10 Countries Where The Capital Isn’t The City That You’d Expect

10. Canberra, Australia

If pressed to name an Australian city, the majority of people would probably proffer either Sydney or Melbourne. The former is the site of the world-famous Sydney Opera House, was the host of the 2000 Summer Olympics and serves as a global financial centre. The latter is renowned for sport and media, hosting the Australian Open in tennis, Australian Formula One Grand Prix and the gargantuan Melbourne Cricket Ground and the set of Neighbors, amongst other things.

Together with Brisbane, the cities are home to more than 50% of Australia’s population, but neither serve as the capital. That honour goes to Canberra, which has only been in existence for just over a hundred years, having been constructed as a planned city from 1913 onwards. The national government began operating from there in 1927, but outside of governmental functions the city has little to offer non-political visitors and only boasts a population of around 450,000, a figure eclipsed by the likes of Adelaide and Perth.

The reason? After the six Australian self-governing territories (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia) united as a Dominion in 1901, an agreement could not be reached on whether Sydney or Melbourne (both significant cities by that point) should become the new nation’s capital, with each opposing the idea of the other. A compromise was reached, turning a patch of land in the middle of nowhere into the country’s administrative centre and bewildering outsiders to this day.