The northernmost and southernmost capitals

The capital furthest north is Reykjavík, at 64.15° N. The one furthest south is Wellington, at 41.30° S. 155 of the 195 capitals lie in the northern hemisphere and 40 in the southern.¹

Updated November 4, 2026 · 1 source

Furthest north

The 10 capitals closest to the North Pole, by the latitude of the city.¹

#	Capital	Country	Latitude
1	Reykjavík	Iceland	64.15° N
2	Helsinki	Finland	60.18° N
3	Oslo	Norway	59.92° N
4	Tallinn	Estonia	59.43° N
5	Stockholm	Sweden	59.35° N
6	Riga	Latvia	56.95° N
7	Moscow	Russia	55.75° N
8	Copenhagen	Denmark	55.68° N
9	Vilnius	Lithuania	54.68° N
10	Minsk	Belarus	53.90° N

Outside Europe, the northernmost capital is Astana in Kazakhstan, at 51.18° N.¹

Furthest south

The 10 capitals closest to the South Pole.¹

#	Capital	Country	Latitude
1	Wellington	New Zealand	41.30° S
2	Canberra	Australia	35.28° S
3	Montevideo	Uruguay	34.86° S
4	Buenos Aires	Argentina	34.60° S
5	Santiago	Chile	33.45° S
6	Maseru	Lesotho	29.32° S
7	Mbabane	Eswatini	26.32° S
8	Maputo	Mozambique	25.95° S
9	Pretoria	South Africa	25.70° S
10	Asunción	Paraguay	25.29° S

In Africa, the capital furthest south is Maseru in Lesotho, at 29.32° S.¹

On the equator

4 capitals lie less than half a degree of latitude, about 55 km, from the equator: Quito (0.21° S), Kampala (0.32° N), São Tomé (0.33° N), and Libreville (0.39° N). The closest, Quito, is only about 24 km from it.¹

A capital is a single point here: the position Natural Earth gives the city. Every capital’s position is also on the list of capitals.

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