128 Fun Facts About Urban

A megacity is usually defined as an urban area with more than how many people?

A megacity is an urban area of more than 10,000,000 people; Tokyo, Delhi and Shanghai are textbook examples, and the UN counted about 33 such areas in its 2025 report.

Which urban area did the UN list as the world's largest megacity in 2025?

Greater Jakarta held over 40 million people in 2025; satellite sources point instead to China's Pearl River Delta.

Which city is widely considered the most densely populated built-up urban area in the world?

Dhaka is the world's densest major urban area, packing well over 20,000 people per square kilometre across its built-up area; the UN put its 2025 population near 37 million.

Which Chinese municipality is the largest 'city proper' in the world, at roughly the size of Austria?

Chongqing municipality covers about 82,000 square kilometres, close to Austria's area, and holds some 32 million people, many of them in rural counties far from the city centre.

Which city served as the US capital for the decade before Washington took over in 1800?

Philadelphia was the temporary US capital from 1790 to 1800 under the Residence Act, while the new federal city of Washington was being built on the Potomac.

Which Mesopotamian city do most archaeologists consider the first true city?

Uruk, in southern Mesopotamia, is usually called the first true city; around 3100 BC it may have housed 50,000 people behind walls that legend credits to Gilgamesh.

Which was the first city to pass one million inhabitants?

Rome is generally credited as the first city to reach one million inhabitants, around the reign of Augustus in the late first century BC.

Which city is described as the oldest capital city in the world?

Damascus has been settled since at least the third millennium BC and is usually called the oldest continuously inhabited capital; its name also gave English the fabric word damask.

Excavations at Jericho found more than 20 successive settlements, the first dating back how far?

The earliest of Jericho's 20-plus settlement layers dates back about 11,000 years, to roughly 9000 BCE, near the start of the Holocene.

The Bible calls Jericho the city of what?

Deuteronomy 34:3 calls Jericho 'the city of palm trees', a name recalling the date palms of its oasis in the Jordan Valley.

The Neolithic proto-city of Çatalhöyük is in which modern country?

Çatalhöyük lies in Turkey, on the Konya Plain of central Anatolia, where it flourished around 7000 BC with several thousand residents living in tightly packed mud-brick houses.

Mohenjo-daro, built around 2500 BCE, belonged to which civilisation?

Mohenjo-daro, in Pakistan's Sindh province, was a major city of the Indus Valley civilisation around 2500 BCE; its Sindhi name means Mound of the Dead Men.

Which was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas?

Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital on an island in Lake Texcoco, held some 200,000 people when the Spanish conquered it in 1521, rivalling the biggest European cities of the day.

Mexico City is described as one of only two capitals in the Americas founded by whom?

Mexico City began as the Mexica (Aztec) city of Tenochtitlan around 1325; Quito is the only other capital in the Americas founded by Indigenous peoples.

Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World stood at Alexandria?

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, on the island of Pharos, was completed under Ptolemy II around 280 BC and stood over 100 metres tall until medieval earthquakes toppled it.

Which legendary Phoenician queen is said to have founded Carthage?

Dido, also called Elissa, a princess of Tyre, is the legendary founder of Carthage around 814 BC; Virgil's Aeneid later made her Aeneas's tragic lover.

Roman myth dates the founding of Rome to roughly which year?

Tradition, codified by the scholar Varro, places Romulus's founding of Rome on 21 April 753 BC, the base year of the Roman ab urbe condita dating system.

Which Roman poet first called Rome 'the Eternal City'?

Tibullus wrote 'urbs aeterna' in his Elegies (2.5) in the first century BC, the earliest surviving use; Ovid and Livy repeated the idea soon after.

Which is the only existing example of a country lying entirely inside a metropolis?

Vatican City is an enclave entirely surrounded by the city of Rome, the only country lying wholly inside another city; it became sovereign under the 1929 Lateran Treaty.

How big is the sovereign state ruled by the pope?

Vatican City covers about 44 hectares (0.44 square kilometres, roughly 109 acres); Monaco, the next-smallest sovereign state, is more than four times larger.

The state ruled by the pope is the only country with a population below what?

Vatican City has fewer than 1,000 residents, about 880 in 2024; every other country, starting with Tuvalu at roughly 10,000, has many times more.

Which is the world's most densely populated sovereign state?

Monaco squeezes about 38,000 people into roughly 2 square kilometres, nearly 19,000 per square kilometre, the highest density of any sovereign state; it is also the second-smallest country.

Which family has ruled the principality on the French Riviera since 1297?

The Grimaldi family has held Monaco since François Grimaldi seized its fortress disguised as a monk in 1297; the Monte Carlo casino, opened in 1863, later secured the dynasty's fortune.

Which region is described as the most densely populated in the world?

Macau, a former Portuguese colony, packs around 700,000 people into about 33 square kilometres, over 20,000 per square kilometre, the highest density of any country or territory.

Which region has the most skyscrapers in the world?

Hong Kong has more buildings over 150 metres than any other city, well over 500 by CTBUH counts, ahead of Shenzhen and New York.

Britain's 1898 lease on the New Territories ran for how many years?

The 1898 Second Convention of Peking leased the New Territories to Britain for 99 years, so the lease expired on 30 June 1997 and all of Hong Kong returned to China.

Kowloon Walled City reached what density before its 1990s demolition?

A 1987 survey found roughly 33,000 people living on just 2.6 hectares, a density of about 1,200,000 per square kilometre, before demolition began in 1993.

About how many people live in Dharavi, often called one of the world's largest slums?

Dharavi is usually put at around 1,000,000 residents living on roughly 2.4 square kilometres in central Mumbai, one of the most crowded places on Earth.

The word 'favela' was first used for a slum in which city?

Soldiers returning from the 1897 Canudos War settled a hill in Rio de Janeiro they called Morro da Favela, after the favela plant of Bahia, and the name spread to all such settlements.

Which capital has lions and rhinos roaming a national park inside its city limits?

Nairobi National Park, gazetted in 1946, lies only about 7 km from the city centre, so lions and rhinos roam within sight of the skyline; it earned Nairobi the nickname Green City in the Sun.

The Kenyan capital's name comes from a Maasai phrase meaning what?

Nairobi comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyrobi, 'place of cool waters', after the river there; the city began in 1899 as a depot on the Uganda Railway.

Johannesburg was established in 1886 after the discovery of what?

Johannesburg sprang up after gold was found on the Witwatersrand in 1886; within a decade the mining camp had passed 100,000 people.

Which is the world's coldest capital city by average yearly temperature?

Ulaanbaatar's yearly mean temperature hovers around freezing, the lowest of any national capital; January averages fall below minus 20 °C at 1,350 metres elevation.

What does Ulaanbaatar, the name Mongolia's capital adopted in 1924, mean?

Ulaanbaatar means 'Red Hero' in Mongolian; the city, previously called Urga or Niislel Khüree, took the name in 1924 when Mongolia became a people's republic.

Which is the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state?

Reykjavík sits at about 64°08′ N on Iceland's southwest coast, farther north than Helsinki (60°10′ N) or any other capital of a sovereign state.

Iceland's capital takes its name from Old Norse words meaning what?

Reykjavík means 'smoky bay' in Old Norse (reykur, smoke; vík, bay); the 'smoke' the first settlers saw was steam from geothermal hot springs.

Which is the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state, and also its windiest city?

Wellington, at latitude 41°17′ S, is the southernmost national capital; it replaced Auckland as New Zealand's capital in 1865 and is famed for the gales funnelled through Cook Strait.

Which is the highest administrative capital in the world, at about 3,650 metres?

Bolivia's constitutional capital, Sucre, keeps the judiciary.

Which Colombian city opened the Metrocable gondola lines serving hillside barrios in 2004?

Medellín's Metrocable Line K opened in 2004, pioneering gondola lines as everyday mass transit by linking steep hillside barrios to the city's metro.

Which city pioneered the weekly Ciclovía, closing its streets to cars on Sundays since 1974?

Bogotá's Ciclovía, begun in 1974, closes more than 100 km of streets to cars every Sunday and holiday, drawing over a million walkers and cyclists; cities worldwide have copied it.

Which is the highest capital city in Africa?

Addis Ababa sits at about 2,355 metres on the Ethiopian highlands, higher than any other African capital, with the city climbing the slopes of Mount Entoto.

Ethiopia's capital has a name meaning what in Amharic?

Addis Ababa means 'new flower' in Amharic; Empress Taytu chose the name in 1886 when Menelik II's court moved down from chilly Mount Entoto to the springs below.

Lhasa sits at what altitude?

Lhasa lies at about 3,656 metres on the Tibetan Plateau, among the highest cities in the world; it has been Tibet's religious and administrative centre since the mid-17th century.

Mexico City sits at an altitude of about how many metres?

Mexico City sits about 2,240 metres above sea level in the Valley of Mexico, a high basin ringed by volcanoes including Popocatépetl.

What was Tokyo called before 1868?

Edo, the shogunate's seat, was renamed Tokyo ('Eastern Capital') in 1868 when Emperor Meiji moved his court there from Kyoto.

Tokyo was the first Asian city to host the Summer Olympics, in which year?

Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the first held in Asia, unveiling the Shinkansen bullet train days before the opening; it hosted again in 2021 after a year's pandemic delay.

How many special wards does the Tokyo Metropolitan Government administer at the city's core?

Tokyo's 23 special wards cover the area of the former Tokyo City, abolished in 1943, and together house about 9.7 million people.

Which is the world's busiest railway station, with about 3.59 million users a day?

Shinjuku Station handles about 3.59 million passengers a day across JR, private-railway and subway lines, a Guinness world record; the complex has well over 200 exits.

Up to how many people cross Shibuya Crossing during one green light?

As many as 3,000 people can cross Shibuya's scramble crossing on a single green light, which is why it is called the world's busiest pedestrian crossing.

Which Tokyo fish market, long the world's largest, closed in 2018 when trading moved to Toyosu?

Tsukiji's inner wholesale market, long the world's largest fish market, closed in October 2018 and its famous tuna auctions moved to the new Toyosu Market.

Which Indian city was officially called Bombay until 1995?

Bombay was officially renamed Mumbai in 1995, after the goddess Mumbadevi; it is India's most populous city proper, with about 12.5 million people at the 2011 census.

Kolkata was officially called Calcutta until which year?

Calcutta officially became Kolkata in January 2001, matching the Bengali pronunciation; the city lies on the Hooghly River about 80 km from the Bangladesh border.

Ho Chi Minh City is also widely known by which former name?

Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976 after the fall of South Vietnam, but the old name survives in everyday use, and the city remains Vietnam's most populous.

Kinshasa was called what from 1881 to 1966?

Henry Morton Stanley founded the post as Léopoldville in 1881 for King Leopold II of Belgium; it was renamed Kinshasa in 1966 under Mobutu's Africanisation policy.

Which name did Astana carry from 2019 to 2022?

Astana was renamed Nur-Sultan in March 2019 to honour departing president Nursultan Nazarbayev, and reverted to Astana in September 2022.

Kazakhstan's capital until 1997 was which city?

Almaty, in the far southeast near the Chinese border, was Kazakhstan's capital until December 1997, when the government moved north to Akmola, renamed Astana in 1998.

Which planned city replaced Yangon as Myanmar's capital in 2005?

Naypyidaw, meaning 'abode of kings', became Myanmar's capital in November 2005; the government announced the new city's name only on Armed Forces Day in March 2006.

Brasília was inaugurated as Brazil's capital in which year?

Brasília was inaugurated on 21 April 1960 under President Juscelino Kubitschek, replacing Rio de Janeiro; Lúcio Costa drew the plan and Oscar Niemeyer designed its main buildings.

Australia's capital was created as a compromise between which two rival cities?

Sydney and Melbourne each wanted to be capital, so the 1901 constitution required a new seat in New South Wales at least 100 miles from Sydney; the Canberra site was chosen in 1908.

Which capital was designed by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin?

Canberra was laid out to the Griffins' 1912 competition-winning plan, with its artificial lake and radiating avenues; the city was formally named on 12 March 1913.

Chandigarh serves as the shared capital of which two Indian states?

Chandigarh, planned by Le Corbusier in the 1950s, is a Union Territory that has served as capital of both Punjab and Haryana since Haryana was carved out of Punjab in 1966.

Karachi was Pakistan's capital until which year?

Karachi was Pakistan's first capital from independence in 1947 until 1959, when Ayub Khan moved the government to Rawalpindi while Islamabad was built; it is Sindh's provincial capital.

The Brazilian city that hosted the Portuguese court from 1808 was founded in which year?

Rio de Janeiro was founded on 1 March 1565 by Estácio de Sá as São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro; it became capital of colonial Brazil in 1763 and seat of the Portuguese court in 1808.

Which city was the first capital of colonial Brazil, from 1549 to 1763?

Salvador, founded in 1549 by governor-general Tomé de Sousa in Bahia, was the first capital of Portuguese Brazil until the seat moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1763.

Which is the most populous city in South America?

São Paulo's city proper holds about 11.5 million people (2022 census) and its metropolitan area over 20 million, the largest in South America.

Which is the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world by city-proper population?

Lima's city proper, the 43-district Lima Province, holds about 10 million people, edging Mexico City's roughly 9.2 million; Mexico City's wider metropolitan area is far larger.

Argentina's capital has a name meaning what?

Buenos Aires means 'fair winds' (literally good airs), from Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre, the Virgin invoked by Mediterranean sailors, at the city's 1536 founding.

Havana was founded in which year?

Havana was established on its present harbour site in 1519 as San Cristóbal de la Habana; its sheltered port later let it replace Santiago de Cuba as the island's capital.

Simón Bolívar renamed Santafé as Bogotá to honour whom?

Bogotá comes from Bacatá, the Muisca name for the site; after independence in 1819 Bolívar dropped the Spanish 'Santafé' to honour the Muisca people the conquistadors had displaced.

Sydney was founded in 1788 as what?

Sydney began as a penal colony: Arthur Phillip's First Fleet of convicts landed in 1788, and he named the cove after Britain's Home Secretary, Viscount Sydney.

Cape Town was founded in 1652 by which trading enterprise as a way-station for its ships?

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) sent Jan van Riebeeck to found a resupply station at Table Bay in 1652; he built the Fort de Goede Hoop, the seed of Cape Town.

Who established Singapore as a British trading post in 1819?

Sir Stamford Raffles of the East India Company signed a treaty with the Sultan of Johor in February 1819 to establish the Singapore trading post; the name means lion city in Sanskrit.

Singapore became an independent country in 1965 after being expelled from what?

Singapore joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 but was expelled on 9 August 1965 after racial and political tensions, becoming an independent republic.

How many official languages does Singapore have?

English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil.

Kuala Lumpur first developed around 1857 as a town serving what?

Malaysia's executive and judiciary moved to Putrajaya in 1999.

Bangkok's full ceremonial Thai name is famous for what?

Locally the city is simply Krung Thep.

Rama I founded Bangkok's Rattanakosin capital on the east bank of the Chao Phraya in which year?

Rama I founded the Chakri dynasty and moved the capital across the river to Rattanakosin Island in 1782; Thonburi on the west bank had been capital since 1767.

Which city straddles two continents, with about two-thirds of its people in Europe?

Istanbul spans the Bosphorus, with about two-thirds of its residents on the European side; it was capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin and Ottoman empires for nearly 16 centuries.

What was the city on the Bosphorus first called, at its founding by Greek colonists?

Greek colonists from Megara founded Byzantium around 657 BC, traditionally under a leader named Byzas; Constantine refounded it as Constantinople in AD 330.

The modern name of the former Constantinople is thought to come from a Greek phrase meaning what?

Istanbul is thought to derive from the Greek phrase eis tēn polin, 'to the city', because locals simply called Constantinople 'the City'.

Which is the most populous city lying entirely in Europe?

Moscow counts about 13 million people within its city limits, more than any other city lying wholly in Europe; Istanbul is larger but straddles Europe and Asia.

Which city has the highest population within its limits of any in the European Union?

Berlin has about 3.7 million residents within its city limits, the most of any EU city; Madrid (3.3 million) is second and Rome third, while Paris proper holds only 2.1 million.

Paris is nicknamed the City of Light partly because of its role in what?

Paris was called La Ville Lumière for its leading role in the Age of Enlightenment, the 18th-century movement of Voltaire, Diderot and the Encyclopédie; early street lighting reinforced the name.

The City of London was founded by the Romans under what name?

Londinium became the City of London, the capital's ancient core and financial centre, which has kept its medieval boundaries to this day.

The world's first underground passenger railway opened in London in which year?

The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon, using steam locomotives, and carried some 9.5 million passengers in its first year.

Who designed the schematic London Tube map in 1931?

Harry Beck, an Underground draughtsman, sketched the diagrammatic map in 1931; published in 1933, its straight lines and even spacing set the template for transit maps worldwide.

The Tube got its nickname from what?

'The Tube' refers to the circular, cast-iron-lined deep-level tunnels bored from 1890 onward; the earliest lines, by contrast, were cut-and-cover trenches just below the street.

Which of these metros began accepting contactless bank cards at its gates in 2014?

London Underground switched on contactless bank-card payment at its gates in September 2014, two years after London's buses, and the system spread across most of TfL's network.

Roughly what share of the New York City Subway runs above ground?

About 40% of the New York City Subway runs above ground on elevated structures, embankments or open cuts, mostly in the outer boroughs.

Boston's subway system is known locally as what?

Boston's MBTA system is known as the T, after the logo adopted in the 1960s and modelled on Stockholm's tunnelbana T; Chicago's elevated system is the L.

Which was the first city in Latin America to open an underground railway, in 1913?

Buenos Aires opened Line A of its Subte on 1 December 1913, the first underground railway in Latin America and the Southern Hemisphere; Mexico City's Metro followed only in 1969.

Bogotá's bus rapid transit system, opened in December 2000, is called what?

TransMilenio, Bogotá's bus rapid transit network of dedicated lanes and raised-platform stations, opened in December 2000 under mayor Enrique Peñalosa and became a model copied worldwide.

In 2019, what share of Copenhageners cycled to work or education?

Copenhagen's 2019 bicycle account found that 62% of residents cycled to work or education, helped by more than 380 km of separated cycle tracks.

Which Dutch city opened a 12,500-space bicycle garage, then the world's largest, in 2019?

Utrecht's Stationsplein garage beside Utrecht Centraal station opened fully in 2019 with 12,500 bicycle spaces, the largest such facility in the world at the time.

Amsterdam is the constitutional capital of the Netherlands, but the government sits in which city?

The Hague hosts the Dutch parliament, ministries, Supreme Court and the royal working palace, while the constitution names Amsterdam as the capital.

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, considered the oldest 'modern' one, was founded in which year?

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange dates from 1602, when the newly chartered Dutch East India Company began trading its shares there, the first publicly traded stock.

Venice is built on how many islands?

They are linked by 472 bridges.

Who brought the thousand-year Republic of Venice to an end in 1797?

Napoleon's army forced the last doge, Ludovico Manin, to abdicate on 12 May 1797, ending the Republic of Venice, which traced its origins to 697; Campo Formio then handed Venice to Austria.

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 left more than how many people homeless?

The fire of 8–10 October 1871 burned about 3.3 square miles, killed roughly 300 people and left more than 100,000 of Chicago's 300,000 residents homeless.

Los Angeles was founded in 1781 by how many settlers?

44 settlers, Los Pobladores, in 11 families founded El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles on 4 September 1781 under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve.

How many boroughs make up New York City?

New York City's five boroughs are Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, each also a county of New York State; they were consolidated in 1898.

Who first popularised 'the Big Apple' as a nickname for New York in the 1920s?

Sportswriter John J. Fitz Gerald used 'the Big Apple' in his New York Morning Telegraph horse-racing columns from 1921, borrowing it from stable hands; tourism officials revived it in the 1970s.

Which settlement was razed to make way for Central Park?

Seneca Village, a mostly African-American community of about 225 people founded in 1825 near today's West 82nd–89th Streets, was seized through eminent domain in 1857 for Central Park.

When it opened in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the world's longest what?

With a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486 m), the Brooklyn Bridge was the world's longest suspension span when it opened on 24 May 1883, and the first to use steel wire cables.

The Empire State Building was the tallest building anywhere until which structure topped out in 1970?

It regained the New York title after the 2001 attacks.

Which building held the world's-tallest title from 1998 to 2004?

The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, 452 metres to their spires, held the world's-tallest title from 1998 to 2004 and were built as the world's tallest twin towers.

The Burj Khalifa surpassed which building as the world's tallest when it topped out in 2009?

Taipei 101, at 508 metres, had been the world's tallest since 2004; the Burj Khalifa passed it during construction in 2007 and topped out at 828 metres in January 2009.

What was the Burj Khalifa called before its 2010 inauguration?

Known as Burj Dubai throughout construction, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa at its January 2010 opening to honour UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed after Abu Dhabi bailed out Dubai's debts.

The Eiffel Tower was built as the centrepiece of which event?

The 1889 World's Fair got the Eiffel Tower as its centrepiece, and the tower also crowned the centenary of the French Revolution.

The Trans-Siberian Railway, the world's longest line, runs more than 9,289 kilometres east from Moscow to which city?

Vladivostok, on the Pacific, is the eastern end of the Trans-Siberian, which runs more than 9,289 kilometres from Moscow.

The US Northeast megalopolis from Boston to Washington is nicknamed what?

Futurist Herman Kahn coined 'BosWash' in 1967 for the Boston-to-Washington megalopolis, a 700 km corridor that holds more than 50 million people.

The Dutch conurbation containing Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht is called what?

The Randstad ('rim city'), the horseshoe of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht around the rural Green Heart, holds over 8 million people, nearly half the Dutch population.

Which fruit gives its name to the urban corridor from Liverpool to Milan?

The 'Blue Banana' is the curved corridor from Liverpool through the Low Countries and the Rhine to Milan; French geographer Roger Brunet's team mapped it in 1989 as Europe's backbone.

Which sociologist popularised the term 'global city' in a 1991 book?

Saskia Sassen's 1991 book The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo argued that those three cities command the world economy's finance and producer services.

Who first proposed the garden city idea, in 1898?

Ebenezer Howard set out the garden city idea in his 1898 book To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform; Letchworth (1903) and Welwyn Garden City (1920) were built on his model.

Which Scottish planner coined the word 'conurbation' in his 1915 book Cities in Evolution?

Patrick Geddes coined 'conurbation' in Cities in Evolution (1915) to describe merging city regions such as Greater London and the Lancashire mill towns.

The abandoned city of Pripyat was evacuated the day after which disaster?

Pripyat's roughly 49,000 residents were bused out on 27 April 1986, about 36 hours after reactor 4 at the Chernobyl plant, 3 km away, exploded; plant workers were later rehoused in new-built Slavutych.

Timbuktu, the ancient scholarly city, is in which modern country?

Timbuktu lies in Mali, about 20 km north of the Niger River on the Sahara's edge; its 15th–16th-century mosques and manuscripts made it a centre of Islamic scholarship.

Xi'an was known through most of its history by which name?

Chang'an ('perpetual peace') was the city's name under the Han and Tang dynasties, when it ranked among the world's largest cities; the name Xi'an dates from the Ming era in 1369.

Which three places are most commonly discussed as modern examples of a sovereign urban state?

Monaco, Singapore and Vatican City are the sovereign city-states usually cited today; Singapore, with nearly 6 million people, is by far the largest of the three.

Which city is nicknamed 'the city of a thousand minarets'?

Cairo's wealth of Islamic architecture earned it the title 'city of a thousand minarets'; its metro, opened in 1987, is the oldest in Africa.

Which South Korean planned city, opened in 2012, hosts most of the national ministries?

Sejong Special Self-Governing City, opened in 2012 about 120 km south of Seoul, houses most national ministries; Seoul kept the legal capital after a 2004 Constitutional Court ruling blocked full relocation.

During the Korean War, how many times did Seoul change hands?

Seoul changed hands four times during the Korean War, which left the city mostly in ruins; under Japanese rule it had been called Keijō.

Which city's port is the world's busiest container port?

Shanghai has been the world's busiest container port since overtaking Singapore in 2010, handling more than 50 million TEU in 2024 through its Yangshan deep-water terminal.

Toronto was founded by the British in 1793 under what name?

York was the British name from 1793 until incorporation as Toronto in 1834; American troops held it for two weeks after the Battle of York in the War of 1812.

Which Russian city is the world's northernmost with more than a million residents?

Saint Petersburg, at about 60° N, is the northernmost city of more than a million people anywhere; Peter the Great founded it in 1703 on land taken from Sweden in the Great Northern War.

Which Roman name did the settlement that became Vienna carry?

Vindobona, the Roman castrum, gained city rights in 212; the Babenbergs made Vienna their seat in 1155.

Which Peruvian city, about 3,400 metres up, does the country's 1993 constitution designate its 'Historical Capital'?

Cusco, the former Inca capital at about 3,400 metres, is named 'Historical Capital of Peru' in Article 49 of the 1993 constitution; the Spanish rebuilt it over Inca walls after 1533.