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Random City Generator

144 real cities, all of them in the table below. Press the button for one at random — you get the country, the part of the world, and one specific true thing about the place rather than an adjective.

Press the button for a city.

no repeats until the list is used up

144 cities in this list.

All 144 cities on this list

City	Country	Region	Known for
Tokyo	Japan	Asia	The largest urban area on earth, and the quietest big city in it
Delhi	India	Asia	A capital built over seven earlier cities
Shanghai	China	Asia	China's financial centre, on the Yangtze delta
Beijing	China	Asia	The capital, the Forbidden City, and eight centuries of imperial planning
Mumbai	India	Asia	India's film industry and its financial engine
Osaka	Japan	Asia	Japan's kitchen, and its comedians
Kyoto	Japan	Asia	A thousand years as the imperial capital, and the temples to show for it
Seoul	South Korea	Asia	Rebuilt from ruins into one of the most wired cities anywhere
Bangkok	Thailand	Asia	Canals, temples and the most visited city in the world some years
Jakarta	Indonesia	Asia	A sinking megacity that is being replaced as capital
Manila	Philippines	Asia	One of the densest cities on the planet
Ho Chi Minh City	Vietnam	Asia	Still called Saigon by most of the people in it
Hanoi	Vietnam	Asia	A thousand-year-old capital with a French quarter
Singapore	Singapore	Asia	A city that is also a country
Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia	Asia	Twin towers built where a tin-mining camp stood
Hong Kong	China	Asia	Mountains, harbour, and more skyscrapers than anywhere
Taipei	Taiwan	Asia	Night markets and a tower built to survive typhoons
Dhaka	Bangladesh	Asia	Rickshaws in numbers no other city comes near
Karachi	Pakistan	Asia	Pakistan's port and its largest city
Lahore	Pakistan	Asia	Mughal gardens and the food to match
Istanbul	Turkey	Asia and Europe	The only major city standing on two continents
Tehran	Iran	Asia	A capital beneath the Alborz mountains
Baghdad	Iraq	Asia	Once the largest city in the world, in the ninth century
Dubai	United Arab Emirates	Asia	Built from a creek-side trading post in two generations
Riyadh	Saudi Arabia	Asia	A desert capital that has grown faster than almost any city
Jerusalem	Israel and Palestine	Asia	Sacred to three religions and contested by two states
Kathmandu	Nepal	Asia	A valley of temples under the Himalaya
Colombo	Sri Lanka	Asia	A harbour city fought over by three colonial powers
Ulaanbaatar	Mongolia	Asia	The coldest capital city in the world
Tashkent	Uzbekistan	Asia	Rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake, with a famous metro
Samarkand	Uzbekistan	Asia	A Silk Road city of blue-tiled domes
Almaty	Kazakhstan	Asia	Apple orchards below the Tian Shan
Shenzhen	China	Asia	A fishing village in 1980, a city of millions now
Chengdu	China	Asia	Sichuan cooking, and pandas
Xi'an	China	Asia	The eastern end of the Silk Road and the terracotta army
Bengaluru	India	Asia	India's software industry, at 900 metres
Chennai	India	Asia	A Coromandel coast port with its own film industry
Kolkata	India	Asia	Bengal's capital of literature and argument
Hyderabad	India	Asia	Biryani, pearls and technology parks
Jaipur	India	Asia	Planned in pink in 1727
Varanasi	India	Asia	One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities anywhere
London	United Kingdom	Europe	Two thousand years old and still rearranging itself
Paris	France	Europe	Rebuilt on Haussmann's boulevards in twenty years
Rome	Italy	Europe	A city built on and out of its own ruins
Madrid	Spain	Europe	Europe's highest capital, and its latest dinners
Barcelona	Spain	Europe	A grid designed by Cerda and a cathedral still unfinished
Berlin	Germany	Europe	Divided for twenty-eight years, and still visibly two cities
Munich	Germany	Europe	Bavaria's capital, beer halls and BMW
Hamburg	Germany	Europe	A port city with more bridges than Venice
Vienna	Austria	Europe	An imperial capital that regularly tops liveability rankings
Prague	Czechia	Europe	A medieval centre that survived the twentieth century intact
Budapest	Hungary	Europe	Two cities across the Danube, joined in 1873
Warsaw	Poland	Europe	An old town rebuilt from paintings after 1945
Krakow	Poland	Europe	Poland's former capital, its centre undamaged by the war
Amsterdam	Netherlands	Europe	A ring of canals dug in the seventeenth century
Brussels	Belgium	Europe	The European Union's working capital
Copenhagen	Denmark	Europe	More bicycles than people
Stockholm	Sweden	Europe	Built across fourteen islands
Oslo	Norway	Europe	A fjord head surrounded by forest
Helsinki	Finland	Europe	A capital designed to look like St Petersburg
Reykjavik	Iceland	Europe	The northernmost capital of a sovereign state
Dublin	Ireland	Europe	A literary city with the pubs to prove it
Edinburgh	United Kingdom	Europe	A castle on a volcanic plug above a Georgian new town
Lisbon	Portugal	Europe	Rebuilt on a grid after the 1755 earthquake
Porto	Portugal	Europe	Port wine, and the river it is shipped down
Athens	Greece	Europe	The Acropolis, and a city that grew around it
Zurich	Switzerland	Europe	Banking, and a lake you can swim in from the city
Geneva	Switzerland	Europe	International organisations by the dozen
Milan	Italy	Europe	Italy's business and fashion capital
Venice	Italy	Europe	A city on 118 islands, sinking slowly
Florence	Italy	Europe	The Renaissance happened here
Naples	Italy	Europe	Pizza was invented here, under a live volcano
Moscow	Russia	Europe	The Kremlin, and a metro built as a palace
Saint Petersburg	Russia	Europe	Built on a marsh by decree in 1703
Kyiv	Ukraine	Europe	Older than Moscow, and the origin of Rus
Bucharest	Romania	Europe	Belle epoque streets and a vast communist palace
Sofia	Bulgaria	Europe	Roman ruins under the city centre
Belgrade	Serbia	Europe	A fortress at the meeting of two rivers
Zagreb	Croatia	Europe	An Austro-Hungarian city centre
Ljubljana	Slovenia	Europe	Small, green, and largely designed by one architect
Tallinn	Estonia	Europe	A walled Hanseatic town that still stands
Riga	Latvia	Europe	More art nouveau buildings than any other city
Vilnius	Lithuania	Europe	A baroque old town in a bend of the river
New York	United States	Americas	Five boroughs and the densest skyline anywhere
Los Angeles	United States	Americas	A hundred neighbourhoods in search of a centre
Chicago	United States	Americas	Where the skyscraper was invented
San Francisco	United States	Americas	Hills, fog and the bay that made it
Boston	United States	Americas	The oldest American city centre, and its universities
Washington, D.C.	United States	Americas	A capital laid out on paper in 1791
Seattle	United States	Americas	Between mountains and sound, and rains less than you think
New Orleans	United States	Americas	French, Spanish and American in layers
Miami	United States	Americas	The most Latin American city in the United States
Las Vegas	United States	Americas	A resort city in the Mojave desert
Denver	United States	Americas	Exactly one mile above sea level
Austin	United States	Americas	A music city that became a technology one
Philadelphia	United States	Americas	Where both the Declaration and the Constitution were signed
Toronto	Canada	Americas	One of the most multilingual cities in the world
Montreal	Canada	Americas	The largest French-speaking city outside France
Vancouver	Canada	Americas	Mountains, ocean and rain
Mexico City	Mexico	Americas	Built on a drained lake, and still sinking into it
Guadalajara	Mexico	Americas	Mariachi and tequila come from here
Havana	Cuba	Americas	A colonial centre preserved by circumstance
Bogota	Colombia	Americas	A capital at 2,600 metres
Medellin	Colombia	Americas	A valley city that rebuilt itself around its cable cars
Lima	Peru	Americas	A desert capital on the Pacific
Quito	Ecuador	Americas	Almost exactly on the equator, at 2,850 metres
La Paz	Bolivia	Americas	The highest seat of government in the world
Santiago	Chile	Americas	Between the Andes and the coastal range
Buenos Aires	Argentina	Americas	Tango, and more bookshops per person than anywhere
Montevideo	Uruguay	Americas	A quiet capital on the widest river in the world
Sao Paulo	Brazil	Americas	The largest city in the southern hemisphere
Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	Americas	Mountains, beaches and a city squeezed between them
Brasilia	Brazil	Americas	Built from nothing in four years, in the shape of an aeroplane
Salvador	Brazil	Americas	Brazil's first capital and the centre of Afro-Brazilian culture
Cairo	Egypt	Africa	The Nile, the pyramids at its edge, and Africa's largest city
Alexandria	Egypt	Africa	Founded by Alexander, once home to the great library
Lagos	Nigeria	Africa	Africa's biggest city and its loudest music scene
Nairobi	Kenya	Africa	A capital with a national park inside the city limits
Addis Ababa	Ethiopia	Africa	The seat of the African Union, at 2,350 metres
Accra	Ghana	Africa	An Atlantic capital built around old forts
Dakar	Senegal	Africa	The westernmost city on the African mainland
Casablanca	Morocco	Africa	Morocco's industrial port, and its art deco
Marrakesh	Morocco	Africa	A walled red city below the Atlas mountains
Tunis	Tunisia	Africa	A medina beside the ruins of Carthage
Cape Town	South Africa	Africa	Table Mountain, and two oceans meeting nearby
Johannesburg	South Africa	Africa	Built on gold, and still on the reef that held it
Kinshasa	Democratic Republic of the Congo	Africa	The largest French-speaking city in the world
Luanda	Angola	Africa	An Atlantic port and one of the most expensive cities anywhere
Dar es Salaam	Tanzania	Africa	Tanzania's port and its largest city
Kampala	Uganda	Africa	Built across seven hills by Lake Victoria
Abidjan	Cote d'Ivoire	Africa	A lagoon city and West Africa's commercial hub
Khartoum	Sudan	Africa	Where the Blue and White Nile meet
Zanzibar City	Tanzania	Africa	Stone Town, built from coral rag and clove money
Sydney	Australia	Oceania	A harbour, an opera house and the beaches beyond
Melbourne	Australia	Oceania	Laneways, coffee and a grid laid out in 1837
Brisbane	Australia	Oceania	A subtropical river city
Perth	Australia	Oceania	One of the most isolated large cities on earth
Adelaide	Australia	Oceania	Planned with parkland all the way round it
Canberra	Australia	Oceania	A capital designed by competition in 1912
Auckland	New Zealand	Oceania	Built across fifty volcanic cones
Wellington	New Zealand	Oceania	The southernmost capital of a sovereign state, and the windiest
Christchurch	New Zealand	Oceania	Rebuilt after the 2011 earthquake
Suva	Fiji	Oceania	The largest city in the South Pacific islands
Port Moresby	Papua New Guinea	Oceania	A capital reachable by air and sea, but not road

Cities are given by the name most widely used in English, with the local name noted where the two differ in a way that matters. Jerusalem is listed under both Israel and Palestine, which is the accurate description of its status rather than a position on it.

How this list was built

No population column. City populations depend entirely on where you draw the boundary — Tokyo is nine million or thirty-seven million depending on whether you mean the wards, the metropolis or the urban area — and every figure is out of date by the time it is published. The 'known for' column is more useful and stays true.

One specific fact, not an adjective. 'Vibrant' and 'historic' tell you nothing. That Brasilia was built from nothing in four years, that La Paz is the highest seat of government in the world, that Kinshasa is the largest French-speaking city anywhere — those are the things worth having when a city comes up at random.

The spread is by region, not by fame in the English-speaking world. Asia has the most entries because that is where most of the world's large cities are. African and South American cities are here in numbers that reflect their actual size and importance, not their share of English-language travel writing.

Capitals and largest cities are both here, and they are often different. Brasilia and Sao Paulo, Canberra and Sydney, Washington and New York, Abuja and Lagos. Confusing the two is one of the commonest geography mistakes, so the list carries both.

Sources. Cities, countries and regions are matters of record. The 'known for' line is a factual statement about each place — a date, a geography, a first — rather than a description of atmosphere.

Common questions

How many cities does this pick from?

144, across every inhabited continent. It is a spread of the world's significant cities, not every city — there are several thousand with more than a hundred thousand people.

Can I use it to choose somewhere to travel?

It is a good way to widen a shortlist beyond the same six destinations. Each pick gives you one concrete thing about the place, which is usually enough to know whether to read further.

Why is there no population figure?

Because there is no single right answer. City, metropolitan area and urban area give wildly different numbers for the same place, and all of them change. A page that prints one is being confident about something unsettled.

Is the capital always the biggest city?

No, and often deliberately not. Brasilia, Canberra, Washington, Abuja, Ottawa and Wellington were all chosen or built as capitals instead of the larger commercial city.

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