UPPSC 2024 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 40 of 150

Correct — B, Khartoum – Ethiopia. Khartoum is the capital of Sudan, not of Ethiopia. It stands at al-Mogran, the point where the Blue Nile coming down from the Ethiopian highlands meets the White Nile flowing up from the Great Lakes region, and the united Nile turns north from there towards Egypt. Ethiopia's capital is Addis Ababa, founded in 1886 by Emperor Menelik II and today the headquarters of the African Union and of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. The pairing is tempting precisely because Ethiopia and Khartoum are genuinely linked by water rather than by government: the Blue Nile rises in Ethiopia's Lake Tana and carries most of the Nile's flow to Khartoum, and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam sits on that same river upstream of Sudan. One honest present-day note for a student reading this after the exam: Khartoum is still Sudan's constitutional capital, but since the civil war that broke out in April 2023 the government has largely operated from Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

• (a)Naypyidaw – Myanmar — Correctly matched, so it is not the answer — though it is the pair most likely to be mistrusted. Myanmar moved its seat of government from Yangon (Rangoon) to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw in November 2005, and Naypyidaw was formally proclaimed the capital in 2006. Yangon remains the largest city and the commercial centre, which is why many candidates still name it.
• (c)Dublin – Ireland — Correctly matched. Dublin, on the River Liffey, is the capital of the Republic of Ireland. The city sometimes confused with it is Belfast, which is the capital of Northern Ireland — a part of the United Kingdom, not of the Republic.
• (d)Ottawa – Canada — Correctly matched. Ottawa, in the province of Ontario on the Ottawa River, was selected as the capital by Queen Victoria in 1857 and remains so. Toronto is Canada's largest city and Montreal its historic commercial capital, but neither is the national capital — the classic 'largest city is not always the capital' trap.

A national capital is the seat of government, and it need not be the largest, oldest or most famous city of a country. Several states have deliberately built or shifted capitals away from their biggest cities — Brazil to Brasilia, Australia to Canberra, Nigeria to Abuja, Kazakhstan to Astana, Myanmar to Naypyidaw — usually for reasons of central location, security, or relieving pressure on a congested port city. A few countries split the function among more than one city, as South Africa does between Pretoria (executive), Cape Town (legislative) and Bloemfontein (judicial), and Bolivia between Sucre and La Paz.

'Not correctly matched' items are answered by verifying each pair rather than by hunting for the odd one out, because the wrong pair is often the one that reads most naturally. Here three pairs are textbook-safe and the fourth swaps two north-east African states whose stories overlap: Sudan, whose capital Khartoum sits where the two Niles meet, and Ethiopia, whose highlands give birth to the Blue Nile. Fixing the geography of the Nile fixes both capitals at once — Lake Tana and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, the confluence and Khartoum in Sudan, and the delta and Cairo in Egypt.

• Khartoum is the capital of Sudan, located at the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile; Ethiopia's capital is Addis Ababa, seat of the African Union and of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
• The Blue Nile rises at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and supplies the larger share of the Nile's water; the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is built on it, upstream of Sudan and Egypt.
• Naypyidaw became Myanmar's seat of government in November 2005 and was proclaimed the capital in 2006, replacing Yangon, which remains the largest city.
• Ottawa (Ontario) was chosen as Canada's capital by Queen Victoria in 1857; Dublin, on the Liffey, is the capital of the Republic of Ireland, while Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom.
• Through the 2023-25 war Khartoum is still Sudan's constitutional capital, but the government has functioned largely from Port Sudan since the conflict that began in April 2023.

• Swapping Khartoum and Addis Ababa because both belong to the Nile story — Khartoum is Sudanese, Addis Ababa Ethiopian.
• Answering (a) on the belief that Yangon is still Myanmar's capital; the capital moved to Naypyidaw in 2005-06.
• Assuming a country's biggest or best-known city is its capital — Toronto is not Canada's, Sydney is not Australia's, Istanbul is not Turkiye's.

UPPSC returns to 'which pair is NOT correctly matched' on world geography every cycle, cycling the second column through capitals, ports, lakes, straits, deserts and local winds; UPSC prefers to test the same knowledge indirectly, through river basins, boundary disputes or organisation headquarters.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The White Nile and the Blue Nile join each other at which of the following cities?

  • (a)Khartoum
  • (b)Juba
  • (c)Aswan
  • (d)Addis Ababa

  Answer(a) Khartoum — the Sudanese capital stands at the confluence, from where the united Nile flows north into Egypt.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Naypyidaw replaced which of the following as the capital of Myanmar?

  • (a)Yangon
  • (b)Mandalay
  • (c)Bago
  • (d)Sittwe

  Answer(a) Yangon — the seat of government shifted to the newly built Naypyidaw in November 2005, though Yangon is still the country's largest city.