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Welcome. Today we will examine how the world's capital cities came to be located where they are, and what their placement reveals about a country's politics, history, and physical geography.
Political maps and geographic information systems let us describe a city's absolute location by latitude and longitude and its relative location in relation to coasts, rivers, borders, and trade routes. Geographers use both to explain why a capital sits where it does.
Every sovereign state designates a capital as the seat of its government. Some, such as Washington, D.C., and Brasilia, were purpose-built or relocated to balance regional power, while others, such as London and Tokyo, grew out of long-established centers of trade and rule.
Geographers also distinguish forward capitals, deliberately sited near a frontier or a region a government wants to develop, from primate capitals that dominate their nation's population and economy. Abuja and Astana are forward capitals; Paris and Buenos Aires are primate cities.
Explain why Nigeria moved its capital from Lagos to Abuja in 1991, using the ideas of primate city, forward capital, and regional balance.
- Step 1: Identify the original capital. Lagos, on the southwestern coast, was Nigeria's largest city and chief port, a textbook primate city.
- Step 2: Name the problem. Lagos was congested and closely identified with one region of a country divided among several major ethnic and religious groups.
- Step 3: Locate the replacement. Abuja lies near the geographic center of Nigeria, between the largely Muslim north and the largely Christian south.
- Step 4: Draw the conclusion. Siting the capital on neutral central ground was intended to balance regional power and relieve pressure on Lagos.
