Federal capital

A federal capital is a political entity, often a municipality or capital city, that enjoys status as a seat of government in a federal state. A federal capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective government, where its location and relationship to subnational states are fixed by law or federal constitution. Federal capitals may or may not be considered states in themselves, and either exercise significant political autonomy from the federation or are directly ruled by the national government located within their premises, as federal districts.

Examples of well-known federal capitals include Washington, D.C., which is not part of any U.S. state but borders Maryland and Virginia; Berlin, which is a state of Germany in its own right and forms an enclave within the much larger state of Brandenburg; and the Australian Capital Territory, a territory of Australia which includes the capital city of Australia, Canberra.

Examples of federal capitals

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, May 02, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.