Best And Worst Located State Capitals
 

I would be curious to hear people's opinions on this. What are some of the best and worst located state capitals in the US?

My vote for best located state capital would be Madison, WI. Close to the center of population, in a sizeable city, but not in the largest city in the state.

My vote for worst located state capital would be either Juneau, AK or Tallahassee, FL, I think both for obvious reasons.

What are people's thoughts on this?

International capitals are welcome as well, provided that they are the capital of a sub-national entity.

In my view, economics rules and the best located state capitals are the ones like Austin, Columbus, Minneapolis, Indy and Phoenix that have been able to grow significantly and the worst are ones like Tallahassee, Carson City, and Springfield that have not grown or are not gaining traction. It must have something to do with the location. It may not have nothing to do with beauty or Madison and Ann Arbor would be much bigger. Just my opinion...

Juneau, AK. You can't get there by car from Anchorage. Springfield is kinda out in the middle of nowhere.

I love Juneau, but it's a terrible location for a state capitol.

Phoenix, Indianapolis and Columbus are all pretty much centrally located within their states. I don't know why, but I think that's a relatively important element of a state capitol.

Ann Arbor, while a great town, is not the capital of Michigan. That'd be Lansing, and from what I can tell from streetview, it looks like a pretty underwhelming capital city.

Also, Minnesota's capitol is St. Paul, but, well, it is part of the Twin Cities.

Little Rock fits the bill too.

Wyoming's capital is in a weird spot (but maybe more central to pop?).

I was on Colorado last fall and wanted to hit up WY's capitol building (in addition to CO's) so Cheyenne was in a perfect spot.

I guess in retrospect, that made DC the perfect capitol for the U.S. at the time it was established: Relatively the halfway point between the north and south of the original colonies/states?

Iquitos, Peru. The largest city in the world inaccessible by car and capital of Maynas province.

If we are talking national capitals, Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, is located on an island with only 20% of the country's population, and that is 35 km off the coast of another country (Cameroon).

The mainland of Equatorial Guinea, where most of the population lives, is over 200 km away.

Carson City is close to Reno, but very far away from the majority of Nevada's population. When it was founded though, it made sense since Las Vegas hardly existed if at all and Virginia City was the big place. Due to most of the early towns now being ghost towns, most of Nevada's counties make no sense anymore.

Victoria also is kind of a strange capital. It's a nice city... but most of the province isn't on Vancouver Island.

Dover is in a great spot. The capitol is about 10 miles north of the exact center of Delaware, which is a little west of Frederica. With modern highways now, no place in Delaware is more than 90 minutes away from the capitol building, and I think somewhere around 90% of the state is within an hour of the capitol (but some of that is because we are a small state).

Juneau, Tallahassee are the most obvious for poor capitals.

Is there a reason for why Frankfort is the capital of KY? New Hampshire's should probably be Manchester? I think Vermont's should probably just be Burlington?

Feel like Grand Rapids would make a better capital.

Probably the only Canadian capital that some discussion can be had about. I think it balances out the Vancouver narrative in BC but i'm sure locals can correct me on that.

I recall Iqaluit being somewhat contentious when they were voting for a capital of Nunavut in the late 90s...I think Rankin Inlet was the runnerup?

I’m probably wrong, but I believe there was a movement to have Florida’s capital city be Orlando since the state is now mainly populated down to the peninsula. When Tallahassee was established, it was halfway between St. Augustine and Pensacola, the two largest cities at the time.

Cheyenne is the most "uncentralized" (I can't remember the technical term) capital in the US; it is the most in a corner/away from the rest of the state than any other capital.

St. Augustine and Pensacola were the capitals of East Florida and West Florida, respectively.

Trenton is pretty perfectly located for New Jersey, I'd include it in the best list.

Columbia, SC is another that is located pretty much smack dab in the middle of the state, between its two most populous metros (Greenville/Upstate and Charleston).

Sacramento, geographically, is pretty close the the middle of CA.

Worst definitely goes to Juneau and Tallahassee as multiple people have mentioned.

Carson City is also hindered from the kind of growth we normally expect from booming states by the fact that its legislature is only in session for 120 days on odd numbered years. That means the good jobs dry up for eight months on odd numbered years, and all 12 months in even numbered years.

well, there is still the governor's office and various state agencies that hire people. But a lot of them commute from Reno since Carson City is kind of lame...

Sure, but it's clearly not enough to create a critical mass of good jobs which would be required to create a solid economy that would attract new residents. Carson City is tiny, and as you note, dead.