page_title: List of capitals in the United States
section_title: National capitals
hierarchical_section_title: List of capitals in the United States / National capitals
caption_attribution_description: English: Albany City Hall, built circa 1743.
context_page_description: This is a list of capital cities of the United States, including places that serve or have served as federal, state, insular area, territorial, colonial, and Native American capitals.
  Washington, D.C., has been the federal capital city of the United States since 1800. Each U.S. state has its own capital city, as do many of its insular areas. Most states have not changed their capital city since becoming a state, but the capital cities of their respective preceding colonies, territories, kingdoms, and republics typically changed multiple times. There have also been other governments within the current borders of the United States with their own capitals, such as the Republic of Texas, Native American nations, and other unrecognized governments.
context_section_description: The cities below served either as the meeting place for colonial American congresses or as official capitals of the United States under the United States Constitution. The United States did not have a permanent capital under the Articles of Confederation; the cities listed below under the Congress of the Confederation are those where the Congress met.
  The current Constitution was ratified in 1787 and gave the Congress the power to exercise "exclusive legislation" over a district that "may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States." The 1st Congress met at Federal Hall in New York. In 1790, it passed the Residence Act, which established the national capital at a site along the Potomac River that would become Washington, D.C. For the next ten years, Philadelphia served as the temporary capital. There, Congress met at Congress Hall. On November 17, 1800, the 6th United States Congress formally convened in Washington, D.C. Congress has met outside of Washington only twice since: on July 16, 1987, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of ratification of the Constitution; and at Federal Hall in New York on September 11, 2002, to mark the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Both meetings were ceremonial.
caption: Stadt Huys, the original city hall of Albany, New York, and the meeting place of the Albany Congress in 1754.
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