-known city. Albany, not New York City, is the capital of New York. Sacramento, not Los Angeles or San Francisco, is the capital of California. Springfield holds the seat in Illinois, while Chicago is the largest city, and Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania, whose largest city is Philadelphia.

Only 17 of the 50 capitals are also the largest city of their state. The count was rerun from the Census Bureau city estimates, Vintage 2025, once on the April 2020 base and once on 1 July 2025, and both runs produced the same 17:

• Phoenix, Arizona
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Denver, Colorado
• Atlanta, Georgia
• Honolulu, Hawaii
• Boise, Idaho
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Des Moines, Iowa
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Jackson, Mississippi
• Columbus, Ohio
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• Providence, Rhode Island
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Salt Lake City, Utah
• Charleston, West Virginia
• Cheyenne, Wyoming

Three choices shape that number. A city means a municipality as the Census Bureau defines it, townships left out. Indianapolis and Nashville count as consolidated cities, and the result stays the same if the surrounding balance figures are used instead. For Hawaii, the Census list carries only Urban Honolulu CDP. The narrowest call is West Virginia, where Charleston (46,117 on 1 July 2025) stays ahead of Huntington (44,815).

Which capitals are the biggest and the smallest?

The answer depends on the date of the count, so the dates are part of the table. The census count of 1 April 2020 puts Montpelier, Vermont, at the bottom with 8,074 residents. Pierre, South Dakota, follows with 14,091, then Augusta, Maine, with 18,899, Frankfort, Kentucky, with 28,602, and Helena, Montana, with 32,091. Juneau, Alaska, sits just behind Helena with 32,255. On the Census Bureau estimate for 1 July 2025 the two swap places: Juneau drops to 31,609 and Helena rises to 35,138, so Juneau joins the five smallest and Helena leaves.

At the top, Phoenix is the largest capital by a wide margin, with 1,608,139 residents in 2020 and an estimated 1,665,481 in mid-2025. Austin, Columbus and Indianapolis come next in that order. The fifth place is a question of counting. Nashville-Davidson, as a consolidated city, stood at 745,904 on 1 July 2025 against 740,613 for Denver. Leave out the surrounding balance and Nashville falls to 721,074, which puts Denver ahead. The 2020 base gives 715,887 against 715,509. Both cities are real answers, depending on the definition.

The same care applies to the states themselves. Alaska is the largest state, with 665,384 square miles of total area including water, and Rhode Island is the smallest, with 1,545 square miles, of which 1,034 is land. These are the Census Bureau reference values from 2010. Alaska is drawn at 0.35 of its scale on the maps, so it looks smaller than the figure suggests.

Which cities were capitals before Washington, D.C.?

The Library of Congress counts nine capitals of the United States between 1776 and 1800: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, New York and Washington, D.C. The last move came on 17 November 1800, when Congress left Philadelphia for Washington.

Two of the earlier seats are state capitals today. Annapolis is the capital of Maryland and Trenton the capital of New Jersey. Both appear in the table of states. The era before the Constitution, when the colonies were becoming states, is covered under the 13 original colonies, along with a map of where they were.

The dates when each present-day state capital took over are a separate matter, and they differ from state to state. Santa Fe, for instance, has housed the offices of governors in the Palace of the Governors since 1610, according to the National Park Service, and the Maryland General Assembly designated Annapolis as the capital in 1694.

Learning the capitals in small groups

Fifty pairs are easier to hold when they are split up. The Census regions offer a ready division: nine Northeast states, twelve Midwest states, sixteen in the South and thirteen in the West. A short session on one region, followed by a check against the table, gives a clear stopping point and a clear result.

The ten-question practice round draws ten states at random and asks for the capital of each. At the end it lists the states that were missed and offers a second round on exactly those, so the effort goes where the gaps are. A fresh round draws a new set of ten.

Learning by tapping on a map works differently from typing answers, because it ties each capital to a position. The full states and capitals quiz runs through all 50 states on the map. A blank map to fill in by hand is available among the printable US maps.

One dataset, three reusable formats

Every format contains the same 50 states with the same names, abbreviations, capitals and coordinates. CSV and JSON use the fields state, abbreviation, capital, latitude and longitude; the CSV starts with a header row, and all text is UTF-8. The XML file has one state element per record. The JSON suits scripts and web pages, the CSV opens in any spreadsheet, and the XML fits tools that expect markup.

Coordinates are decimal degrees. Positive latitude lies north of the equator and negative longitude west of the prime meridian. Mapping software should read them as WGS 84 unless another reference system is required. Filtering the table does not change any download, and the print button opens the browser print dialog, which can also save the list as a PDF.

Where do the capitals sit on a map?

The map marks each capital with a point and serves as a first look at where the capitals lie, and the information line above the map is the quickest way to check a single pair. For a bigger version with the capital names written out, the US map with all state capitals shows every name and offers a PDF for printing. The printable US map comes in several variants, including a blank one and a numbered quiz sheet with an answer key.

Alaska and Hawaii appear as insets, and Alaska is drawn at 0.35 of its scale, so the map suits identification but not comparing sizes.