Ways to use this list
- Time zone challenge: spin a city and work out what time it is there right now, then whether people are asleep.
- Weather report: students look up today's temperature in their city and present it like a television forecaster.
- Story setting: spin a real city for a mystery, or a fantasy name for an adventure, and begin the first line there.
- Atlas race: two players spin and the first to find the city in an atlas or on a globe wins the round.
- Tabletop games: press Fantasy cities when the players wander somewhere you have not planned and you need a name fast.
Press Spin the wheel, tap the game or press the Space bar. Change the list in the box as you
like: add your own, delete what doesn't suit you, or write *2 after an entry to give it double the
chance. The game buttons switch the same list to a duck race, hat, claw machine and more.
The full list (93 entries)
- Tokyo – Japan
- Osaka – Japan
- Kyoto – Japan
- Seoul – South Korea
- Busan – South Korea
- Beijing – China
- Shanghai – China
- Hong Kong – China
- Guangzhou – China
- Delhi – India
- Mumbai – India
- Kolkata – India
- Chennai – India
- Bengaluru – India
- Karachi – Pakistan
- Lahore – Pakistan
- Dhaka – Bangladesh
- Kathmandu – Nepal
- Colombo – Sri Lanka
- Bangkok – Thailand
- Hanoi – Vietnam
- Ho Chi Minh City – Vietnam
- Singapore – Singapore
- Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia
- Jakarta – Indonesia
- Manila – Philippines
- Ulaanbaatar – Mongolia
- Dubai – United Arab Emirates
- Doha – Qatar
- Riyadh – Saudi Arabia
- Istanbul – Türkiye
- Tehran – Iran
- Almaty – Kazakhstan
- Tashkent – Uzbekistan
- Cairo – Egypt
- Lagos – Nigeria
- Kinshasa – Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Nairobi – Kenya
- Addis Ababa – Ethiopia
- Cape Town – South Africa
- Johannesburg – South Africa
- Casablanca – Morocco
- Marrakech – Morocco
- Accra – Ghana
- Dakar – Senegal
- Dar es Salaam – Tanzania
- Kampala – Uganda
- Tunis – Tunisia
- London – United Kingdom
- Paris – France
- Berlin – Germany
- Rome – Italy
- Madrid – Spain
- Barcelona – Spain
- Amsterdam – Netherlands
- Vienna – Austria
- Prague – Czechia
- Athens – Greece
- Lisbon – Portugal
- Stockholm – Sweden
- Moscow – Russia
- Warsaw – Poland
- Dublin – Ireland
- Reykjavík – Iceland
- New York City – United States
- Los Angeles – United States
- Chicago – United States
- San Francisco – United States
- Toronto – Canada
- Vancouver – Canada
- Montreal – Canada
- Mexico City – Mexico
- Havana – Cuba
- Panama City – Panama
- Guatemala City – Guatemala
- Kingston – Jamaica
- São Paulo – Brazil
- Rio de Janeiro – Brazil
- Buenos Aires – Argentina
- Lima – Peru
- Bogotá – Colombia
- Santiago – Chile
- Quito – Ecuador
- La Paz – Bolivia
- Montevideo – Uruguay
- Caracas – Venezuela
- Sydney – Australia
- Melbourne – Australia
- Perth – Australia
- Auckland – New Zealand
- Wellington – New Zealand
- Suva – Fiji
- Honolulu – United States
Questions people ask
Which cities are on the list?
Nearly a hundred of the world's best-known cities, chosen so every inhabited continent is well covered: capitals such as Nairobi and Seoul as well as big cities that are not capitals, like Mumbai, São Paulo and Sydney.
Can I get a random city in the US or Europe only?
Yes, each has its own page: the random US city generator and the random European city generator. Both have many more cities from their part of the world than this mixed list.
Where do the fantasy city names come from?
They are invented for this page from old-sounding English words such as mist, thorn, ember and briar, so they fit most fantasy worlds. Use them as they are, or swap halves between two names to make new ones.
Which is the biggest city in the world?
It depends on where you draw a city's edges. The latest United Nations estimates, from 2025, put Jakarta first, Dhaka second and Tokyo third, while older rankings that measured cities differently had Tokyo on top for decades.