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Which country has three capital cities?
Pretoria is the executive capital, Cape Town the legislative and Bloemfontein the judicial.
South Africa divides its national government across three cities, a compromise that dates to the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. Pretoria hosts the executive branch, with the president's offices and most ministries; Cape Town hosts the Parliament; and Bloemfontein hosts the Supreme Court of Appeal, which is the judicial capital. The arrangement reflected rivalry between the former British colonies and Boer republics that joined the Union.
A nuance is that the Constitutional Court, the highest court for constitutional matters, sits in Johannesburg, not Bloemfontein, so 'judicial capital' refers specifically to the Supreme Court of Appeal. Government and press commonly list Pretoria as the main seat because it is where the head of state works.
South Africa is often named as the clearest example of a country with three capitals, though a few other countries split capital functions across cities, including Bolivia, where Sucre is the constitutional capital and La Paz the seat of government, and the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is the capital but the government sits in The Hague. Lists differ on how to count such arrangements, so the number of 'multi-capital' countries depends on definition. The country's official languages number eleven, which adds to the sense that its institutions were built as compromises.