Capitals of Asia

Last reviewed on 2026-04-28.

Every one of the 49 countries of Asia has a designated capital, but the role those capitals play varies a great deal. Some are the seat of government, the largest city, the financial centre, and the cultural heart all at once — Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul. Others are deliberately small administrative cities placed away from the main commercial hub: Naypyidaw in Myanmar, Astana in Kazakhstan, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte just outside Colombo. A few are split: Israel governs from Jerusalem while most foreign embassies stay in Tel Aviv. This page lists each capital by region, with a short note on what makes it distinct, and links through to the full country profile.

How a city becomes a capital

Capitals usually accumulate the role through history rather than design. Many Asian capitals are the same imperial cities they have been for centuries — Beijing has been a capital under several dynasties; Kyoto held the role in Japan for more than a thousand years before Tokyo took over; Damascus and Baghdad have been seats of power since antiquity. Others are colonial inheritances: Manila, Hanoi, and Jakarta were chosen by colonial administrators for their port access and were retained at independence.

A smaller group of capitals were planned and moved deliberately. Naypyidaw was built and announced as Myanmar’s capital in 2005 to relocate the seat of government from Yangon. Kazakhstan moved its capital from Almaty to what is now Astana in 1997 to anchor the centre of the country and reduce the dominance of the south-east. Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, only acquired the role in 1961 when the kingdom modernised its administration. These planned capitals are usually smaller than the country’s commercial centre, which is part of the point: separating government from the largest city is supposed to dilute the political weight of business interests.

South Asia

• Kabul — capital of Afghanistan, set in a high valley in the Hindu Kush.
• Dhaka — capital of Bangladesh, the country’s political, commercial, and cultural centre on the Buriganga River.
• Thimphu — capital of Bhutan, the only national capital in the world without a single traffic light.
• New Delhi — capital of India, the planned administrative core sitting alongside the much older Old Delhi.
• Tehran — capital of Iran, the largest city of the Iranian plateau.
• Malé — capital of the Maldives, packed onto a single island and one of the densest cities in the world.
• Kathmandu — capital of Nepal, a Himalayan valley city of temples and pagodas.
• Islamabad — capital of Pakistan, a planned city built in the 1960s next to the older Rawalpindi.
• Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte — legislative capital of Sri Lanka, a suburb of Colombo, which remains the executive and commercial centre.

Southeast Asia

• Bandar Seri Begawan — capital of Brunei, a small but wealthy capital on the Brunei River.
• Phnom Penh — capital of Cambodia, at the confluence of the Mekong, Tonle Sap, and Bassac rivers.
• Jakarta — capital of Indonesia, with construction of the new capital, Nusantara on Borneo, ongoing as a relocation project.
• Vientiane — capital of Laos, a riverside capital on the Mekong.
• Kuala Lumpur — capital of Malaysia; many federal ministries have moved to nearby Putrajaya, the planned administrative city.
• Naypyidaw — capital of Myanmar since 2005; far smaller than Yangon, the former capital.
• Manila — capital of the Philippines, anchor of the much larger Metro Manila urban region.
• Singapore — the city itself is the country in Singapore.
• Bangkok — capital of Thailand, dominant in population, economy, and politics.
• Dili — capital of Timor-Leste, a small port city on the north coast.
• Hanoi — capital of Vietnam, while Ho Chi Minh City is the larger commercial centre in the south.

East Asia

• Beijing — capital of China, the political and cultural heart of the country.
• Tokyo — capital of Japan, the world’s most populous metropolitan area.
• Ulaanbaatar — capital of Mongolia; about half of the country’s population lives there.
• Pyongyang — capital of North Korea, located in the west of the country.
• Seoul — capital of South Korea, the centre of one of the densest urban regions in the world.
• Taipei — capital of Taiwan, in the north of the island.

Central Asia

• Astana — capital of Kazakhstan, the planned northern capital that replaced Almaty in 1997.
• Bishkek — capital of Kyrgyzstan, in the foothills of the Tian Shan.
• Dushanbe — capital of Tajikistan, in the Hisor Valley.
• Ashgabat — capital of Turkmenistan, near the Iranian border.
• Tashkent — capital of Uzbekistan and the largest city in Central Asia.

West Asia

• Yerevan — capital of Armenia, one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities.
• Baku — capital of Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea.
• Manama — capital of Bahrain, on the main island of an archipelago state.
• Nicosia — capital of Cyprus, divided between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus.
• Tbilisi — capital of Georgia, on the Mtkvari River.
• Baghdad — capital of Iraq, on the Tigris.
• Jerusalem — capital declared by Israel, with most foreign embassies historically based in Tel Aviv.
• Amman — capital of Jordan, set across a series of hills.
• Kuwait City — capital of Kuwait, on Kuwait Bay.
• Beirut — capital of Lebanon, a Mediterranean port and cultural hub.
• Muscat — capital of Oman, on the Gulf of Oman coast.
• Ramallah — the de facto administrative centre of Palestine; East Jerusalem is the proclaimed capital.
• Doha — capital of Qatar, the country’s only major city.
• Riyadh — capital of Saudi Arabia, in the centre of the Arabian Peninsula.
• Damascus — capital of Syria, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
• Ankara — capital of Turkey, with Istanbul still the larger and more economically important city.
• Abu Dhabi — capital of the United Arab Emirates, the federal capital while Dubai is the larger commercial centre.
• Sana’a — capital of Yemen, set in the western highlands.

Quick patterns to notice

• Capital is not always the biggest city. Naypyidaw, Astana, Putrajaya (administrative), Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, and Islamabad were all chosen for administrative reasons rather than population. Yangon, Almaty, Karachi, Mumbai, Istanbul, Ho Chi Minh City, and Tel Aviv all outweigh their respective capitals economically.
• Coastal vs interior. Most South-east Asian capitals (Jakarta, Manila, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Hanoi) are on or near rivers leading to the sea. Most Central Asian capitals are interior cities along old Silk Road corridors.
• Capitals on borders. Vientiane sits right against the Lao-Thai border; Nicosia is divided in two; Jerusalem’s status is contested. Border-adjacent capitals tend to have unusually visible national symbolism on the doorstep.

Test yourself

If you want to drill the capital-to-country pairings, the Asia map quiz asks you to click the correct country on the map for each prompt. You can also browse capitals by region: South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia. To compare every capital’s location at a glance, the main Asia map labels each one when you hover the country.