Some "M" capitals are among the world's largest and most populous cities. The metropolitan area of Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, is home to over 20 million people - as is that of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Manila's city proper, though much smaller, has the highest population density in the world. Moscow, the capital of Russia, is the most populous city located entirely on the European continent, with about 13 million people living within its city limits, and over 20 million in its metro area.
With a population of almost 3.5 million, Madrid, the capital of Spain, is the second-largest city in the European Union. Minsk, the capital of Belarus, a former Soviet republic, has a population of nearly 2 million. Managua, the capital of the Central American nation of Nicaragua, is home to about 1 million people - almost one-sixth of the country's population. Much further south, in the Southern Hemisphere, Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, is home to about 1.3 million people; it is located on the Rio de la Plata, northeast of the considerably larger Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.
Muscat, the capital of Oman in the Arabian Peninsula, is a thriving, multicultural city of about 1.7 million inhabitants. Moving west to Africa, Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia - a port city on the Indian Ocean - has a population of over 2.5 million. Monrovia, named after US President James Monroe, is the capital of Liberia: also a port city (though on the Atlantic coast of Africa), it is home to about 1 million people. South of the Equator, Maputo (formerly Lourenço Marques), the capital of Mozambique: its population of about 1.1 million is distributed over a large area of 346 km² (134 sq mi).
Some of the smaller M capitals are capitals of small countries in Asia and Africa. Manama, the capital of the small island country of Bahrain, off the coast of Saudi Arabia, numbers about 200,000 inhabitants. Malé (the capital of the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean), though its population of over 200,000 is not comparable to the huge metropolises described above, also boasts above-average density. Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea (on the west coast of Central Africa), located on the island of Bioko, has a population of around 300,000. Maseru, the capital of Lesotho - a small, mountainous country completely surrounded by South Africa - is also home to about 300,000 people.
"M" national capitals that have been omitted are Majuro (Marshall Islands, Oceania), Moroni (Comoros), and Monaco (which is actually a city-state). They are all considerably smaller than the cities listed in this quiz.
Most of the non-capital cities listed here are among the largest and most significant urban centres in their respective countries: Italy (Milan), France (Marseille), Germany (Munich), United Kingdom (Manchester), USA (Miami), Brazil (Manaus), Colombia (Medellín), Iraq (Mosul), Saudi Arabia (Mecca), India (Mumbai), Myanmar (Mandalay), and Melbourne (Australia). In fact, the most populous "M" city in the world - with over 23 million people living in its metropolitan region - is Mumbai, the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra, and India's foremost financial centre.
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
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