Well, in fairness to older Americans, Rio de Janeiro WAS the capital of Brazil for a long time. They moved it to the newly created city of Brasilia in the arly Sixties.
Uh, that was an object lesson for all you young’uns out there. Yeah, that’s the ticket. :smack:
Right. And next you’ll be telling me that the capital of Australia is neither Melbourne nor Sydney, but some fictitious magical city halfway between the two.
I didn’t know it, and I apologize to our brothers and sisters north of the border. I’ll try to do better.
Cue Three Dead Trolls In A Baggie…
“And the white house burned burned buuuuurned
And we’re the ones that did it…”
Yeah. 
Now - my experience (purely anecdotal) as a canadian expat in the US is that a LOT of americans end up asking me what the capital is… or they assume it’s Toronto (or Montreal, or Vancouver)
Ottawa is just too small for most people to have ever even heard of it. I should know, it’s my hometown
sigh
The damned Senators seem to always kick our ass. Of course we know where it is and we plan on burning it to the ground as soon as we can figure out how to get there.
I didn’t know, and I’m overeducated. I have a BA and a BS… 304 hours of college credit. Shame on me.
What make you say this?
Except, of course, that that is completely false. Washington was burned by British troops.
Crediting Canada with burning Washington is like crediting Australia with winning the Battle of Kursk, or giving the Luftwaffe credit for bombing Pearl Harbor.
Actually, I would be surprised – there are so many more Americans than there are Canadians! So even if only 10% of the U.S. population can name Ottowa… well, it’s all over 
[end hijack by a non-American (as in, not a resident of the continent of America)]
How many Canadians can name all 50 states and their capitals?
In defence of our U.S. cousins, Canada is quite a small player globally. A lot of Canadians are fond of stating how ignorant you are in the U.S. because you can’t name the capital, or the Prime Minister. That’s when I ask my fellow self-absorbed Canadian who the President of Mexico, or Prime Minister of Australia is. Guess what, 9 times out of 10, they can’t answer. But then they’ll state that we’re right next door, and besides we know ALL about them, why don’t they know more about us? Ahhh, maybe all the news programs, sitcoms, movies, etc. that are exported from there?
Most people are ignorant of other countries and cultures. Why should Clem working down at Home Hardware care what the capital city of New Zealand is?
A quick search of an archive of Canadian news articles from January 2000 through June 2005 indicates that Ottawa is mentioned nearly seven times as often as Washington D.C. (excluding by-lines, and the statistics change only very slightly if you remove “D.C.” as a keyword). Articles containing “Ottawa” and not “Washington” have an average of five and a half times as many words as articles that contain “Washington” and “D.C.” but not “Ottawa.”
So, where exactly did you get your facts about Washington being more newsworthy than Ottawa in Canada? Or did you pull them out of your ass?
I can. (I still sometimes confuse which of Bismarck and Pierre goes with which Dakota.) I know one other Canadian who can. I’m not all that smart, I’m just a geography geek.
I know a lot of Canadians who can’t say how many provinces there are in Canada. And it’s a nice, round number, too.
That one’s got an easy mnemonic: Germany’s north of France, sort of. If you can remember the two state capitals, just think of which name goes with which European country. 
Let’ts have Nunavat here, please! 
I thought The War of 1812 was written by the Arrogant Worms. Fun song, even if it’s not accurate.
I asked the other person in my office (whose family is from wetern Canada). I knew the correct answer. She said “somewhere in the East” and muttered something about the French.
So there you have it: my poll indicates that half of Americans know that the capitol of Canada is Ottawa.
Canada has a capital?!.
Impossible. That would imply that Canada was a real country.
Except we don’t have capitols.
In our capital cities, we have Parliaments, Houses of Parliament, Provincial Parliaments, Legislatures, Palais législatifs, or Assemblées nationales, but capitols? Nope. That’s for you republican folks down south, inspired by the Roman Republic.