Every Capital City in Europe, Including the Ones People Get Wrong

Capital cities are quiz bread and butter, and crossword setters love them because the names are short, distinctive and unambiguous. Here is the full European set, followed by the handful that reliably cost teams a point.

The full list

The eight that catch people out

• Switzerland — Bern. Not Zurich, which is bigger, and not Geneva, which holds the international institutions. Switzerland has never formally declared a capital at all; Bern is the "federal city" and functions as one.
• Netherlands — Amsterdam. But the government, parliament and royal offices all sit in The Hague. Amsterdam is the constitutional capital, The Hague is the working one.
• Turkey — Ankara. Istanbul is far larger and far better known, and has not been the capital since 1923.
• Portugal — Lisbon. Easy, until a setter offers Porto, which is where the wine and the second city are.
• Malta — Valletta. Two Ls and two Ts, and almost always misspelled.
• Liechtenstein — Vaduz. Five letters and a Z, which is exactly why it turns up in crosswords far more often than its size deserves.
• Kosovo — Pristina. Contested as a country, so some quiz sources list it and some do not.
• Ukraine — Kyiv. Spelled Kiev in older sources. Modern usage follows the Ukrainian transliteration.

Useful for crosswords

Short capitals are setters’ favourites because they fit anywhere: Rome (4), Oslo (4), Riga (4), Bern (4), Kyiv (4), Paris (5), Minsk (5), Sofia (5), Vaduz (5), Skopje (6) and Vienna (6). If a clue points vaguely at Europe and you need four letters, start with Oslo and Rome.