European Capitals Word Search

Find London, Paris, Rome and nine more capitals, then print the puzzle with its answer key.

Name Date

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 12 words found

EIINSTYRTAHCGEV

ANWOZGBCUHIUDEV

IAAPRYQRYTAHRUV

OHMHRTEEEMEPIFI

UASZMJFRPARISLE

YZTPLCYNKDUBLIN

QBERLINAHRBXSSN

FSRATHENSIHTVBA

NUDGLNZESDRNLOI

FSAUOSLONDONTNI

JYMEWRPUSFMAGON

IRHNNLIPYSEWGKI

GZEYNLNHEUOGSHR

TYBSLBTELDJTEPM

HTIDFSSEHKZAQYJ

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

LondonLONDON
ParisPARIS
RomeROME
MadridMADRID
BerlinBERLIN
AthensATHENS
DublinDUBLIN
ViennaVIENNA
LisbonLISBON
OsloOSLO
AmsterdamAMSTERDAM
PraguePRAGUE

12 words from the Well-Known European Capitals list.

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Easy: words go across and down.

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Word list

Large print Lower-case letters Name and date line on paper

The puzzle changes as you go. See the puzzle

Answer key: European Capitals Word Search

EIINSTYRTAHCGEV

ANWOZGBCUHIUDEV

IAAPRYQRYTAHRUV

OHMHRTEEEMEPIFI

UASZMJFRPARISLE

YZTPLCYNKDUBLIN

QBERLINAHRBXSSN

FSRATHENSIHTVBA

NUDGLNZESDRNLOI

FSAUOSLONDONTNI

JYMEWRPUSFMAGON

IRHNNLIPYSEWGKI

GZEYNLNHEUOGSHR

TYBSLBTELDJTEPM

HTIDFSSEHKZAQYJ

LONDON, PARIS, ROME, MADRID, BERLIN, ATHENS, DUBLIN, VIENNA, LISBON, OSLO, AMSTERDAM, PRAGUE

Next step Make a puzzle from your own list of cities Scramble the capitals for a second round

All 52 capitals

Capitals of Northern Europe 10

Copenhagen Capital of Denmark, on the island of Zealand.
Dublin Capital of Ireland, where the River Liffey meets the sea.
Helsinki Capital of Finland, on the Gulf of Finland.
London Capital of the United Kingdom, on the River Thames.
Oslo Capital of Norway, at the head of a fjord.
Reykjavik Capital of Iceland, on a bay in the far north Atlantic.
Riga Capital of Latvia, where the Daugava River meets the Baltic Sea.
Stockholm Capital of Sweden, built on islands where a lake meets the Baltic Sea.
Tallinn Capital of Estonia, on the Gulf of Finland.
Vilnius Capital of Lithuania, on the Neris River.

Capitals of Western Europe 9

Amsterdam Capital of the Netherlands, a city of canals.
Berlin Capital of Germany, on the Spree.
Bern Capital of Switzerland, in a loop of the Aare River.
Brussels Capital of Belgium; many offices of the European Union are here.
Luxembourg Capital of a small grand duchy that shares its name.
Monaco Tiny city-state on the Mediterranean coast, with France on every land side.
Paris Capital of France, on the Seine.
Vaduz Capital of Liechtenstein, on the Rhine.
Vienna Capital of Austria, on the Danube.

Show all 52 capitals (33 more)

Capitals of Southern Europe 15

Andorra la Vella Capital of a small country in the Pyrenees, between France and Spain.
Athens Capital of Greece, below the Acropolis.
Belgrade Capital of Serbia, where the Sava meets the Danube.
Lisbon Capital of Portugal, where the Tagus meets the sea.
Ljubljana Capital of Slovenia, with a castle on a hill above the old town.
Madrid Capital of Spain, in the middle of the country.
Podgorica Capital of Montenegro, where the Ribnica meets the Morača.
Rome Capital of Italy, on the Tiber.
San Marino Capital of a tiny republic of the same name, ringed by Italy.
Sarajevo Capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a valley of the Dinaric Alps.
Skopje Capital of North Macedonia, on the Vardar.
Tirana Capital of Albania.
Valletta Capital of Malta, on a peninsula between two harbors.
Vatican City Smallest country in the world, an enclave inside Rome.
Zagreb Capital of Croatia, on the Sava.

Capitals of Eastern Europe 10

Bratislava Capital of Slovakia, on the Danube beside the borders of Austria and Hungary.
Bucharest Capital of Romania, on the Dâmbovița River.
Budapest Capital of Hungary, on both banks of the Danube.
Chisinau Capital of Moldova, on the Bîc River.
Kyiv Capital of Ukraine, on the Dnieper.
Minsk Capital of Belarus, on the Svislach River.
Moscow Capital of Russia, on the Moskva River.
Prague Capital of the Czech Republic, also called Czechia, on the Vltava.
Sofia Capital of Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha.
Warsaw Capital of Poland, on the Vistula.

More European Capitals 8

Ankara Capital of Turkey, a country that lies partly in Europe.
Baku Capital of Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea.
Belfast Capital of Northern Ireland.
Cardiff Capital of Wales.
Edinburgh Capital of Scotland, with a castle on a rock.
Nicosia Capital of Cyprus, an island in the eastern Mediterranean.
Tbilisi Capital of Georgia, in the Caucasus.
Yerevan Capital of Armenia, in the Caucasus.

How this list was compiled: Own work. The capital cities of Europe for a classroom puzzle: 44 capitals in four regional lists (Northern, Western, Southern and Eastern Europe, grouped as the United Nations geoscheme groups their countries), a list of the four capitals on the Danube, eight more capitals at the edge of that list (Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast in the United Kingdom; Nicosia, Ankara, Tbilisi, Yerevan and Baku), a starter list of 12 well-known capitals, an easy list of every name of 3 to 5 letters and a hard list of every name of 8 letters or more. The grid keeps only the letters A to Z, so Andorra la Vella is hidden as ANDORRALAVELLA and Reykjavík as REYKJAVIK. Each clue names the country; no clue repeats a word of four letters or more from its own entry. Every capital was checked on 13 October 2026 against the U.S. Department of State list Independent States in the World (https://www.state.gov/independent-states-in-the-world/) and against the English Wikipedia article of the city and Wikipedia's List of national capitals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_capitals, license CC BY-SA 4.0). Rivers, seas and hills in the clues follow the city's own article. The regions follow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme; that grouping has no entry for Kosovo, so Pristina is not listed. Vatican City as the smallest state was also checked in Store norske leksikon (https://snl.no/Vatikanstaten). An educational puzzle: check an official source before you rely on a fact. Licence: own work

How it works

This European capitals word search opens on 12 capitals most pupils know, from Madrid and Berlin to Athens, Dublin and Oslo. Four more lists split 44 capitals by region, each with a one-line clue.

Read the full guide

Capitals by region: north, west, south, east

The regional lists follow the United Nations grouping of European countries: 10 capitals in the north, Reykjavik to Vilnius, 9 in the west, 15 in the south and 10 in the east. That grouping puts London and Dublin in the north and Prague and Budapest in the east.

Four capitals on one river

Capitals on the Danube is a four-word puzzle: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade, in the order the river reaches them. Open More options and tick Show clues, not words, and any list becomes a quiz: "Capital of Latvia, where the Daugava River meets the Baltic Sea."

Easy European Capitals has the ten names of 3 to 5 letters: Rome, Oslo, Riga, Bern, Kyiv, Paris, Sofia, Minsk, Vaduz and Baku.
Hard European Capitals has the 20 names of 8 letters or more, such as Ljubljana, Reykjavik, Bratislava and Podgorica; each puzzle draws 15 of them.

Questions and answers

Is there an answer key for the European capitals word search?

Yes. Print or save as PDF gives the puzzle with a Name and Date line, and the answer key follows on a page of its own. New puzzle hides the same capitals in new places, so neighbors get different grids.

How many European capitals are in the lists?

52. The four regional lists hold 44, one for each sovereign state in the United Nations grouping of Europe. More European Capitals adds eight: Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, and five from Europe's southeastern edge.

Is it Kyiv or Kiev in the grid?

Kyiv, the spelling on the U.S. Department of State list of independent states. The same list gives Chisinau for Moldova's capital, and the clue for Prague names both the Czech Republic and Czechia.

Why is Istanbul not among the European capitals?

Because the capital of Turkey is Ankara, which is in More European Capitals with Nicosia, Tbilisi, Yerevan and Baku. Big cities that are not capitals are left out: Switzerland's entry is Bern and Spain's is Madrid.

All 52 capitals

Capitals of Northern Europe 10

Capitals of Western Europe 9

Capitals of Southern Europe 15

Capitals of Eastern Europe 10

More European Capitals 8

How it works

Capitals by region: north, west, south, east

Four capitals on one river

Questions and answers

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