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

More than 15% of Canada’s 37 million people live in the city of Toronto and its surrounding areas. Home to the nation’s stock exchange, largest banks and broadcast media networks, its three most valuable sports franchises (the Raptors, Blue Jays and Maple Leafs) and major tourist attractions such as the CN Tower and Casa Loma in the city itself and Niagara Falls a short drive away, it has all the markings of being a national capital city. Despite being the state capital of Ontario, however, it is not.

Nor is Montreal, which is the centre of the French-speaking Canadian community in the province of Quebec and the only city in Canada that has hosted the Olympic Games. Neither Vancouver nor Calgary hold the title either, despite the former’s growing prominence on the world stage given its popularity as a Hollywood filming destination because of tax incentives.

Instead, in what is clearly a trend amongst former Dominions of the British Empire (as we’ll see again in the next entry), the capital is a city of lesser renown. Ottawa has a population just under a million and was chosen to be the seat of governance within the country by Queen Victoria as a convenient halfway point between Toronto and Montreal.

The fact that it isn’t also the state capital of Ontario is somewhat bizarre, as it means that despite being the seat of the national government, its local affairs are actually overseen by representatives in another city almost 500km away.