The seat of government is (as defined by Brewer's Politics) "the building, complex of buildings or the city from which a government exercises its authority".[1]

In most countries, the nation's capital is also seat of its government, thus that city is appropriately referred to as the national seat of government. The terms are not however, completely synonymous, as some countries' seat of government differs from the capital. The Netherlands, for example, has Amsterdam as its capital but The Hague is the seat of government; and the Philippines, with Manila as its capital but the metropolitan area of the same name (Metro Manila; also known as National Capital Region (NCR)), is the seat of government.

Local seats of government

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Local and regional authorities usually have a seat, called an administrative centre, as well. Terms for seats of local government of various levels and in various countries include:

Buildings as seats of government

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Examples of seats of government include:

List of seats of country government which are not country capitals

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There are several countries where, for various reasons, the official capital and de facto seat of government are separated:

Countries with no official capital

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Historical examples

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Comfort, N. (1993) Brewer's Politics. A phrase and fable dictionary. London: Cassell.
  2. ^ "The Parliament of Swaziland" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Accessed 7 April 2014.
  3. ^ Leonard, T. M. (2005). Encyclopedia of the Developing World. Routledge. pp.1083. ISBN 978-1-57958-388-0
  4. ^ Jonnard, M. Jonnard Claude M.; Jonnard, Claude M. (November 2009). Islands in the Wind: The Political Economy of the English East Caribbean. iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-4401-9426-9.
  5. ^ "The Administrative Capital of Sri Lanka since 1982 is Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte". Official Sri Lanka government website. Archived from the original on 20 December 2014. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  6. ^ "This Tanzanian city may soon be one of the world's most populous. Is it ready?". Environment. 5 April 2019. Archived from the original on 8 April 2019. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  7. ^ Constituencies of Nauru (naurugov.nr)
  8. ^ "Yaren | district, Nauru". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  9. ^ "Since the implementation of the Act Governing Principles for Editing Geographical Educational Texts (地理敎科書編審原則) in 1997, the guiding principle for all maps in geographical textbooks was that Taipei was to be marked as the capital with a label stating: "Location of the Central Government"". 4 December 2013. Archived from the original on 1 November 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  10. ^ "Interior minister reaffirms Taipei is ROC's capital". Taipei Times. 5 December 2013. Retrieved 7 December 2013.