Capitals Duel

How to play Capitals Duel

1. Choose the capitals before you start: US states, World, or one continent (see the table below).
2. Each player has a pad in their own colour. On a phone held upright, Orange's pad is at the bottom and Purple's is at the top, facing the other player. On a wide screen the pads sit side by side.
3. A state or country appears on both pads at once, under the words "Capital of". Tap its capital.
4. The first right answer wins the point. The bar between the pads shows the time left: 12 seconds for each question.
5. A wrong answer locks you out until the next question, and your rival gets the chance to answer. If nobody gets it right in time, nobody scores.
6. Learn as you go. After every question, both pads show the answer for a moment: "The capital of Texas is Austin".
7. The first player to 7 points wins the round. No place comes up twice in a round.

Which capitals?

In the world and continent quizzes, well-known capitals come up more often than hard ones, so a round mixes a few easy points with some real tests. The four answers always include the right capital and other capitals from the same part of the world, and often a famous city that is not the capital, such as Houston for Texas or Sydney for Australia.

A few countries are left out so that every question has one clear answer: countries whose capital is disputed, shared between two or three cities or being moved, such as Bolivia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Tiny countries whose capital has the same name as the country, such as Monaco, Singapore and Luxembourg, are left out too.

Controls

The keys follow the answer buttons in reading order: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right. On a computer, each button shows its key. Against the computer, either set of keys works for you, and so do 1 to 4 on the number pad. The answers are always in alphabetical order.

Computer levels

The computer sees each question at the same moment you do. Like a person, it knows some capitals and not others. When it knows one, it answers quickly. When it doesn't, it takes longer and has to guess, and a famous city that isn't the capital often fools it. It never knows which button you're about to tap.

Every level knows fewer of the harder capitals, so in the Africa and Asia quizzes, where many capitals are hard, even Expert slips more often.

Tips to win

• Rule out the famous city. When an answer is a big city you know from the same state or country, stop and think: Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City are all famous, and none of them is a state capital.
• Watch for look-alikes. Columbus is the capital of Ohio, and Columbia is the capital of South Carolina. Kingston is the capital of Jamaica, and Kingstown the capital of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
• Don't guess too early. A wrong tap locks you out and hands your rival the point. If you're not sure, a second look often helps.
• Learn a region at a time. Pick Europe or Africa until you know most of its capitals, then move on to the next.
• Say the answer out loud when it's shown after each question. Hearing yourself say "Pierre, South Dakota" helps it stick.

Tricky state capitals

Plenty of people know their own state's capital and get stuck on the rest. A few patterns are worth knowing:

• The capital often isn't the biggest city. Sacramento, not Los Angeles, is the capital of California; Albany, not New York City, of New York; Springfield, not Chicago, of Illinois; Harrisburg, not Philadelphia, of Pennsylvania; Austin, not Houston, of Texas; Olympia, not Seattle, of Washington; and Carson City, not Las Vegas, of Nevada.
• Sometimes it is. Phoenix, Boston, Denver, Atlanta, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Columbus, Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City are both the capital and the largest city of their state.
• Same name, different state. Charleston is the capital of West Virginia, not South Carolina. There is a Portland in Maine and another in Oregon, and neither is a capital. Augusta is the capital of Maine, not of Georgia, which has an Augusta of its own.
• Named after presidents. Four state capitals carry a president's name: Jefferson City in Missouri, Lincoln in Nebraska, Madison in Wisconsin and Jackson in Mississippi.

Tricky world capitals

The same trap waits around the world: the capital isn't always the city everyone knows. Canberra, not Sydney, is the capital of Australia. Ottawa, not Toronto, is the capital of Canada. Others in the same trap are Ankara (not Istanbul) for Turkey, Brasília (not Rio de Janeiro) for Brazil, Bern (not Zurich or Geneva) for Switzerland, Wellington (not Auckland) for New Zealand, Abuja (not Lagos) for Nigeria and Rabat (not Casablanca) for Morocco.

Good for the classroom

A quick race is a fun way to practise geography that would otherwise be a list to learn by heart. Pairs of pupils can share one tablet, each with their own pad, and the answer shown after every question means both players learn something, whoever wins the point. The Easy computer gives a beginner time to think, and the continent quizzes let a class work through the world one region at a time.

Questions

Updated 10 November 2026