I had a US colleague stay with me in Ireland for a week and he was asking if it was possible to catch a train to England. It’s amazing the geographic ignorance of some people and Americans seem to be especially afflicted. Maybe it’s because the USA is so big and large cities so far apart it doesn’t occur to them that Europe is not the same.

In their defense, I have no idea what the capital of Kentucky or Virginia is :/

this is starting to look like a conspiracy to make your largest city not the capital, lol

Usually this is because the capital doesn’t change over time while the relative size of cities often does, especially on the scale of a century or more.

That’s completely wrong. Many states moved their capital away from population centers on the coast into more geographically central locations inland. Other states deliberately planned their capitals to be in central locations when it was already clear where the population centers were going to be.

If anything the capital city only grows and becomes the population center. Population never drifts away from the capital.

Tell that to Albany, NY. Population is about 1.2% of NYC.

Or to Sacramento, CA which is the fourth largest city in the state.

Then there are states where the population doesn’t really concentrate like that, like WV. Biggest city is the capital, but that’s not saying much. That’s largely a result of the geography, where most of the state is forested mountains, with people wherever there’s a flat spot. It’s beautiful, but wildly impractical for large population centers. The only reason Charleston is still the biggest city is the three-way interstate junction that meets at it, and that’s thanks to Robert C Byrd using his influence to help his constituents.