Why are capital cities of countries usually so small compared to other cities?

[dqa]

*Originally posted by Chronos *
The reason why the capital of Ohio is in Columbus in the first place is that the Northwest Ordinance, under which Ohio and several other states were admitted to the Union, specified that the state capitol should be situated within a certain distance (I’m thinking it’s 30 miles) of the geometric center of the state

I had never heard this before. I was unable to find it in the Land Ordinance of 1785 or the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Nor on any website. However, if you stretch that out to maybe 80 miles or so, it would seem to apply to former Ohio capitals Chillicothe, Zanesville, as well as Indianapolis, Springfield, Vandalia (old capital of Illinois), and Lansing. Two problems: Detroit was the capital of Michigan until 1842, and Madison???

I feel obligated to share this fact I found about the history of Columbus:

[quote]
Due to scandal in 1842 the legislature considered moving the capital to Newark or Lancaster; the capitol building would become an insane asylum. li[/li][/quote]

Behold, it has come to pass even without moving.

[Monty]

*Originally posted by bibliophage *
There are at least a few problems with the list I provided above, including Nigeria’s absence which ElvisL1ves has already noticed. There isn’t always consensus on what the largest city is (see Philippines, Sudan, and India). The updated list with changes in bold (I doubt this list is completely accurate, either.):

{snip}

[list=1]
[li]**Philippines / Manila / Manila or Quezon City **[/li][/list=1]

{snip}

Actually, Quezon City was the capital of the Philippines only from 1948 to 1976. Manila is the capital. Quezon City, though, is part of the Philippine National Capital Region, also known as Metro Manila, which is composed of a number of cities - Manila and Quezon City being the largest to those. Manila, itself, is the largest city in the country.

[MrDeath]

Just so we have some data:

I just went to the U.S. Census website; splendid place. Of the 43 states that have ‘incorporated places’, i.e. cities, with over 100,000 people in them: 15 have their capital city in their largest city. Said 15 are AZ, AR, CO, GA, HI, ID, IN, IA, MA, MS, OH, OK, RI, SC, and UT. (Yes, Ohio is one of them, and has been for a while. Columbus is almost as big as Cleveland and Cincinnati put together now.) That means, of course, that 28 do not. The seven states without any large-ish cities are DE, ME, MT, ND, VT, WV and WY. If my memory serves me, the last two have their capitals in their largest cities, and the other 5 do not. So that’s nearly two-to-one for smaller municipalities, which may lead to the misconception that this is something the rest of the world does too.

(I wasn’t counting metropolitan areas. Someone else can do that.)

Oh, and the capital of Germany is and always has been Berlin. The administrative capital of West Germany was Bonn; I think it was a compromise location among the three occupying forces (please correct me if I’m wrong). IIRC, it took them about six microseconds to pack up and move the parliament back to Berlin after re-unification.

Kalt: Going by centre of mass of population, the capital of the U.S. should be located somewhere near St Louis.

[system]

*Originally posted by MrDeath *
Oh, and the capital of Germany is and always has been Berlin.

Bonn remained the effective adminisrative capital of Germany from 1990 to c. 1999, although the political decision to make a move to Berlin --quite controversial as it was-- was taken early on. Even now, some functions remain in Bonn I believe.

[quote
The administrative capital of West Germany was Bonn; I think it was a compromise location among the three occupying forces (please correct me if I’m wrong). IIRC, it took them about six microseconds to pack up and move the parliament back to Berlin after re-unification.
[/quote]

Six micro-seconds? In creationist time perhaps.

The effective transfer of functions to Berlin only really took place since 1999 and I do not believe is fully complete.

[RickJay]

*Originally posted by matt_mcl *
**
Another reason was that for quite some time, the capital (and political control) had been bouncing between Montreal (the first capital of the Province of Canada), Toronto, and Kingston. Putting it in any of these cities provoked endless squabbles and power plays, including one time when the Parliament in Montreal was burned down and the Governor-General attacked. Finally, fed up with all this nonsense, the Queen and various advisors decided to put it in the tiny, rough lumbering town of Ottawa, mostly because it was so in the middle of nowhere that nobody could get too upset about it. (Ottawa used to be called Bytown, but I can’t remember whether the change was before or after it was renamed.) **

The name change took place in 1855, two years before Ottawa became the capital. In fact, the reason for the name change was that Ottawa had been suggested as the new capital and the city fathers wanted a better name; “Bytown” elicited thoughts of the city’s rough-and-tumble logging town past. (Not that there was much past there, the city only having been founded in 1828.)

Ottawa became capital in 1857; they started constructing the Parliament buildings in 1859.

Frankly, I wonder if the country wouldn’t be better off if they hadn’t done the right thing and chosen Montreal. Maybe it would fended off much of the Quebec vs. English Canada crap. It certainly would have given French Canadians a much greater voice in Canada’s affairs back in a time when they were not well treated. Montreal and Quebec might be officially bilingual to thsi day. Montreal would be a much greater city than it now is, having fallen behind Toronto as Canada’s great center.

Or maybe not. Who knows?