Short answer
- The United States has 50 states, and each state has one capital city: the seat of the state government, where the governor works and the state legislature meets. The best known pairings are easy to recite, such as California and Sacramento, Texas and Austin, and New York and Albany, but the full list holds plenty of surprises. The capital is often not the largest or best known city in the state. New York City is not the capital of New York, Chicago is not the capital of Illinois, and Los Angeles is not the capital of California. This article gives the complete, verified list of all 50 states and their capitals, grouped by Census region, then explains why capitals are where they are, why some moved, and how Washington DC and the territories fit in without being states.
By Emma Hudson
What a State Capital Is, and What It Is Not
A state capital is a city, and a state capitol is a building. The two words sound alike, and mixing them up is one of the most common mistakes in this subject. The capital, spelled with an a, is the city that serves as the seat of government. The capitol, spelled with an o, is the building in which the state legislature meets, although the same spelling is also used for the United States Capitol in Washington DC. The California State Capitol building stands in Sacramento, but the building and the city are two different things.
A capital does not have to be the largest, oldest, or best known city in the state. It only has to be the city the state has designated as its seat of government. Some capitals were chosen because they sat near the center of the state’s population at the time. Some were compromises between rival cities. Some were planned from scratch on empty ground, precisely so that no existing city would win the prize. And some have moved, sometimes more than once, as settlement spread or populations shifted.
It also helps to be clear about what this list is not. Washington DC is the capital of the United States, but it is not a state capital, because the District of Columbia is not a state. The five permanently inhabited US territories each have a capital of their own, but none of them is a state either, so none of them appears in the 50 state table. Both DC and the territories get their own sections later in this article, kept strictly separate from the state list.
The Complete List: All 50 States and Their Capitals
The table below lists every state in alphabetical order, with its capital and its Census region. The Census Bureau divides the country into four regions for statistical purposes: Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. Those regions are a convenience for reading and study, not a legal division of power. Counting by region, the Northeast holds 9 states, the Midwest holds 12, the South holds 16, and the West holds 13, which adds up to the full 50. Every pairing was checked against the Encyclopaedia Britannica list of state capitals, which draws its figures from the US Census Bureau, and cross-checked against two further independent full lists.
| State | Capital | Census region |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Montgomery | South |
| Alaska | Juneau | West |
| Arizona | Phoenix | West |
| Arkansas | Little Rock | South |
| California | Sacramento | West |
| Colorado | Denver | West |
| Connecticut | Hartford | Northeast |
| Delaware | Dover | South |
| Florida | Tallahassee | South |
| Georgia | Atlanta | South |
| Hawaii | Honolulu | West |
| Idaho | Boise | West |
| Illinois | Springfield | Midwest |
| Indiana | Indianapolis | Midwest |
| Iowa | Des Moines | Midwest |
| Kansas | Topeka | Midwest |
| Kentucky | Frankfort | South |
| Louisiana | Baton Rouge | South |
| Maine | Augusta | Northeast |
| Maryland | Annapolis | South |
| Massachusetts | Boston | Northeast |
| Michigan | Lansing | Midwest |
| Minnesota | Saint Paul | Midwest |
| Mississippi | Jackson | South |
| Missouri | Jefferson City | Midwest |
| Montana | Helena | West |
| Nebraska | Lincoln | West |
| Nevada | Carson City | West |
| New Hampshire | Concord | Northeast |
| New Jersey | Trenton | Northeast |
| New Mexico | Santa Fe | West |
| New York | Albany | Northeast |
| North Carolina | Raleigh | South |
| North Dakota | Bismarck | Midwest |
| Ohio | Columbus | Midwest |
| Oklahoma | Oklahoma City | South |
| Oregon | Salem | West |
| Pennsylvania | Harrisburg | Northeast |
| Rhode Island | Providence | Northeast |
| South Carolina | Columbia | South |
| South Dakota | Pierre | Midwest |
| Tennessee | Nashville | South |
| Texas | Austin | South |
| Utah | Salt Lake City | West |
| Vermont | Montpelier | Northeast |
| Virginia | Richmond | South |
| Washington | Olympia | West |
| West Virginia | Charleston | South |
| Wisconsin | Madison | Midwest |
| Wyoming | Cheyenne | West |
Read the table slowly once, and a few patterns jump out. Seventeen capitals are also the largest city in their state: Phoenix, Little Rock, Denver, Atlanta, Honolulu, Boise, Indianapolis, Des Moines, Boston, Jackson, Columbus, Oklahoma City, Providence, Nashville, Salt Lake City, Charleston (West Virginia), and Cheyenne. In most other states, the capital is a smaller city. Several capitals also share a name with another famous place: there is a Portland in Oregon and a Portland in Maine, but neither is a state capital, and there is a Kansas City in Missouri and a Kansas City in Kansas, but the capital of Kansas is Topeka. Spelling matters too. The capital of Minnesota is Saint Paul, written out in full, the capital of Kentucky is Frankfort, not Frankfurt, the capital of South Dakota is Pierre, pronounced peer, and the capital of Vermont is Montpelier, spelled with one l in the middle, unlike Montpellier in France.
The States by Region
Grouping the same 50 pairs by region makes the list easier to learn. The Northeast runs from Maine down to Pennsylvania and holds the oldest capitals in the country, cities such as Boston, Hartford, and Providence that were seats of government before the United States existed. The Midwest, stretching from Ohio to the Dakotas and down to Kansas, holds capitals that mostly sit near the geographic middle of their states, a deliberate pattern in states laid out in the 1800s, when lawmakers wanted a seat that people from every county could reach. The South, the largest region with 16 states, runs from Delaware and Maryland through the Deep South to Texas, and holds both old colonial seats such as Annapolis and Richmond and later planned cities such as Raleigh and Columbia. The West, with 13 states, covers the largest land area by far, and its capitals include the most distant seats in the country, Juneau and Honolulu.
One surprise in this system: the Census Bureau places Delaware and Maryland in the South region, in its South Atlantic division, even though everyday speech often calls them part of the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic. Only the grouping changes, never the pairing of state and capital.
Why Capitals Are Where They Are
There is no single rule that explains every capital, but four reasons cover most of them, and they often overlap. The first reason is centrality. Lawmakers choosing a capital wanted a place that the people of the state could actually reach, in an age when travel meant days on horseback or by wagon. A city near the middle of the state’s settled population made government accessible and made the choice feel fair to counties that might otherwise feel ignored. That logic explains capitals such as Springfield in Illinois, Columbus in Ohio, and Indianapolis in Indiana, none of which was the state’s leading commercial city.
The second reason is compromise. When two or more cities each wanted the honor, and each had supporters in the legislature strong enough to block the others, lawmakers sometimes picked a third place that offended nobody, or a new site altogether. Planned capitals belong to this family of reasons too. Rather than hand victory to an existing rival, a state could lay out a brand new capital town on land it owned and start clean.
The third reason is history. Some capitals were simply there first: the colonial seat, the port where the first assembly met, or the town where the governor already lived, and once government buildings and records had gathered there, moving them was more trouble than it was worth. Boston, Annapolis, and Santa Fe all carry this kind of weight. Santa Fe is the oldest capital city among the 50 states, with roots as a seat of government reaching back to the early 1600s, long before the United States existed.
The fourth reason is growth and promotion. Lawmakers sometimes chose a small town because they expected it to grow, because a railroad was coming, or because they wanted to pull settlement toward an empty part of the state. Denver, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City all grew into major cities after their selection, while in Nevada, Las Vegas draws the world’s attention and Carson City quietly does the governing.
Capitals That Moved
Half of the states, 25 in total, have changed their capital city at least once, and a few moved it many times. Early state governments were often short of money and buildings, and unsure where their population would settle next. A capital that made sense when most settlers lived along the coast could look badly placed a generation later, when farms and towns had spread inland. Legislatures responded by moving, sometimes after bitter fights in which the losing city never quite forgave the winner.
Georgia moved its capital more often than almost any other state. According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s capitol history, distributed through the Digital Library of Georgia, Atlanta is the fifth permanent capital city of Georgia. Savannah was the first capital. After the Revolutionary War, the General Assembly met alternately in Savannah and Augusta. As settlement moved westward, the capital moved to Augusta in 1786, to Louisville in 1796, to Milledgeville in 1807, and finally to Atlanta in 1868. Each move followed the population westward, and Atlanta, the final choice, was a railroad town built around a junction.
California’s capital moved for a different reason: the young state could not settle on a home. The California State Library’s history of previous capitals records the wandering in detail. San Jose served first, from 1849 to 1851, then Vallejo, which held the capital for 12 days in January 1852 before the legislature sat in Sacramento for the duration of the 1852 session and the capital returned to Vallejo, then Benicia in early 1853. Sacramento offered its courthouse to the state, and the legislature accepted, passing legislation on February 24, 1854, to move the capital from Benicia to Sacramento. Sacramento’s courthouse served as the capitol, and after a fire destroyed it on July 13, 1854, the rebuilt courthouse served from January 1855 onward. Sacramento was established as the permanent seat of government in 1854, ending the era of the traveling capital.
Illinois moved its capital for the classic reason of centrality. According to the Illinois Secretary of State’s capitol history, Kaskaskia was the state’s first capital city, and Vandalia was its second. Following a bitter battle over moving the capital from Vandalia to a more central part of the state, Springfield was designated the third capital city in 1839. A group of lawmakers that included the young Abraham Lincoln pushed the move, and the new capitol in Springfield became the building where Lincoln served as a state legislator. Springfield has stayed the capital ever since.
These three stories share a moral. Capitals move when the state itself changes, when its people move, when its economy changes, or when its old seat stops working. Once a capital has the buildings, the records, and the habits of government in place, it tends to stay. No state has changed its capital in living memory. The modern list is, for practical purposes, fixed, which is what makes it safe to learn by heart.
The Biggest, the Smallest, and the Most Confusing
At the other end of the size scale, Rhode Island is the smallest state by total area. Alaska is the biggest state in the United States.
Two superlatives from the Britannica list, which uses Census Bureau figures, anchor the two ends of the scale. The largest state capital by population in the 2020 census was Phoenix, Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents. The smallest was Montpelier, Vermont, with 8,074 residents in the 2020 census. One is a desert metropolis of more than a million and a half people. The other is a town you could walk across in an afternoon. Both do exactly the same job: they house a governor, a legislature, and a supreme court.
The confusions are just as instructive as the superlatives, and they are the reason this subject is a favorite of quizzes. The capital of Washington state is Olympia, not Seattle, and Washington DC is a different place entirely, a federal district on the other side of the country. The capital of New York is Albany, not New York City. The capital of California is Sacramento, not Los Angeles or San Francisco. The capital of Florida is Tallahassee, not Miami or Orlando. The capital of Illinois is Springfield, not Chicago. The capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburg, not Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. The capital of Nevada is Carson City, not Las Vegas or Reno. The capital of Missouri is Jefferson City, not St. Louis or Kansas City, and Kansas City itself straddles the border between Missouri and Kansas, while the capital of Kansas is Topeka, a different city altogether.
Admission Order: How the 50 States Joined
The alphabetical table is the easiest to search, but the states did not join the Union in alphabetical order. Delaware was first, ratifying the Constitution on December 7, 1787, which is why it calls itself the First State. Pennsylvania followed on December 12, 1787, and New Jersey on December 18, 1787, and the remaining original states ratified through 1788, with North Carolina in 1789 and Rhode Island in 1790 completing the original 13. Vermont, admitted in 1791, was the first state that had not been one of the original colonies, and Kentucky followed in 1792. From there the country grew westward in waves: Ohio in 1803, Louisiana in 1812, Indiana in 1816, Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818, Alabama in 1819, Maine in 1820, and Missouri in 1821.
The later admissions fill in the map most people picture today. California joined in 1850, Minnesota in 1858, Oregon in 1859, Kansas in 1861, West Virginia in 1863, Nevada in 1864, and Nebraska in 1867. Colorado joined in 1876, and then came the burst of 1889 and 1890, when North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming all joined within about a year of each other. Utah followed in 1896, Oklahoma in 1907, and New Mexico and Arizona in 1912, with Arizona, admitted on February 14, 1912, completing the 48 contiguous states. The story ends far from the mainland: Alaska joined on January 3, 1959, as the 49th state, and Hawaii joined on August 21, 1959, as the 50th and most recent state. No state has joined since.
Knowing the admission order also clears up a small puzzle. West Virginia appears near the end alphabetically, but it joined in the middle of the sequence, in 1863, when it separated from Virginia during the Civil War. Maine appears in the middle alphabetically, but it joined early, in 1820, when it separated from Massachusetts. The alphabetical list is for looking things up; the admission order shows how the country grew from 13 coastal states to a continental and Pacific nation of 50.
Washington DC: The Capital That Is Not a State Capital
Washington DC is the capital of the United States, and it is the single most common source of confusion in this subject, so it deserves a section of its own, kept firmly apart from the state table. The District of Columbia is a federal district, not a state. It was created under the District Clause of the Constitution, which gave Congress the power to exercise exclusive legislation over a district, not exceeding ten miles square, that would become the seat of the government of the United States. The district was established in 1790, and the federal government moved there in 1800.
Because the District is not a state, it has no state capital, and Washington is not listed as a state capital anywhere in this article’s table. The city of Washington and the District of Columbia are, for practical purposes, the same place, sharing the same boundaries. But the legal status matters. The District has no voting representation in the Senate, and its delegate in the House of Representatives cannot vote on the House floor. The Twenty-Third Amendment, ratified in 1961, treats the District as if it were a state for the purposes of the Electoral College only, giving it electors for presidential elections, capped at the number held by the least populous state, which works out to three electors. The amendment did not make the District a state, and it did not give its residents voting representation in Congress. The District has an elected mayor and council under the Home Rule Act of 1973, but Congress retains ultimate authority over it.
The existing Amberaisle article on Washington DC and this article are therefore companions rather than duplicates. One explains a federal district. The other lists the states. Readers should never merge them into a list of 51 capitals. There are 50 state capitals and one national capital, and the national capital belongs to no state.
The Territories: Separate From the States
Beyond the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the United States administers five permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs carries out the Secretary’s responsibilities for American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands, while relations with Puerto Rico are handled through other federal channels. None of these five is a state, and none of them appears in the 50 state table.
Each territory has a capital of its own, listed here separately so that it can never be mistaken for a 51st state capital. The capital of Puerto Rico is San Juan. The capital of Guam is Hagåtña. The capital of the US Virgin Islands is Charlotte Amalie. The capital of American Samoa is Pago Pago, while Fagatogo is the seat of government for the legislature and judiciary and Utulei is the seat of the executive. The capital of the Northern Mariana Islands is Saipan. The freely associated states of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau are not US territories at all: they are independent countries with Compacts of Free Association with the United States. Search results sometimes blur that distinction, but a careful list keeps them apart.
Territory residents also have a different political status from state residents. The District votes for president under the Twenty-Third Amendment, while territory residents do not vote in presidential general elections, and territory delegates in the House cannot vote on the floor. This article takes no position on statehood debates for the District or any territory. The point for a reader of this list is simpler: when you count to 50, you stop. The District and the territories are real places with real capitals, and they sit outside that count.
How to Learn All 50
A list of 50 pairs is a lot to memorize, but it is manageable if you study it in the right order. Start with your own region, because those are the states you are most likely to have visited, and get those pairs solid before you move on. Then learn the confusions as a set, because they are the pairs that quizzes test: Albany and not New York City, Sacramento and not Los Angeles, Springfield and not Chicago, Harrisburg and not Philadelphia, Tallahassee and not Miami, Carson City and not Las Vegas, Olympia and not Seattle, Topeka and not Kansas City, and Jefferson City and not St. Louis. Then learn the extremes: Phoenix as the largest capital and Montpelier as the smallest, Santa Fe as the oldest, and Juneau and Honolulu as the capitals you cannot drive to from the mainland in the ordinary way. Study by region, in sets of 9, 12, 16, and 13, and test yourself by covering the capital column. The list does not change, so what you learn now will last.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many states and capitals are there in the US?
There are 50 states and 50 state capitals, one capital per state. Washington DC is the capital of the United States as a whole, not a state capital, and the five permanently inhabited territories have their own capitals but are not states, so the correct count is 50, not 51 or 55.
What is the capital of the United States?
The capital of the United States is Washington DC. It is the seat of the federal government, home to the White House, the Capitol building where Congress meets, and the Supreme Court. It is not the capital of any state.
Is Washington DC a state?
No. Washington DC is a federal district, created under the Constitution as the seat of the federal government. It has an elected mayor and council under the Home Rule Act of 1973, and its residents vote in presidential elections under the Twenty-Third Amendment, ratified in 1961, but it has no voting representation in Congress.
What is the largest state capital?
By the 2020 census figures in the Britannica list, the largest state capital is Phoenix, Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents.
What is the smallest state capital?
By the same 2020 census figures, the smallest state capital is Montpelier, Vermont, with 8,074 residents, the only state capital below 10,000 in that census.
What is the oldest state capital?
Santa Fe, New Mexico, is the oldest capital city among the 50 states, with roots as a seat of government reaching back to the early 1600s, before the United States existed.
Why is the capital of New York Albany and not New York City?
Albany became the seat of New York’s government for historical reasons that long predate the modern dominance of New York City, and once the buildings and institutions of government were established there, there was no reason to move them to a larger city downstate. The pattern is common: the capital is the seat of government, not a prize for the largest city.
Why is the capital of California Sacramento and not Los Angeles?
Sacramento became California’s permanent capital in 1854 after the young state moved its seat through San Jose, Vallejo, and Benicia. Los Angeles was a smaller town at the time, and Sacramento offered the legislature a usable home and a central position in the settled part of the state. The choice stuck, even as Los Angeles grew into one of the largest cities in the country.
Do state capitals ever change?
They have changed in the past, sometimes many times, as the stories of Georgia, California, and Illinois show, but no state has changed its capital since Oklahoma in 1910, and no change is currently in effect. For study purposes, the current list can be treated as fixed.
Are Puerto Rico and Guam states?
No. Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands are US territories, not states. Each has its own capital, San Juan, Hagåtña, Charlotte Amalie, Pago Pago, and Saipan respectively, but none counts toward the 50 states or the 50 state capitals.
Keep reading: Small States of the USA
Sources & references
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "List of state capitals in the United States" (published 19 February 2026; figures from the US Census Bureau). Opened and read 24 October 2026; source for all 50 state and capital pairings and for the 2020 census populations of Phoenix and Montpelier.
- City of Jackson, Mississippi, "50 States and Capitals Study Guide" (city government publication). Returned list cross-checked against the Britannica list; all 50 pairings agree.
- WorldAtlas, "Capital Cities of the United States". Returned list cross-checked against the Britannica list; all 50 pairings agree.
- US Census Bureau regional divisions, as reproduced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Geographic division or region" (four regions and nine divisions, with state membership). Source for the Census region column and the region counts.
- Georgia Secretary of State, "Welcome to the Georgia State Capitol" (Digital Library of Georgia). Source for Georgia's five permanent capitals and their dates: Savannah, Augusta 1786, Louisville 1796, Milledgeville 1807, Atlanta 1868.
- California State Library, "Previous Capitols and Capitals of California". Source for California's moves through San Jose, Vallejo, and Benicia, Sacramento's service from 1852 to 1854, the 1854 fire, and Sacramento's establishment as permanent seat in 1854.
- Illinois Secretary of State, "State Capitol Complex" (Illinois Blue Book). Source for Illinois's capitals Kaskaskia, Vandalia, and Springfield designated the third capital city in 1839.
- National Constitution Center, "The Twenty-Third Amendment". Source for the District's Home Rule Act of 1973, its lack of statehood and congressional representation, and its three electors.
- Annenberg Classroom, "23rd Amendment". Source for the District's establishment in 1790, the federal government moving there in 1800, ratification in 1961, and the amendment's limits.
- US Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs. Source for the Office's responsibilities for American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands, and for the Compacts of Free Association with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Territories of the United States". Source for the five permanently inhabited territories and their capitals: Pago Pago, Hagåtña, Saipan, San Juan, and Charlotte Amalie.
- List of US states by date of admission to the Union (returned full list, cross-checked across two listings). Source for admission order and dates cited: Delaware December 7, 1787; Pennsylvania December 12, 1787; New Jersey December 18, 1787; Vermont 1791; Kentucky 1792; Ohio 1803; California 1850; Arizona February 14, 1912; Alaska January 3, 1959; Hawaii August 21, 1959.
