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Boston is the capital of MA. Philly, for some bizarre reason, is not the capital of PA, which was a huge mistake. Philadelphia practically was all there was to PA in the beginning. Philly was the original capital of PA and then it was moved to the middle of nowhere PA. It was stupid. Now you have yahoos all over the state that think Philly should be kicked out when this state wouldn't even exist without Philadelphia.
If anything, those yahoos should be kicked out of Pennsylvania, because Pittsburgh and Philadelphia subsidize them.
Most capitals were the largest or most important cities when they were made capitals.
As far as the national capital, it was placed in Maryland (and Virginia, though Virginia took it's land back from the district) because at the time that was part of the south. The deal with the north over debts and whatnot, was to place the national capital in the south. Naturally they chose a state right next to the north, and would later evolve into the north.
They Chose Va/Md because that's where George Washington lived & he wanted the capital near amount Vernon, not because they knew Md would eventually become part of the north
The thing I like about the US is how the capitals of different things are not centrally located. The capital of economics is NY, the capital of culture is LA, the capital of politics is DC, the capital of technology is SF, the capital of oil is Houston, the old capital of industry was Chicago, the old capital of manufacturing is Detroit, the capital of music is Nashville, the capital of gambling is Las Vegas, the capital of amusement parks is Orlando, etc.
All the other answers seem to be wrong. This is simple 9th grade civics. DC was established as a federal city by the us constitution so that no state could guide it. It is a federal district ran completely by the federal government and it has 3 electoral votes for its would be 2 senators and 1 representative. If New York or Philadelphia were chosen it would cause problems between state and federal government.
The capital of culture is LA? I get they film movies there but they also gave us the Kardashians. Who are we talking about when we say cultural capital?
Oftentimes the state capital city location was chosen before the state's major population center rose to prominence -- Chicago for example was still a mostly uninhabited swamp when Springfield was chosen as the state capital due to its location near the geographical center of the state. However, Chicago was a better location for transportation and commerce so eventually it grew to become the state's prominent city. And the Midwest region's prominent city, for that matter.
When the U.S. was founded, New York was not the largest and most politically prominent city in the country; Philadelphia was (though by 1790 New York had caught up and passed Philly in population). Consequently, Philadelphia served as the nation's capital until it was decided to build a new capital city on a politically neutral site that would not be part of any existing state. During the transition period, New York actually did serve as the capital from 1785 to 1790. The states of Maryland and Virginia were asked to cede a very small portion of their states to build Washington DC, though for some reason Virginia eventually got back its portion of what otherwise would have been part of Washington. Washington DC remains to this day the only city in the U.S. that is not part of a larger municipality, be it county or state.
So glad that somebody mentioned that NYC was the capitol of the US for a period and was actually the location of the inaugaration of our first President, George Washington.
As to why VA got is land back, it is actually an interesting story and is the formation of the city of Alexandria. When DC was first created, it was divided by the Potomac into two regions, Washington and Alexandria. The residents of Alexandria were unhappy about being disenfranchised (residents of DC did not have Congressional representation) and also were nervous about abolitionists banning slavery in the district. Therefore, they were allowed to return to the state of Virginia.
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Your answer.
