Think you know your African geography? The African Capitals Quiz gives you a country and asks for one thing: its capital city. From the easy anchors — Cairo, Nairobi, Rabat, Pretoria — to the ones that catch everyone out, it covers all 54 African countries and their capitals on a fast, clean map that actually works on your phone.

Play it whichever way suits you. Get a country name and name its capital, flip it around and name the country from its capital, or locate the country on an interactive map of Africa. Each question highlights the country in question, so you build the map and the capitals together. Choose Easy for multiple choice, Medium for a first-letter hint, or Hard to type the answer from memory.

New every day: a Daily Challenge of ten African capitals that is identical for everyone, with a shareable results grid so you can compare scores with friends. Or race the clock in a 90-second Speed Run and see how many capitals you can rattle off.

How to play

Daily Challenge — ten African capitals to name, the same for every player today. Finish to reveal your green-and-red result grid and share it.
Name the Capital — you are given a country and name its capital, by multiple choice (Easy), first-letter hint (Medium) or typing (Hard).
Name the Country — the reverse: a capital city is shown and you name the country it belongs to.
Locate — you are given a capital and click the country it belongs to on the map of Africa.
Speed Run — name as many capitals as you can in 90 seconds, building a streak multiplier.

Every mode tracks your streak, score and accuracy, and a local leaderboard keeps your best runs. There is also a Learn mode — tap any country to see its capital, region, area, language and currency before you test yourself.

How many capital cities are in Africa?

Africa has 54 sovereign countries that are UN members with their own capital, and this quiz covers every one — from Tunis in the north down to Pretoria in the south, and from Praia out in the Atlantic to Victoria in the Indian Ocean. The set runs across all five African regions — Northern, Western, Middle (Central), Eastern and Southern Africa. The two smallest island nations — Seychelles (Victoria) and São Tomé and Príncipe (São Tomé) — are drawn as clickable dots so you can still find them, and Western Sahara, which is not a UN member state, is left out.

Tips for learning the capitals of Africa

Learn them region by region — start with North Africa along the Mediterranean, then work down West Africa and the Sahel, across Central and East Africa, and finish with Southern Africa and the Indian-Ocean islands.
Watch the country–capital name traps: the capital is often not the country’s biggest or best-known city — Nigeria is Abuja (not Lagos), Morocco is Rabat (not Casablanca), Tanzania is Dodoma (not Dar es Salaam), Côte d’Ivoire is Yamoussoukro (not Abidjan) and Benin is Porto-Novo (not Cotonou).
Don’t mix up the two Congos: the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Kinshasa, while the Republic of the Congo, just across the river, is Brazzaville — the closest pair of capital cities in the world.
Drill the hard clusters on their own: the West African capitals (Ouagadougou, Bamako, Niamey, Conakry, Freetown, Monrovia, Lomé) and the island capitals (Victoria, Port Louis, Moroni, Praia, Antananarivo) are where most points are lost.
Use the daily challenge to learn ten fresh capitals a day — spaced repetition beats cramming, and the streak keeps you coming back.

How the daily challenge works

The daily set is generated from the calendar date with a seeded shuffle, so every player in the world gets the same ten capitals on the same day — no account, no server tracking you. When you finish, your result is encoded as a grid of green (correct) and red (wrong) squares, ready to copy or share. Come back tomorrow for a fresh set and keep your streak alive.

Data & method

Capitals and country facts come from the open mledoze/countries dataset (ODbL), and the map of Africa is drawn from Natural Earth (public domain) via the world-atlas 1:50m dataset. Countries are joined on their ISO-3166 numeric code, filtered to the African set with a capital, and the whole dataset is bundled into the app — so it loads instantly and works offline, with no tracking.

Frequently asked questions

How many African capitals are in the quiz?

All 54 — every UN-member country in Africa with its own capital, from Algeria and Egypt in the north to South Africa and Lesotho in the south. That includes the island nations Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, the Comoros, Seychelles and Mauritius; only Western Sahara, which is not a UN member state, is left out.

Which African capitals are hardest to remember?

The usual trip-ups are capitals that are not their country’s biggest city — Abuja (Nigeria), Dodoma (Tanzania), Yamoussoukro (Côte d’Ivoire), Porto-Novo (Benin) and Rabat (Morocco) — along with the two Congos (Kinshasa and Brazzaville) and the West African and Sahel capitals such as Ouagadougou, Bamako, Niamey and N’Djamena. The Indian-Ocean island capitals (Victoria, Port Louis, Moroni, Antananarivo) round out the toughest set, which is why Learn mode lets you drill them before you play.

Is the African Capitals Quiz free?

Yes, completely free. There is no sign-up, no app to install and no paywall — just open the page and play, on any device.

Does it work on mobile?

Yes. The quiz is mobile-first and runs in any modern browser on phone, tablet or desktop — no app, no sign-up. Tap an answer, or in Locate mode pinch to zoom and drag to pan the map before tapping a country.

Where does the data come from?

Capitals and country facts come from the open mledoze/countries dataset (ODbL), and the map of Africa from Natural Earth (public domain) via the world-atlas dataset. All data is bundled into the app, so it loads instantly and works offline.

More geography quizzes

World Capitals Quiz — match all 194 countries to their capitals.
Africa Map Quiz — locate every African country on the map.
Asian Capitals Quiz — name the capital of every Asian country.
European Capitals Quiz — name the capital of every European country.
Population Explorer — explore the population of every country on an interactive map.
All Mappr geography quizzes.