[pacaro]

I have no idea about Beijing or Moscow, but Paris, Berlin, and London were all located on swamps/marshes.

[thriftwy]

Moscow region is swampy all right. And I've heard that Washington DC (being an artificial capital) is located on a swamp too.

I think the reason is simple, "Braindead" style. It's just that lizard folk prefer the marshes, so that's where we have to be.

[thaumasiotes]

The reason is simple. Swamps are commercially strategic, since they're located on rivers.

For most of history, shipping goods over land didn't make much sense.

[pacaro]

This makes perfect sense, I guess they are swamps because that's the combination of rivers and flat ground

[thriftwy]

We would have Berlin on Rhine and Moscow on Volga river then. Much better climate and much busier rivers commercially.

For some reason, capitals tend to be on undesirable rivers.

[Piskvorrr]

...if this was the only condition for "what city becomes a capital." Looking at Germany, there's Hamburg, Köln, München...all on nice rivers, but none of them were the capital of Prussia when Germany was first unified - since Prussia was the essential driver of that political process, Berlin became the capital. Something of a coincidence in the grand scheme of things, really.

[thriftwy]

For some reason, it's usually a faraway landlocked province that triggers unification. Not the rich and coastal ones.

Turin-Savoy in Italy, Prussia in Germany.

[FiveDegrees]

Hence the "Drain the swamp" political rhetoric of the last US election cycle.

[hx87]

FWIW, Berlin and Moscow both mean "Swamp Town".

[tmnvix]

Canberra also.

[vidarh]

Beijing has multiple rivers traversing the current municipal area, and they were dammed and directed into channels, or directed underground as the city grew (same for London, by the way - London has multiple historical rivers that are now entirely or almost entirely underground, not just the Thames)

[dehue]

Moscow is located on a big river that used to be a major trade route.