Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
Without a lot of other examples (Australia, NZ, Canada, Brazil) many countries pick their largest or most distinguished city for the capital (or this happened so long ago that it's not really a matter of being picked by the country) yet by contrast, in the USA, many state capitals are not the largest or most distinguished city: Harrisburg, Bismarck, Tallahassee, Baton Rouge, Sacramento, Albany, Columbus, Tucson, Juneau, etc. One could arguably put Austin and Madison on the list too. Elsewhere, it's more common for provincial capitals to also be the largest and/or most distinguished city such as in Canada, France, Spain, Australia, etc. in general. Of course, Canberra, Brasilia, and (long ago) Washington were constructed for the purpose of becoming the capital, while Bonn was picked for political/geographical and anti historical reasons.
It is in part because the then Canadian provincial capitals were the largest and most distinguished cities that the settlement formerly known as Bytown was renamed and subsequently selected by Queen Victoria in 1857 to be the nation's capital. It was a compromise between Quebec City and Toronto. Ottawa was also considered a more defensible position in case those pesky Americans decided to invade again however after the butt kicking they received in the War of 1812 they instead turned their expansionist plans southward.