Europe Capitals Quiz

Forty-three of forty-five

A Europe capitals quiz built from this dataset can ask about forty-three countries, not forty-five, and the two absentees are absent for opposite reasons. The Netherlands has, in a sense, one capital too many: Amsterdam is the constitutional capital, but the government, the parliament and the royal court all sit in The Hague, so “What is the capital of the Netherlands?” has two defensible answers depending on what you mean by capital. Switzerland has, strictly speaking, none at all: Bern is the de facto capital – the “federal city” – but Switzerland has never designated a de jure capital. A four-option question cannot hold either ambiguity, so both countries sit out and their stories live here instead.

The micro-state row

Europe’s smallest states hand out points if you notice the pattern in their names. Luxembourg’s capital is Luxembourg City; Andorra’s is Andorra la Vella; Monaco is a city-state whose traditional capital ward is Monaco-Ville; San Marino’s capital is officially the City of San Marino; and Vatican City is a state coextensive with its own capital, sitting at the UN as a permanent observer under the name Holy See. When one of these turns up reversed – “San Marino is the capital of which country?” – it reads like a trick, and is not.

Podgorica, Bratislava, and the neighbours

The round’s genuinely hard points cluster in the continent’s south-east. Montenegro answers Podgorica, and the note that follows a correct answer adds that Cetinje still holds the honorary title of Old Royal Capital. Bosnia and Herzegovina answers Sarajevo, North Macedonia answers Skopje, and Slovakia answers Bratislava – which players mix up with Budapest so often that this round quietly contains both, two questions apart if the order falls that way.

Second attempts

Replaying this round deals the identical twenty questions in a fresh order, with the options reshuffled under the letters each time, and the reversed questions – Brussels, Stockholm, Tallinn, Andorra la Vella – are usually where a second run improves first. The percentage ring at the end and the grade under it use fixed thresholds, and the page remembers your best result in your own browser, so the only person you are beating is yesterday’s you.