Answer(s)
• Answer(s)s will vary. [District of Columbia residents should answer that D.C. is not a state and does not have a
capital. Residents of U.S. territories should name the capital of the territory.]
• Answer(s)s will vary. [District of Columbia residents should answer that D.C. is not a state and does not have a
capital. Residents of U.S. territories should name the capital of the territory.]
The city where a state's government is located.
An agreement reached when each side gives up something.
DOUGLAS GINSBURG, Federal Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit:
If you don’t know the capital of your state, you can find it at your state’s website – such as California.gov.
In many states – including California – the largest city is not the state capital. In the early 1800s, as now, Philadelphia was Pennsylvania’s largest city. And it had briefly been the state capital. But in a time when travel moved at the speed of a horse, officials compromised by placing the capital at Harrisburg, where delegates from far corners of the state had less distance to cover.
Florida was once two territories with two capitals. St. Augustine and Pensacola. When Florida entered the Union those capitals found themselves at opposite ends of the new state. Tallahassee, a site in between, became the new capital. That was back when Miami was still a swamp, and Los Angeles was a sleepy Spanish mission town.
When gold was discovered in northern California, prospectors passed through a town whose convenient location would make it the state capital: Sacramento.
Like Harrisburg and Tallahassee, Albany, New York, was a compromise: A city between upstate New York and New York City.
Some New Yorkers want to move their state’s capital to New York City – the largest city in the state. Maybe. But no state has changed its capital since Oklahoma did more than a century ago.