🏛️10 Surprising Things About America's State Capitals

America has 50 state capitals, and most people can name only a handful of them. Fair enough — the capital is almost never the biggest city. Only 17 state capitals are also their state's largest city. The rest lost to the money or the railroads or, in a few cases, lost because they never wanted to win in the first place.

Here are ten surprising facts about the places where states actually do their business.

1. Montpelier, Vermont is smaller than most high schools

Vermont's capital has about 7,500 residents — making it the least populous state capital in America. The entire town is smaller than the enrollment of many suburban high schools. Montpelier also has no McDonald's, a point of local pride.

I looked up the McDonald's thing myself because I couldn't believe it. Still true as of when I'm writing this.

2. Pierre, South Dakota rhymes with "peer"

It's named for French fur trader Pierre Chouteau Jr., but nobody in South Dakota pronounces it the French way. The local pronunciation is a single-syllable "peer" — and saying it in two syllables is an instant tourist giveaway.

3. Juneau, Alaska has no roads connecting it to the rest of the country

Alaska's capital is one of the only U.S. state capitals you can't drive to. Juneau sits on a narrow strip of coastline with mountains and glaciers at its back and the Pacific in front. You arrive by ferry, floatplane, or commercial jet. Nothing else.

This one still messes with me. You can't drive to the capital of our biggest state.

4. Frankfort, Kentucky is named after a guy who got ambushed at a ford

In 1786, a group of settlers was ambushed by Native Americans while crossing the Kentucky River. A man named Stephen Frank was killed at the crossing, which became known as "Frank's Ford" — later shortened to Frankfort. The Kentucky capital is literally named after a dead frontiersman's river crossing.

5. Santa Fe is older than Plymouth Rock

Founded by Spanish colonists in 1610, New Mexico's capital is the oldest continuously inhabited state capital in the United States. It predates the Pilgrim landing at Plymouth by a full decade. It's also the highest state capital at 7,199 feet above sea level.

6. Annapolis was briefly the capital of the United States

Maryland's capital served as the U.S. capital from November 1783 to August 1784. Congress accepted General George Washington's resignation as Commander-in-Chief there in December 1783. Annapolis lost the federal capital role when the capital moved to Trenton, then New York, then Philadelphia, and finally Washington, D.C.

7. Jackson, Mississippi was burned down three times in one year

During the Civil War, Union forces captured Mississippi's capital and torched so much of it that Sherman's troops nicknamed the city "Chimneyville" for the chimneys left standing after the wooden buildings burned. It was burned, rebuilt, and burned again multiple times in 1863 alone.

8. Honolulu is the most geographically isolated capital in America

Hawaii's capital sits about 2,400 miles from the nearest continental landmass. It's also the only state capital with a royal palace — Iolani Palace, built for King David Kalākaua in 1882 and home to the last two reigning Hawaiian monarchs.

9. Columbia, South Carolina was the first planned state capital

Most state capitals grew from older trading or river towns. Columbia is different. When South Carolina needed a more central capital than coastal Charleston, the legislature in 1786 literally sent surveyors to the middle of the state, picked a spot, and laid out a grid. The city was built from scratch specifically to be the capital.

10. Raleigh was named after a man who never set foot in America

North Carolina's capital honors Sir Walter Raleigh, the English courtier who financed the doomed Roanoke colony in the 1580s. Raleigh himself never actually crossed the Atlantic — he sent the colonists, but stayed in England. The Lost Colony vanished. The name stuck anyway.

A Bonus: The Capital Most People Can't Find

Ask anyone to point to Helena, Montana, Bismarck, North Dakota, or Olympia, Washington on a map, and you'll watch them squint. These three are all state capitals, all under 75,000 people, and all chosen mostly because they weren't the biggest city — which means they were politically acceptable to the rest of the state.

That's the real pattern of American state capitals. The biggest city had the money, but the second city got the government. It's the American compromise in miniature.