State Capitals List

Washington, D.C. is not on the list. It is the national capital, but it is a federal district rather than a state, so it has no state capital of its own.

Learn it in regions, not alphabetically

Reading the list from Alabama to Wyoming is the slowest way to learn it. Alphabetical order puts Maine next to Maryland and Montana next to Nebraska, so nothing you learn helps with the next line. Grouping by region does: once you have pictured the Pacific Northwest, Salem and Olympia sit together in your head.

A workable plan is five regional blocks of about ten states each: New England and the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Great Plains and Mountain West, and the Southwest and Pacific. Learn one block a day. On day two, start with a quick recall of block one before adding block two. By the end of the week you have revisited the early blocks several times, which is what moves them into long-term memory.

Say each pair out loud, then write it. Then cover the capital column and recall it. Recall is the step that does the work; rereading the table feels productive but is much weaker.

Capitals that are not the biggest city

The most common wrong answer is a state's best-known city. In many states the capital is a smaller, quieter place, often chosen because it was central or because it was a compromise between bigger rivals. These are the ones to learn as exceptions:

New York's capital is Albany, not New York City. Illinois has Springfield, not Chicago. Pennsylvania has Harrisburg, not Philadelphia. California's is Sacramento, not Los Angeles or San Francisco. Washington's is Olympia, not Seattle. Florida's is Tallahassee, not Miami. Texas has Austin, not Houston or Dallas. Nevada has Carson City, not Las Vegas. Missouri has Jefferson City, not Kansas City or St. Louis. Maryland has Annapolis, not Baltimore. Kentucky has Frankfort, not Louisville. Michigan has Lansing, not Detroit. Alaska has Juneau, not Anchorage, and Juneau has no road connection to the rest of the state.

The reverse is also worth knowing, because it gives you free points. Phoenix, Denver, Boston, Atlanta, Honolulu and Indianapolis are each both the capital and the best-known city of their state.

Name clashes and lookalikes

• Columbus and Columbia. Columbus is the capital of Ohio; Columbia is the capital of South Carolina.
• Charleston. The capital of West Virginia is Charleston. The better-known Charleston in South Carolina is not a capital.
• Springfield. Illinois's capital. There are other Springfields, including large ones in Massachusetts and Missouri, but neither is a capital.
• Augusta. The capital of Maine. Augusta in Georgia is a different city, and Georgia's capital is Atlanta.
• Jackson and Jefferson City. Jackson is the capital of Mississippi; Jefferson City is the capital of Missouri.
• Kansas City. Not a capital. Kansas's capital is Topeka, and Missouri's is Jefferson City.
• Saint Paul. Minnesota's capital, not its larger twin city, Minneapolis.
• Pierre. South Dakota's capital, pronounced like "peer". Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota.

Memory hooks that help

Odd pairings stick better when you attach a picture to them. Little Rock, Arkansas: a small stone sitting on an ark. Salt Lake City, Utah: the Great Salt Lake is right next to it. Montpelier, Vermont: both names sound French, and Vermont's comes from the French for "green mountain". Hooks you invent yourself work better than ones you are handed, so treat these as examples.

Alliteration helps where it exists: Dover, Delaware; Honolulu, Hawaii; Boise, Idaho does not alliterate but has only five letters, the same as Idaho. For the rest, link the capital to something you already know. Lincoln, Nebraska and Madison, Wisconsin are named after presidents. Jackson, Mississippi and Jefferson City, Missouri are too, which is one more reason to keep those two apart. Anything silly enough to remember is good enough.

Practicing once the table makes sense

When you can get through a regional block without looking, move to active practice. The state capitals quiz asks you to type each capital, which is the closest match to real recall. For paper practice, the states and capitals worksheet has two shuffled versions with answer keys. Label the capitals on a blank US map to connect each one to its place on the map.

How these capitals were checked

State names follow the US Postal Service's official list of state names and abbreviations. Each capital was checked against two independent sources, Wikidata and the Natural Earth populated places dataset, and appears here only where both agree. The sources page lists every dataset the site uses and its license. State capitals change rarely, but if one ever does, the list and every quiz that uses it update together, because they all read from the same data.