Talk:List of purpose-built capital cities

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[edit] Ottawa

When Ottawa was chosen to be the Capital of the United Province of Canada in 1857, it was just a logging camp called Bytown not really a city at all. Toronto, Montreal, Kingston, Quebec, and numerous others were all larger. Ottawa was chosen for it's neutral location. Of course since Ottawa was in the wilderness they couldn't move the capital there right away, and the Canadian government didn't move in until 1866, just in time to see the Province of Canada federate with two other British provinces Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to form the country we now call Canada in 1867. So while technically Ottawa did already exist when it became the capital of the Dominion of Canada in 1867, it clearly was a purpose-built capital. Kevlar67 02:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Still thinking it over. There was a fair-sized logging camp at a minimum there before Victoria chose the place, if I read the Ottawa article correctly. Next time I'm at the library I'll look for a good history of Ottawa and follow up further. A2Kafir 01:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay now that I've taken a better look at the article, Ottawa was incoporated two years before being chosen as capital, and was already booming in population. Kevlar67 05:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sejong, Korea?

should we add Sejong,Korea to the list?

Not sure what you mean; Sejong seems to be a Korean person, not a place. While following up, though, I found Changwon, so that's another for the list. A2Kafir 01:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edo, Japan?

Tokyo was not always the official capital of Japan, as is well known, but didn't Tokugawa Ieyasu create a purpose-built city out of the fishing village of Edo as a seat of government for the bakufu? — Rickyrab | Talk 16:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Austin, TX: planned capital city for nation, later state

Austin, TX was laid out from the start to be the capital of the new nation of Texas. It was founded on top of a very small hamlet called Waterloo, which had (AFAIK) little to no effect on the layout of the city. As soon as built up enough, the capital was relocated there permanently from whichever city it had temporarily been occupying. Like Brazilia and many other such cities, it was placed in the center of the country rather than near existing coastal settlements to encourage development of the center of Texas.

So in some sense, Austin belongs as a purpose-built capital for both a nation (the Republic of Texas) and for a sub-nation (the State of Texas), after Texas joined the U.S.

Benwing (talk) 10:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, purpose-built towns are almost the norm in places like the Persian Gulf, and also in northern Brazil when building cities in the Amazon forest. So I'd be far from surprised if many of the capitals of Persian Gulf countries turned out to be purpose-built.

Benwing (talk) 10:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)