Country Capital & Facts
Look up a country's capital, driving side, area and population.
Overview
The Country Capital and Facts lookup returns a small set of high-value facts about any country: its capital city, the side of the road it drives on, total area in square kilometres and approximate population. Type a name, an ISO alpha-2 code or an alpha-3 code and the tool pulls back the matching record in one step.
The facts here are the ones you actually reach for in everyday work: filling out a logistics form, building a sanity-check dropdown, populating a dashboard tooltip, or settling a trivia argument. Driving side is included because it affects vehicle imports, rental car bookings and a surprising number of safety decisions. Population and area come from the most recent rounded figures used in major reference datasets, so they are accurate within rounding error rather than to the last person.
How it works
The lookup is keyed by ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes. The internal index also accepts alpha-3 codes (USA, GBR, DEU) and common short names (United States, UK, Czech Republic) via a name-to-code map. Driving side is encoded as RHT (right-hand traffic) or LHT (left-hand traffic), matching the convention used by most reference sources.
Capital cities are the official seat of government recognised by ISO 3166. Where a country has multiple capitals - South Africa's executive, legislative and judicial capitals, for example - the tool returns the primary administrative capital and a note. Area covers land plus inland water. Population is the most recent rounded estimate available at build time and is not updated live.
Examples
- Japan (JP) - capital Tokyo, RHT in name but actually LHT (the dataset reflects that Japan drives on the left), area about 377,975 km², population around 125 million.
- Brazil (BR) - capital Brasília, RHT, area about 8.5 million km², population around 215 million.
- United Kingdom (GB) - capital London, LHT, area about 243,610 km², population around 67 million.
- Vatican City (VA) - capital Vatican City, RHT, area about 0.49 km², population around 800 - the smallest country by both measures.
FAQ
Why does the capital sometimes differ from the largest city?
The tool returns the administrative capital, which can be different from the largest or most economically important city. Examples include Brasília vs São Paulo, Canberra vs Sydney, and Ottawa vs Toronto.
How often is the population updated?
Population figures are baked in at build time and rounded to a sensible significant figure. They should be treated as recent estimates, not live counts.
Which side of the road does the data represent?
Driving side reflects the legal direction of traffic flow. Right-hand traffic (RHT) means cars drive on the right; left-hand traffic (LHT) means they drive on the left. Most former British colonies are LHT.
Are dependencies and territories included?
Only sovereign states recognised in ISO 3166-1 are included. Overseas territories are not given their own entries.