What are the two closest capital cities in the world?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 25 Jul, 2023
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Here’s one more candidate depending on how loose your definition of “capital” is:
Nicosia is the capital of both the Republic of Cyprus, the mostly-Greek bit everybody recognizes, and the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which has de facto control of the northern half of the island but is recognized only by Turkey. However, unlike Vatican/Rome which are co-located, the two sides of Nicosia are separated by a buffer zone — and hence the distance between the southern capital of Nicosia and its northern half of Lefkoşa is the minimum width of that zone, or 3.3 meters.
As was already said by others, Bratislava and Vienna are the closest capitals in Europe if you don’t define Vatican city as a capital.
The really interesting thing about those two is that they have had close bonds up until the end of WW I, since Bratislava was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Then, for about 70 years, the two cities where separated by the iron curtain. Since the integration of Slovakia into the EU, the two cities are sometimes referred to as twin cities.
Another special thing about Bratislava: Bratislava is the only capital in the world to border two other countries.
I upvoted @Doc’s answer, and then found this link:
What are Europe’s two closest capital cities?
Essentially it’s going to come down to your definition of a city (and you thought defining a country was hard!).
Their definition is that the two closest capitals in Europe are Rome and the Vatican – and at a distance of 0km, make them the closest in the world.
However, they explain by pointing out that the Vatican City is itself a sovereign state as well as a city, and therefore not a true capital of a country, making Bratislava and Vienna the closest in Europe (for the purpose of their question, however it would make Brazzaville and Kinshasha the closest in the world for the purpose of YOUR question)
However if you’re asking the two closest capital cities then as the state ‘Vatican City’ comprises of more territory than just the city ‘Vatican City’, then yes, you could argue that Vatican City and Rome are the closest in Europe and the world.
Bottom line
So really, it comes down to your definition, and if you count Vatican City as a capital city, then yes, that’s the closest (to Rome), if not, then it’s Brazzaville and Kinshasha.
From Wikipedia :
Nearest capital cities
The closest capital cities of two sovereign countries are Vatican
City, Vatican, and Rome, Italy, one of which is inside the other (the
distance between the middle points, St. Peter’s Square/Piazza Venezia
is about 2 km).The two second closest capital cities between two sovereign countries
are Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Brazzaville,
Republic of the Congo, which are about 1.6 km (0.99 mi) apart, one
upstream from the other on different banks of the Congo River (the
distance between the middle points is about 10 km).Vienna and Bratislava, sometimes erroneously considered the two
closest capitals, are 55 km (34 mi) apart.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘