States and Capitals Map: Interactive US Map with Capitals

How to use the states and capitals map

The map opens as a reference map: every state is named and every capital is marked with a dot and its name. It's the kind of map you'd pin to a classroom wall, with a few things a wall map can't do.

• Tap for facts. Tap or click a state to open its fact card: capital, nickname, region, postal code and the year it joined the Union. The card also lists every neighboring state; tap one to jump to it.
• Zoom. Pinch on a touchscreen, hold Ctrl (or ⌘) and scroll with a mouse, or use the + and − buttons. Labels stay readable as you zoom, which helps with the crowded Northeast.
• Full screen. On a phone, tap the full-screen button in the corner of the map so it fills the screen.
• Hide labels. In Map options, turn off Names to see only capitals, or Capitals to see only states. With both off, it's a blank map with dots.

When you're ready to test yourself, switch to Practice or Quiz. The default round asks you to click the state for each capital; change Quiz type to type the capitals or drag them onto the map.

Reading a map with capitals

A map with capitals is a political map: it shows lines that people drew (borders) and places that people chose (capitals), rather than mountains and rivers. Reading one well takes a few skills worth teaching:

Dots and labels. A dot shows exactly where the city is. The label sits beside it. On a crowded map, labels move off to the side so they don't cover each other, so always look for the dot.

Insets. Alaska and Hawaii sit in boxes at the lower left. They're moved and resized to fit, so their capitals, Juneau and Honolulu, appear much closer to the other 48 states than they really are.

Scale. The map is drawn with an equal-area projection, so each state's area is in proportion to its real size, except inside the inset boxes.

What's missing. Washington, D.C., the national capital, is drawn between Maryland and Virginia but isn't a state, so it has no state capital label. Territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam aren't shown.

Where capitals sit on the map

Spend a minute with the map and you'll notice that capitals aren't scattered randomly. Most fall into a few patterns:

Ask your child to find one example of each pattern on the map. It turns a list of names into a reason to remember where each capital is.

Capitals that aren't where you'd guess

Some capitals sit far from the state's best-known city, and seeing them on a map makes the difference clear:

• Albany is about 150 miles north of New York City, up the Hudson River.
• Sacramento is in California's Central Valley, far north of Los Angeles.
• Springfield is in the middle of Illinois, about 200 miles southwest of Chicago.
• Tallahassee is in the Florida Panhandle, near Georgia, nowhere near Miami.
• Olympia is at the southern end of Puget Sound, about 60 miles south of Seattle.
• Harrisburg is between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the middle of Pennsylvania.

On the map, zoom in on each pair and ask: why might a state choose a smaller, more central city? (Usually for travel, compromise or history.)

Map activities with capitals

The interactive map works for quick activities at home or on a classroom projector:

1. Capital scavenger hunt. Find a capital on a river, one on an ocean, one in a corner, and one within 20 miles of another state.
2. Road trip planner. Pick two capitals and list the states you'd drive through to get from one to the other.
3. North to south. Which capital is farthest north in the lower 48? (Olympia, Washington.) Farthest south? (Austin, Texas, is farther south than Tallahassee; Honolulu is farther south than both.)
4. Name the neighbor capitals. Pick a state and name the capital of every state it borders, using the fact card to check.
5. Draw your own. Print the blank US map worksheet and add dots where you think each capital is, then check against this map.

A tour of the capitals, region by region

Use the map to take a quick tour, starting in the Northeast and moving west:

• Northeast. Nine capitals packed close together. Augusta, Concord and Montpelier are up north; Boston, Providence and Hartford sit near the coast; Albany, Trenton and Harrisburg are farther inland.
• Southeast. From Dover and Annapolis on the Chesapeake down to Tallahassee in Florida's Panhandle, then west to Baton Rouge and Little Rock.
• Midwest. Columbus, Indianapolis and Springfield sit near the middle of their states. Saint Paul sits on the Mississippi, Bismarck and Pierre on the Missouri.
• Southwest. Only four: Austin, Oklahoma City, Santa Fe and Phoenix. Santa Fe is the highest state capital, at about 7,000 feet.
• West. Spread far apart: Denver at the foot of the Rockies, Salt Lake City by the Great Salt Lake, Sacramento in the Central Valley, and Juneau and Honolulu in their boxes.

Printable versions

For offline study, the printable US map with capitals matches this map, with every capital dot and name on one page. The state capitals worksheet numbers the capitals for a fill-in test with an answer key, and the labeled US map shows the state names alone.

Make it part of a bigger lesson

A capitals map invites questions about history and government: why a capital moved, who works in the capitol, and how a state chose its borders. Programs like National Geographic Kids and Beautiful Feet Books build on those questions, and many families pay for programs like these with a state scholarship or education savings account. See what your state offers.