Capitals of Africa Quiz

Name the capital city of every country in Africa: 53 questions, each with four capitals from the same continent. Below the game is the full list of Africa countries and their capitals to study first. This capitals of Africa quiz also has the quiz in a printable form, and tables that sort the 53 capitals by level, first letter and name length.

Capitals of Africa quiz to print (PDF)

The four printable pages below are a multiple-choice sheet, a write-in sheet, the answer key and a black-and-white version. Click a picture for the PDF.

How to play the capitals of Africa quiz

Set the level, the number of questions and the timer above the quiz. This quiz has 53 questions in three levels: 3 easy, 20 medium and 30 hard. A wrong answer shows the right one, and the result ends with a list of answers to learn.

Capitals people often get wrong

• Benin: Porto-Novo, not Cotonou
• Burundi: Gitega, not Bujumbura
• Côte d’Ivoire: Yamoussoukro, not Abidjan
• Malawi: Lilongwe, not Blantyre
• Morocco: Rabat, not Casablanca
• Nigeria: Abuja, not Lagos
• Tanzania: Dodoma, not Dar es Salaam

Africa countries and capitals

Capitals of Africa quiz: 53 capitals by level

The capitals of Africa quiz sorts the 53 capitals of Africa into three levels, so players of every age can find a level that suits them. Easy has 3 capitals that most people know, medium has 20 and hard has 30:

Africa capitals quiz: capitals by first letter

A quick way to see the shape of a list is to count the first letters. In this Africa capitals quiz, the letter M starts the most capitals (7 of 53), followed by A (6). Here is the full count:

Capitals of Africa: the longest and shortest names

When you study the capitals of Africa, the names with the fewest letters are the easiest to spell, and the longest are the ones that are most often written wrong. Counting only letters, the names are:

For the write-in sheet, accents and apostrophes do not matter for learning, but players should know that the spelling of some capitals has changed over the years.

Africa capital cities quiz: capitals with the same name as the country

The Africa capital cities quiz has 4 capitals that share a name with their country, which makes them the easiest to remember:

Africa countries and capitals: a five-day study plan

To learn the Africa countries and capitals in a week, work through the levels one by one. This plan uses the 3 easy, 20 medium and 30 hard capitals in the quiz, and a short write-in test to check what you remember:

Most players need two or three rounds to get to 100% on the easy level, and about 11 minutes to play all 53 questions at 12 seconds each.

Capital city changes in Africa

Some of the capitals in this quiz are new, and others are not the largest city. These facts help players remember the answers, and they come from the history of each country. Wikipedia’s list of national capitals has the full details:

• Nigeria moved its capital from Lagos to Abuja in 1991, and Lagos is still the biggest city.
• Tanzania has Dodoma in the center of the country as its capital, while Dar es Salaam is the largest city and main port.
• Côte d’Ivoire has had Yamoussoukro as its political capital since 1983, but Abidjan is the economic center.
• Burundi made Gitega its political capital in 2019, and Bujumbura is the largest city.
• Malawi moved its capital from Zomba to Lilongwe in 1975.
• Egypt is building a new administrative capital east of Cairo, but Cairo is still the capital in this quiz.
• South Africa has three capitals (Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein), so it is left out of the quiz.

Print this capitals of Africa quiz

Make a printable version with an answer key: 10 to 30 questions, as multiple choice or write-in answers.

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