May as well chime in about Jefferson City, Missouri.
Named after Thomas Jefferson (Louisiana Purchase and all that) and chosen on a bluff overlooking a valley which Lewis and Clark passed during their expedition.
It was chosen as the new site in 1821 to exactly split the distance between the population centers of Kansas City and St. Louis. Not very exciting, I’m afraid. (Previous capitals were St. Louis and St. Charles).
Furhter on the capital city follies, when Oklahoma was up for admission, Congress forced into the Enabling Act a provision requiring that the new State’s Constitutional Convention decree the capital to be Guthrie, and that the capital not be moved for at least six years.
(You figure, someone with business in Guthrie was more generous to some key Congressmen, than the guys from OK City or Tulsa?)
The representatives of the people of Oklahoma passed an ordinance to the required effect, and Oklahoma became a Sovereign State of the Union in 1907…
… that proceeded to exercise that sovereignty before even 3 years had gone by, and move the capital to Oklahoma City.
The case made it to the SCotUS, which ruled in favor of Oklahoma – Coyle v. Oklahoma, 221 US 559 (1911)
One of two dissenters in that case was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
According to this paper, Justices Holmes and McKenna dissented without filing an opinion. I never before heard of such a thing. Does that ever happen anymore?
Oklahoma City is the county seat of Oklahoma County as well as the capital of Oklahoma.
It’s easier to remember that way.
Albany is also the seat of Albany County.
FWIW:
Ottawa: 4th-largest city in Canada. Cause: chosen because it was farther from the US than either Montreal or Toronto; also, since it lay on the Ottawa River (the border), it helped cool off the fight between the two Canadas.
Victoria: 2nd-largest city in BC. Proximate cause: Vancouver was incorporated fifteen years after Victoria became capital of BC; it had already been capital of the colony of Vancouver Island more or less since its foundation.
Edmonton: 2nd-largest city in Alberta – not by much. Proximate cause: province was created ten years after Edmonton had boomed during the gold rush.
Regina: 2nd-largest city in Saskatchewan. Cause: proximity to railroad permitted it to become capital of the Northwest Territories, before Saskatchewan was carved out of them. Saskatoon, now larger, was founded in that year.
Quebec City: oldest European town in the province, capital of New France, etc., etc.
Fredericton: only provincial capital that’s the third largest city in the province. Beat Saint John due to safer inland location (slightly touchy, as the province became a separate colony partly to deal with the influx of Loyalists). Preference over Moncton unexplained, unless that they just didn’t want to deal with whatever Acadians were left.
Winnipeg, Toronto, Halifax, Charlottetown, St. John’s: capitals and largest cities, as are the territorial capitals.
Newburgh may have been officially incorporated in 1865 but the city is older than that. It was already around during the American Revolution and was the headquarters for Washington and the Continental Army for several months. This may have been what caused the confusion over it being the capital.
As for an Europe I can recall only Berne, Switzerland and Edinburg, Scotland.
Well, for about 40 years, there was Bonn, West Germany.
Netherlands – the “capital” is Amsterdam, but the largest city is the Hague. Of course, the Hague is the seat of government, which, seems to me the definition of “capital.” This distinction in the Netherlands seems nonsensical to me.
The largest city still looks to be Amsterdam. The Hague is third.