Why These Capital Cities are DOMINATED by other Cities in Their OWN State | America's BETA Capitals

A state capital is the seat of government and that also sometimes means the seat of power for a state. But in some states the state capital is not the largest city and other cities are more dominant instead. On this video we explore those states where the capital is not the largest city.

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Sources and Further Reading:
Juneau State Capitol:

Las Vegas Strip:

Nevada State Capitol:

Reno, NV:

NJ State Capitol:

Albuquerque:

New Mexico State Capitol:

North Dakota State Capitol:

Virginia State House:

Wealthiest Counties in the US:

[Will]

Historically Nevada had most of its population in the north, due to the south being settled relatively recently. Which is why Carson City made sense at the time. Las Vegas wasn’t incorporated as a city until 1909 and didn’t surpass 100, 000 until 1970. Now 74% of Nevadans live in Clark County.

[mikemclean]

Philosophically, though, *should* a state capital actually be a state’s largest city? If a state’s capital is also its largest city, then that just centralizes the whole state’s population into one area, like Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Oklahoma City, among others. I think it might be healthier to have a more even distribution of population across a state, with multiple large cities of comparable size, and that is achieved by having the state capital *not* be the state’s largest city.

[sfdko]

What's crazy about Albany is that it's dominated by two OTHER cities besides NYC.
Syracuse and Buffalo.

[JoshuaFagan]

It's funny that a lot of state capitals (Sacramento, Austin, for examples) were chosen specifically because they were small, out of the way places apart from major cities, but over time, they became major cities themselves.

[PendragonDaGreat]

Olympia, WA, was chosen the state capital *explicitly* because it wasn't Seattle or Tacoma. At the time those two were both vying for the Capital, as well as things like railroad termini, ship cargo, etc. It was deemed that giving either the recognition of the state capital would be very bad for this rivalry. So Olympia was chosen. This rivalry is also why the Capitol Hill in Seattle is spelled that way, because that was the hill where they wanted the Capitol Building to be built.

[Unmannedperson]

27:05: Yikes! As they say, a bad driver never misses their exit, except in this case where a terrible driver not only missed their exit, looks like they made someone else take an unexpected exit...

[CreepyBlackDude]

I love that Austin is the 2nd-largest state capital by population in the country (behind only Phoenix), and the largest capital in this video, but is only the 4th largest city in its own state.

[rokr]

I honestly did not expect Fresno of all cities to be more populous than Sacramento.

[brianarbenz]

Fun fact: New Jersey’s capitol building is the only one of the 50 state capitols which is visible from another state.

[ClementinesmWTF]

Texas’ capital used to be Houston, but a small “war” happened during its Republic era where the second President Mirabeau Lamar (who wasn’t a fan of 1st and 3rd President Sam Houston) moved the archives to Austin. The attempt to move them back was thwarted and there’s a statue commemorating the even on Congress St in Austin now. The first capital was Washington-on-the-Brazos (to differentiate from Washington-on-the-Potomac) and a few other small-to-nonexistent towns today did have the capital before they settled on Houston.

[Maznhaden]

Historically Richmond was the largest urbanized area in Virginia until the 1940s. Going back further to 1870, Richmond was the second largest city in the entire South after New Orleans and had the most industry. Richmond built the first municipal electric trolley system in the world in 1888 when most of Northen Virginians were getting around on horse and buggy. Before WW2, Northern Virginia was almost entirely rural outside Alexandria and a few small towns like Leesburg and Fredericksburg, but has boomed post-WW2. However, since 2020 the pendulum has swung and Richmond is now the fastest growing metro in the state and Northern Virginia's growth has stalled out (especially in Fairfax County). Also, growing Richmond is anticipated to surpass declining Norfolk in population by 2025 and climb in its ranking. One thing of note is that the Independent City status in Virginia makes it very difficult to annex and city's like Richmond can only grow their population through infill and adding density. Interesting enough a city can annex and grow its population if it reverts to a town as was the case in Bedford in 2013.

[zackerykoroskenyi]

1 Alabama 0:47
2 Alaska 1:34
3 California 2:26
4 Connecticut 3:28
5 Delaware 4:21
6 Florida 5:10
7 Illinois 6:15
8 Kansas 7:31
9 Kentucky 8:27
10 Louisiana 9:26
11 Maine 10:11
12 Maryland 11:10
13 Michigan 12:32
14 Minnesota 13:21
15 Missouri 14:16
16 Montana 15:41
17Nebraska 16:17
18 Nevada 17:01
19 New Hampshire 18:03
20 New Jersey 18:51
21 New Mexico 20:02
22 New York 20:59
23 North Carolina 22:15
24 North Dakota 23:26
25 Oregon 24:18
26 Pennsylvania 24:41
27 South Dakota 25:36
28 Texas 26:27
29 Vermont 27:37
30 Virginia 28:14
31 Washington 29:53
32 Wisconsin 30:11
you're welcome okay

Not in the video okay
33 Arizona
34 Arkansas
35 Georgia
36 Hawaii
37 Idaho
38 Indiana
39 Iowa
40 Massachusetts
41 Mississippi
42 Nebraska
43 Ohio
44 Oklahoma
45 Rhode Island
46 South Carolina
47 Tennessee
48 Utah
49 West Virginia
50 Wyoming

[leeswecho]

14:50 As someone who used to live in St. Louis, I'm slightly surprised you didn't include the discussion of the metro areas here. While St. Louis proper has suffered a dramatic hollowing-out, this was mainly due to people leaving the inner city for the suburbs. The St. Louis metro area population has mostly stayed stable, and continues to be the center of gravity for the state as a whole.

[Pat_Playz]

Michigan's capitol was originally in Detroit but some years later it was decided to be moved more inland for defensibility, so Lansing was the choice selected out of many and it was fairly centralized around all the big cities at the time and still is. That's the basic run down

[adellemery]

Geographically, Austin makes a hell of a lot more sense as the state capital of Texas than does Dallas, which is way up north and east from over half of the state, and Houston, which might as well be in Louisiana since it's closer to that state than it is most of the rest of the state (it's 7 hours from where I live in South Texas). San Antonio might have made an even better choice than Austin, but hell, nowadays, Austin and San Antonio are just one giant metroplex anyway.

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

Baton Rouge actually has the tallest capitol building in the country! Here's why: By the 1920s, the Old State Capitol (built in the 1850s) was starting to show its age and proving to be too small for the expanding state government. When Huey Long was elected, he seized upon the idea of using a new capitol as a way to symbolize the end of the "political domination of Louisiana's traditional social and economic elite" in the state. He noticed Nebraska was constructing a new tall capitol building at the same time at 400 feet tall, and decided to copy the skyscraper concept Nebraska was doing and made sure the new capitol would be taller at 450 feet tall. Both of these were completed the same year in 1932.

The reason Alaska's capitol looks like an ordinary federal office building is because it was built in 1931 when it was still a territory. Construction for it was partly funded by Congress, but they refused to give more funding. Local citizens managed to pay the rest of the cost for land, which was then given to the government. It hosted federal services until 1959 when the Alaskan government was given permission to settle in it upon receiving statehood. The New Mexico State Capitol is unique in being circular because it was designed to resemble the Zia sun symbol (which is on the state flag) when viewed from above, with four entrance wings that protrude from the main cylindrical volume.

[blakelazeski]

Isn’t it more useful to compare the size of metro areas rather than the arbitrary city limits?

[TamDSC]

27:05 can we talk about how those two cars almosted crashed lmao

[johnharris]

California had a lot of capital cities but Sacramento was chosen because it was inland and accessible by water. Having the Capital long the Coast meant it could attacked by sea. Which was a real threat in the 1800's.

[adriennegormley]

Helena MT is pronounced HEL uh nuh. I know; im a Montana native.
Bismarck ND has had one asvantage over a lot of the other possible capitals, as it is on yhe Missouri River. What cracked me up is, when I drove through there some years ago, I saw asign by the freeway that said, Port of Bismarck next exit." Yup, the Missouri is navigable that far, and until Ft Peck Reservoir was added, navigable as far as GreatcFalls MT.