I would like to know why Sacramento is the capital of California and no more large and well known cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego.
Also if NY City is the capital of the world, how Albany is the state capital?
Philadelphia was the capital of the country, why is not the current state capital?

joecali, "only in America..!"

One reason is that in America, we run our government away from the distractions of the big business that grows big cities. Does big business still influence our government? Yes, at times, but not as much as the Money influences corruption is in other capitals of the world

Do you really believe that?

Sacramento.
Gold was discovered near here in 1848, but Sacramento could be reached by boats with a 7 foot draft by river, so Sacramento became the local boom town. In 1849 the city offered one million dollars for the privilege of becoming state capital. In 1854 it was given approval, and became the permanent state capital in 1879.

I know at least that Washington DC is the capital of the US because of its location - it was central city in the original 13 colonies. I think that capitals are mainly chosen due to their location at least first of all - you find often as the original poster did that the capitals are often not the "big cities". This is my take on it anyway; I've no idea if it's the reason for Albany instead of NYC or whatever.

I love the history and good answers on Sacramento and Washington are very interesting. But this not only happens in the USA, and not too Guayaquil Quito is the capital of Ecuador for its historical importance. Ottawa also, instead, the most important city of Toronto, is the Canada capital.

Canberra, the capital of Australia, has a population of about 350,000, and is located in the middle of nowhere. Sydney (5.4 million) and Melbourne (3.9 million) both have more than ten times that, and all the other state capitals (except Hobart) have at least a million residents.

Who know about the stories of why these cities have been named over other major cities or more population, it would be interesting to hear these stories.

Florida's capital, Tallahassee, was chosen because it's in between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast and in line with the northern heading routes out of the state. Even though Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Naples, Sarasota, Tampa/Saint Pete and Orlando are all tremendously larger communities, None are at the crossroads of communication and travel.

And yes I do believe that in addition to separation of Church and State, the USA has as much as it can attempted to keep business and governance on separate tables.

Atlanta is not only the capital of Georgia, it is by far the largest city. Georgia's original capital was Savannah on the Atlantic coast, then moved more to the center of the state at Milledgeville (and may have been in one or two other locations) before being permanently moved to Atlanta. Atlanta's original name was Marthasville! It's airport today is the busiest in the world and the city keeps growing.

As I put in Fun Facts: Olympia are ranked 23th city(sort by population) in Washington state. It's the lowest rank of any capital of state. Why Olympia is a capital? In my country all largest cities are the capital of department. It's so curiose.

Have you seen the cost of a presidential campaign lately?

That's one of the times.