Comments on: 8 Countries & States That Moved Their Capitals

By: Bryony

Bryony — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:39:00 +0000

What about Canada? Our capital city has changed six times…Kingston-Montreal-Toronto-Quebec City-Toronto-Quebec City-Ottawa.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:21:00 +0000

@Kieran, you’re right about the buildings being kept up in the second Illinoisan capital of Vandalia, but not in the original capital of Kaskaskia. The location of the first state house is underwater now; it was swallowed up, along with the rest of the remnants of the original settlement, by the Mississippi River during the flood of 1881.

The flood also cut carved out Kaskaskia Island, where George Rogers Clark’s “Liberty Bell of the West” was moved to escape the flood waters. So ironically, Kaskaskia Island, which contains the only bits left of the first capital of Illinois, is cut off completely from Illinois by the river and is now only accessible from Missouri.

By: Kelly J

Kelly J — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:10:00 +0000

Seconding about Indiana. I’m from NJ and moved here a little over 2 years ago, my fiance was telling me the stories about how it was moved (I think it was like Valparaiso or Vincennes before) and it’s so interesting! With so many states changing capitals I think it’s weird you JUST included GA… wish you had done the USA instead of GA.

By: kate

kate — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Nebraska also moved its capitol, although only once. It was originally Omaha, because it was the most populous city, but moved to Lincoln in order to be more centrally located (if you look at a map of Nebraska today, you’ll see that that aim failed miserably). I think Omahans are still upset about this, because most of them frequently pretend that they are not a part of the state of Nebraska.

By: BeeLee

BeeLee — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:41:00 +0000

I believe Hawaii changed their state capitol as well. It went from Lahaina,Maui , the one time whaling capitol to Honolulu on the main island of Oahu.

By: Maozze

Maozze — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:32:00 +0000

Australia – Melbourne was where parliament sat until Canberra was developed in the 1920′s.

By: NG

NG — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:49:00 +0000

I live in Israel, and our capital has been Jerusalem for over 60 years, but most of the international community still doesn’t believe that Jerusalem is even in Israel. All the embassies (and some government ministries, like Defense) are in Tel Aviv.

By: Debasis Mandal

Debasis Mandal — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:30:00 +0000

Calcutta served as the capital of India during the British Raj until 1911.

By: VM

VM — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:06:00 +0000

When I visited Californiaâ€™s Capitol building in Sacramento I picked up a freebie pamphlet on the history of the state capital, including all its previous locations. Monterey, San Jose, Vallejo, Benicia, then finally Sacramento, all in a space of about five years (and in 1861 they had to hold the legislative session in San Francisco because Sacramento was so flooded)…the twisty-turny details of all the shifts and the reasons for them made for the funniest read I’d had in years.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:40:00 +0000

Guthrie WAS originally the capital of Oklahoma when the state was admitted to the Union in 1907. However, in 1910, a group of people sneaked into the capital in the middle of the night, heisted the state seal, and moved it to Oklahoma City. I’m not sure why, but that was pretty much it for Guthrie as far as capital status. All the government and most of the businesses moved to OKC and that’s the way it’s been ever since.

If you ask me, if Guthrie wasn’t willing to put up more of a fight than that, they deserved to lose the capital.