Which Countries Have the Same Name as the Capital?

There are at least 11 countries in the world with the names that are practically the same as the names of their capitals. There are also around 6 countries with names that are very similar to their capitals.

Here below is the picture of one of them, almost the whole country is in the picture. This is San Marino, one of the two landlocked countries that are within Italy, and both are in the list here.

Country → Capital : the same name

From what I was able to find, the  list below should contain all the countries with the names that are the same or almost the same as the names of capitals. Only the word ‘city’ is sometimes added to some of the cities, and this is probably just to avoid confusion.

But note that sometimes the country also can have some addition, like ‘Republic of Djibouti’ instead of just Djibouti. In any case, the core is the same.

1. Luxembourg → Luxembourg.
2. Monaco → Monaco (shown in the top picture above).
3. San Marino → San Marino.
4. Singapore → Singapore.
5. Vatican → Vatican.
6. Andorra → Andorra la Vella.
7. Djibouti → Djibouti city.
8. Guatemala → Guatemala city.
9. Kuwait → Kuwait city.
10. Mexico → Mexico city.
11. Panama → Panama city.

Why are countries called by their capitals?

The reason for some of them to have the same name is simply because these countries are practically the size of their capitals. Typical examples are Vatican and Monaco.

But some of these countries are huge, like Mexico. You can realize this when you see them in the map.

Other than that, it is difficult to understand why this doubling of the name. It may be simply because a capital is a “head” of a country, its representative and its center of power. Hence the same name.

In the interactive map below I have marked them all for you, so please zoom in to see the details:

Which country in Africa has the same name as its capital city?

So this is the country/city number 7 in the list above, Djibouti, as the only one from Africa. Perhaps not many people know about this country, it is on the Horn of Africa and the land has been inhabited for thousands of years.

This is an area with very stable and very high temperatures that are in the range from 32 to 41 °C (90 to 106 °F), only higher  elevations may have some differences. So this is a harsh climate, and forest covers less than one percent of the total area.

Countries and capitals with very similar names

Below you also have countries and capitals that have very similar names, so I have put them separately from the group above:

1. Algeria → Algiers.
2. Brazil → Brasilia.
3. El Salvador → San Salvador.
4. Guinea-Bissau →Bissau.
5. São Tomé and Principe → São Tomé.
6. Tunisia → Tunis.

So these are peculiar countries with the names that are the same as the names of their capitals. But did you know that there is a country with three capitals?

Note also that there are federal states in the US that share the name with their capitals.

Thank you for reading. Let me know if you have questions or comments, there is a comment box below. Bookmark this site and keep as a reference, it is all about capitals, and in time you will have all the capitals mentioned here.