Curated category
Former national capitals
- Cebu CityCebu City sits at the center of the eastern seaboard of Cebu Island, and in 2024 its population stood at 965,332 people.
- ColchesterColchester sits on a gravel hill in north-eastern Essex, fifty miles from London, and beneath its streets lies a story that stretches back further than…
- Nizhny NovgorodNizhny Novgorod sits at the precise point where two of Russia's greatest rivers, the Volga and the Oka, merge into one. On the 4th of February 1221, Prince…
- TurinTurin sits at the foot of the Alps, on the western bank of the River Po, and it has been the stage for more of Italian history than almost any other city.
- YangonYangon carries a name that translates, from the Burmese, as "End of Strife." There is something quietly ironic in that etymology, because this city of over…
- BonnBonn sits on the banks of the Rhine, a city that once held one of the most consequential addresses in the world. From 1949 to 1990, it served as the capital…
- MdinaMdina, the ancient walled city perched on a plateau in Malta's Western Region, holds an unlikely record: a population of just 250 people.
- LagosLagos sits at the southwest mouth of Lagos Lagoon, protected from the Atlantic Ocean by barrier islands and long sand spits that stretch up to 100 km east…
- WuhanWuhan sits at the exact point where the Han River pours itself into the Yangtze, a meeting of waters that has shaped one of the most consequential cities in…
- AarauAarau sits on a rocky outcrop above the Aare river, a town that has been claimed, renamed, and reborn more times than almost any other place in Switzerland.
- MelbourneMelbourne spent 262 days under lockdown, the longest total of any city in the world over the course of its six lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- ValenciaValencia stands on the banks of the Turia River, where Roman soldiers planted a colony in 138 BC and gave it a name meaning "strength" or "valour." More than…
- SamarkandSamarkand sits in southeastern Uzbekistan, and for more than two thousand years it has been one of the most coveted cities on earth.
- Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg sits at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, and on the 27th of May 1703, Tsar Peter the Great laid its founding stone on an…
- CamulodunumCamulodunum was Rome's first capital in Britain, a city that burned to the ground in a single night and then came back larger than before.
- NicomediaNicomedia sits beneath the streets of modern İzmit, Turkey, its marble foundations buried under one of the most densely populated cities in the country.
- RoskildeHarald Bluetooth founded Roskilde in the 980s on high ground above the harbor. He built a wooden church consecrated to the Holy Trinity and a royal residence…