The capital is of great significance to a country, and elementary school students know that the capital of China is now Beijing. Of course, there are many cities that have been the capital of China's dynasties, and many Chinese cities have the title of the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties. People may not know much about foreign geography, but they can generally know their capital, for example, in people's minds, the capital of Japan is Tokyo, but in fact, where the capital of Japan is, even the Japanese themselves are not clear, why is this?
In ancient Japan, as in China, the capital city was constantly changing with the change of dynasties, and the Japanese emperor was known as the first generation, and the Japanese people proudly believed that Japan had not changed dynasties for thousands of years. But in fact, the emperor was in power for a long time, and all the power of the country was controlled by the shoguns, but after all, the people were nominally the supreme leaders, so the place where the emperor lived was also regarded as the capital of Japan. The city that has been the capital for the longest time in Japanese history is "Heian Capital", which is today's Kyoto, which was built after the Tang Dynasty capital Chang'an Castle, and the emperor and his descendants also lived here, so for more than a thousand years, it was also regarded as the capital of Japan.
After Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan, the administrative center gradually shifted from Kyoto to the Edo region, and the economy of the Kyoto area began to decline. In fact, this is also easy to understand, after all, the seat of the Japanese shogunate in the Edo period was Edo, and it naturally became the de facto administrative center of Japan. Therefore, in the Edo period, there were actually two capitals in Japan: Kyoto, where the emperor lived, and Edo, where the shogunate was located, and this split also caused the Japanese to be a little confused about where the capital was.
In 1869, Emperor Meiji ascended the throne and carried out the famous "Meiji Restoration", and in order to express his determination to reform, he even moved the imperial palace from Kyoto to Edo, and renamed the location of the new imperial palace "Tokyo". By 1871, all of Japan's central institutions had moved to Tokyo, and by this time the shogunate era had ended, and Tokyo was arguably Japan's only capital. However, the controversy over this matter has not stopped, and kansai, where Kyoto is located, and the Kanto, where Tokyo is located, have always looked down on each other, believing that the emperor has only temporarily moved to Tokyo, and kyoto still retains the imperial palace, which is the real capital of Japan. In fact, the people of the two regions have a long history of feuds, and kanto and Kansai are also the two most important regions in Japan, so even the Japanese themselves can't understand which is the capital.
For example, everyone thinks that the capital of South Korea is in Seoul, but in fact, the administrative capital of South Korea is in Sejong Special Autonomous City, and some countries have set up three capitals, such as the Republic of South Africa. There are also some countries that have a city because of their small land area, and they simply do not have a capital, such as Singapore and the Vatican. Other countries are even more bizarre, with their capitals not on their own territory, such as the former British protectorate of Bechuanaran, whose capital is Mafitin.