Cities

69 to explore · page 1 of 2

• Watch City Amsterdam Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. It began as a fishing village beside a dam on the Amstel River, which gave the city its name. Today about 942,000 people live among its rings of canals, hundreds of bridges, houseboats and bicycles.
• Watch City Ankara Ankara is the capital of Türkiye, in the interior of Anatolia, about 200 kilometers from the Black Sea. People have lived here since the Stone Age, and Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks and Ottomans all left buildings behind. It became the capital in 1923, and today it is a city of government, universities and museums.
• Watch City Athens Athens is the capital of Greece and one of the oldest cities in the world. Above it rises the Acropolis, a rocky hill crowned by the marble Parthenon, built about 2,500 years ago. Ancient Athens was home to early democracy, great thinkers and theater.
• Watch City Baghdad Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, stands on the Tigris River in the land once called Mesopotamia. It was founded in 762 as a round city, and for about 500 years it was one of the greatest cities in the world and a great center of learning, where scholars studied math, medicine and the stars. Today it is Iraq's largest city.
• Watch City Baku Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, curves around a bay on the Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland body of water. Its old walled town, with the Maiden Tower and a palace of the Shirvan shahs, is a World Heritage Site, and oil has made the city important for more than 150 years.
• Watch City Bangkok Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, lies on the delta of the Chao Phraya River, about 40 kilometers from the sea. It became the capital in 1782, when the new royal palace and temples were built. Once called the 'Venice of the East' for its canals, it is now a huge, busy city with skyscrapers and an elevated railway.
• Watch City Barcelona Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia in northeastern Spain, lies on the Mediterranean between mountains and the sea. It is famous for the buildings of the architect Antoni Gaudí, including the Sagrada Família, a giant church begun in 1882. About 1.7 million people live in the city (2025).
• Watch City Beijing Beijing, the capital of China, has been the country's capital for most of the last 600 years. At its heart is the Forbidden City, the emperors' palace. About 21.8 million people lived in the Beijing municipality at the end of 2024.
• Watch City Belgrade Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, stands where the Sava River flows into the Danube. Its name, Beograd, means "white city", probably because of the white limestone walls of its old fortress above the rivers. At the 2022 census, about 1.2 million people lived in the city itself and about 1.7 million in the wider City of Belgrade.
• Watch City Berlin Berlin, the capital of Germany, grew from two small trading towns on the Spree River. From 1961 to 1989 the Berlin Wall divided it. Today about 3.7 million people live there (2025), among lakes, forests, museums and the Brandenburg Gate.
• Watch City Bogotá Bogotá is the capital and largest city of Colombia, built on a high plain in the Andes, 2,625 meters above sea level. Founded by the Spanish in 1538 on land of the Muisca people, it is home to about 8 million people (2024) and a famous museum of ancient gold.
• Watch City Brussels Brussels is the capital of Belgium. It began as a market where a road crossed the small Senne River, and its old name means "settlement in the marshes." Its Grand-Place, ringed by 17th-century guildhalls, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city is home to many offices of the European Union.
• Watch City Bucharest Bucharest, the capital of Romania, lies on a wide plain beside the Dâmbovița River. First written about in 1459, it became the capital of Walachia in 1659 and of Romania in 1862. Today it is a city of broad boulevards, a huge parliament palace, the Romanian Athenaeum concert hall and an open-air Village Museum.
• Watch City Budapest Budapest, the capital of Hungary, was made in 1873 by joining three towns on the Danube River: hilly Buda and old Óbuda on one bank and flat Pest on the other. About 1.7 million people live there (2026), with hot springs under the ground and the first underground railway built on the European mainland.
• Watch City Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, lies on the Río de la Plata, 240 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean. Founded twice, in 1536 and 1580, it grew into South America's largest port and a city of wide avenues, lively neighborhoods and the tango. About 3.1 million people lived in the city in 2022.
• Watch City Cairo Cairo, the capital of Egypt, has stood on the banks of the Nile for more than 1,000 years, where the river spreads out into its delta. Founded in 969, it has a medieval old city full of historic mosques and markets, the Egyptian Museum and, at its edge, the Pyramids of Giza. It is one of the largest cities in Africa.
• Watch City Chicago Chicago, in the state of Illinois, is the third-biggest city in the United States, with about 2.7 million people (2025). It grew fast beside Lake Michigan, rebuilt itself after the Great Fire of 1871 and became famous for its skyscrapers, railways, museums and music.
• Watch City Concepción Concepción is one of the largest cities of Chile, in the south-central part of the country, near where the Biobío River meets the Pacific Ocean. Founded in 1550 and moved to its present site after a great earthquake, it is now a center of industry and learning. Its commune had 230,375 people at the 2024 census.
• Watch City Copenhagen Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, grew from a small harbor town into a royal city of palaces, canals and towers. Its name means "Merchants' Harbor." It has the Tivoli Gardens, opened in 1843, and the Little Mermaid statue, and about 673,000 people lived there in 2026.
• Watch City Curitiba Curitiba is the capital of the state of Paraná, in southern Brazil, about 930 meters above the sea. About 1.8 million people live there (2025). The city is famous around the world for its bus rapid transit, begun in 1974, and for the lakes, flood-control systems and parks it built from the 1970s.
• Watch City Damascus Damascus, the capital of Syria, grew beside a river in a green oasis at the edge of the desert. People have lived there for thousands of years, and many scholars think it may be the oldest city in the world that has been lived in all the time. Its walled Old City, with its Great Mosque, markets and courtyard houses, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Watch City Dublin Dublin, the capital of Ireland, sits where the River Liffey flows into Dublin Bay. Vikings built a town here in the 800s, and its name comes from a "black pool" in the river. Today it is famous for its writers, music, Georgian squares and Trinity College, home of the Book of Kells.
• Watch City Hamburg Hamburg, in northern Germany, is the country's second-biggest city and one of Europe's largest ports. It grew from a castle built about 825 into a rich trading city on the Elbe River, with canals, a big lake and brick warehouses. About 1.9 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch City Helsinki Helsinki is the capital of Finland, on a peninsula in the Gulf of Finland. Founded in 1550 and made the capital in 1812, it has white stone buildings, a sea fortress on islands, and the world's most northern metro. About 694,000 people lived there at the end of 2025.
• Watch City Ho Chi Minh City Ho Chi Minh City, once called Saigon, is Vietnam's largest city and the economic heart of the country. It lies on the Saigon River, north of the Mekong Delta. Since merging with two neighboring provinces in 2025, it has more than 14 million people, and in 2024 it opened its first metro line.
• Watch City Hong Kong Hong Kong, on the south coast of China, grew around one of the world's great natural harbors. It was a British colony for 156 years and has been a special administrative region of China since 1997. About 7.5 million people lived there in mid-2026.
• Watch City Istanbul Istanbul is the biggest city in Türkiye, built on both sides of the Bosporus, the narrow strait between Europe and Asia. Once called Byzantium and then Constantinople, it was the capital of two great empires. About 15.7 million people lived in Istanbul province in 2023.
• Watch City Jakarta Jakarta, Indonesia's largest city and its capital, lies on the northwest coast of the island of Java, where the Ciliwung River meets the Java Sea. About 11 million people live there (2025). Indonesia is building a new capital called Nusantara, but under the law Jakarta stays the capital until the president signs a decree moving it.
• Watch City Jerusalem Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world, built on hills in the Middle East. Inside the walls of its Old City stand places that are deeply important to Jews, Christians and Muslims, and pilgrims and visitors come from all over the world.
• Watch City Kyiv Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine, on the high west bank of the Dnieper River. More than 1,000 years ago it was the center of Kyivan Rus, the first East Slavic state, and its 11th-century St. Sophia's Cathedral and Pechersk Lavra monastery are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. About 2.95 million people lived there in 2022.
• Watch City Kyoto Kyoto was the capital of Japan for more than 1,000 years, from 794 to 1868. Its streets still follow a grid planned in 794. About 1.4 million people live there (2022), among hundreds of old temples, shrines, gardens and workshops.
• Watch City Lisbon Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, is the westernmost capital in mainland Europe, on the hills above the Tagus River near the Atlantic. By the 1400s it was the base for Portugal's voyages of exploration. Destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 and rebuilt, it is a city of steep streets, viewpoints and a famous tower at Belém. About 546,000 people lived there in 2021.
• Watch City London London, the capital of the United Kingdom, began as a Roman town almost 2,000 years ago. About 8.8 million people lived in Greater London in 2021. It has the Tower of London, Big Ben, Tower Bridge and the Tube, an underground railway that opened in 1863.
• Watch City Los Angeles Los Angeles is the second-biggest city in the United States, spread across a wide plain between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Founded in 1781 as a small farming village, it grew into a world center of movies and music. About 3.9 million people lived there in 2020.
• Watch City Madrid Madrid, the capital of Spain, sits almost exactly in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula, high on a flat plateau. Once a small fortress, it became the royal capital in the 1500s. About 3.5 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch City Mecca Mecca is a city in western Saudi Arabia, in a dry valley ringed by mountains, about 70 kilometers from the Red Sea. About 2.4 million people lived there at the 2022 census. Its Great Mosque surrounds the Kaaba, and in 2026 more than 1.7 million pilgrims came to the city for the hajj.
• Watch City Mexico City Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, sits 2,240 meters high in the Valley of Mexico. It was founded in 1521 on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that stood on an island in a lake. About 9.2 million people lived there in 2020, and more than 23 million in the wider metropolitan area.
• Watch City Minsk Minsk, the capital of Belarus, lies on the Svislach River near the middle of the country. First written about in 1067, it was almost completely destroyed in World War II and rebuilt with wide avenues, parks and apartment blocks. About 2 million people lived there in 2026.
• Watch City Moscow Moscow, the capital of Russia, grew up on the Moscow River around a fortress called the Kremlin. About 13.3 million people lived there in 2025. Its rings of roads, snowy winters and palace-like subway stations make it like no other city.
• Watch City Mumbai Mumbai, once called Bombay, is a giant port city on India's west coast, by the Arabian Sea. It grew on seven small islands that were joined into one, and it is India's main center of business and banking. At the 2011 census, more than 12 million people lived in the city and more than 18 million in its urban area.
• Watch City Munich Munich is the capital of Bavaria, a state in southern Germany, and the country's third-biggest city. It began in 1158 as a market by a bridge over the Isar River, and its name means "Home of the Monks." Today it is famous for its palaces, art museums, the huge Deutsches Museum and its autumn Oktoberfest.
• Watch City Nairobi Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, sits high in the highlands of East Africa. It began in the late 1890s as a railway camp beside a Maasai water hole called Enkare Nairobi, "Cold Water." Today it is one of the biggest cities in tropical Africa, with Nairobi National Park, full of wild animals, at its edge.
• Watch City New York City New York City sits where the Hudson River meets a great harbor on the Atlantic coast. It has been the largest city in the United States since 1790. About 8.8 million people lived in its five boroughs in 2020, among skyscrapers, bridges and parks.
• Watch City Oslo Oslo, the capital of Norway, lies at the head of the Oslo Fjord. It was founded about 1050, burned down in 1624 and was rebuilt under a new name, Christiania, before taking back the name Oslo in 1925. About 729,000 people lived there in 2026.
• Watch City Ottawa Ottawa is the capital of Canada. It stands where three rivers meet, beside the Ottawa River, which divides the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It began as a lumber town called Bytown, became the capital in 1857, and had 1,017,449 people at the 2021 census.
• Watch City Paris Paris is the capital of France. It grew from an island in the Seine River into a city of about 2.1 million people (2023), with the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, the Louvre and a subway that has run since 1900.
• Watch City Prague Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, lies on the Vltava River in the heart of Europe. With Prague Castle on its hill, the 14th-century Charles Bridge and so many church towers that it is called the 'City of a Hundred Spires', its historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. About 1.4 million people lived there in 2025.
• Watch City Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro is a city of about 6.7 million people (2025) on Brazil's Atlantic coast. Forested mountains, a giant statue on Corcovado, the Sugarloaf peak and famous beaches make it one of the most recognizable cities on Earth. It was Brazil's capital until 1960.