City Quiz.io

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Notice the new URL, https://cityquiz.io. It has been activated over the weekend and will replace the original one by the end of November. So the OP might want to edit his post.

[CoreySamson]

Gotcha.

[US 89]

^They're often not, obvious by looking at the map. And they're usually really small.

In cases where a really small city was chosen, it's often because it's more centrally located. See Missouri and South Dakota as some of the most obvious examples, in addition to all of the states 1 just listed where the capital isn't the largest city. With a couple of exceptions (Nevada, Florida) the capitals are usually fairly close to the state's center of population even if they're not near the geographical center.

And those exceptions are pretty close to the historical population centers of those places.

Back in the day, basically no one lived in the Florida peninsula, and the only cities of note in Florida were St. Augustine and Pensacola. Traveling between those two places was a long and difficult journey back in the day, so they put the capital in Tallahassee at almost exactly the halfway point. As far as Nevada goes, Vegas was just a blip on the map before air conditioning came around and Lake Mead made larger amounts of water more obtainable. Almost everybody lived up on the eastern slope of the Sierras, where there was silver and critically, a steady supply of water.

This is also why Nevada's counties are way smaller in that area than other parts of the state, by the way - that area grew longer ago, in an era where counties were split more readily. You'll see this pattern in some other western states too but I think it's most obvious in NV.

[JoePCool14]

Gotcha.

You might want to update the link in the body of the original post as well.

[kirbykart]

Here's a map with an interesting theme; see if you can figure it out. https://cityquiz.io/quizzes/usa/share/737139