Distances Between Capital Cities (nearest and Farthest)
- Nearest capital cities
- The closest capital cities of two sovereign countries are Vatican City, Vatican, and Rome, Italy, one of which is inside the other (the distance between the middle points, St. Peter's Square/Piazza Venezia is about 2 km).
- The two second closest capital cities between two sovereign countries are Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, which are about 1.6 km (0.99 mi) apart, one upstream from the other on different banks of the Congo River (the distance between the middle points is about 10 km).
- Vienna and Bratislava, sometimes erroneously considered the two closest capitals, are 55 km (34 mi) apart.
- Farthest away from each other
- The capitals farthest away from each other are Wellington, New Zealand, and Madrid, Spain, which are 19,880 km (12,353 mi) apart. This is very nearly the maximum possible, since they are only 160 km (99 mi) away from being antipodes, or directly opposite each other on a globe.
- Farthest away among two sovereign countries that share a border
- The greatest distance between the capitals of two sovereign countries that share a border is 6,423 km (3,991 mi), between Pyongyang, North Korea and Moscow, Russia.
- Farthest away from the closest other capital city (remoteness)
- The longest distance from one capital of a sovereign country to the one closest to it is 2,330 km (1,448 mi) between Wellington, New Zealand, and Canberra, Australia. The relation is reciprocal - each one is nearer to the other than to the capital of any other sovereign country.
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