<P> With the rise of modern empires and the nation - state, the capital city has become a symbol for the state and its government, and imbued with political meaning . Unlike medieval capitals, which were declared wherever a monarch held his or her court, the selection, relocation, founding, or capture of a modern capital city is an emotional event . For example: </P> <Ul> <Li> The ruined and almost uninhabited Athens was made capital of newly independent Greece in 1834, four years after the country gained its independence, with the romantic notion of reviving the glory of Ancient Greece . Similarly, following the Cold War and German reunification, Berlin is now once again the capital of Germany . Other restored capital cities include Moscow after the October Revolution . </Li> <Li> A symbolic relocation of a capital city to a geographically or demographically peripheral location may be for either economic or strategic reasons (sometimes known as a forward capital or spearhead capital). Peter the Great moved his government from Moscow to Saint Petersburg to give the Russian Empire a western orientation . The economically significant city of Nafplion became the first capital of Greece, when Athens was an unimportant village . The Ming emperors moved their capital to Peking from the more central Nanking to help supervise the border with the Mongols . During the 1857 rebellion, Indian rebels considered Delhi their capital, and Bahadur Shah Zafar was proclaimed emperor, but the ruling British had their capital in Calcutta . In 1877, the British formally held a' Durbar' in Delhi, proclaiming Queen Victoria as' Empress of India' . Delhi finally became the colonial capital after the Coronation Durbar of King - Emperor George V in 1911, continuing as independent India's capital from 1947 . Other examples include Abuja, Astana, Brasília, Helsinki, Islamabad, Naypyidaw and Yamoussoukro . </Li> <Li> The selection or founding of a "neutral" capital city, one unencumbered by regional or political identities, was meant to represent the unity of a new state when Ankara, Turkey; Bern, Switzerland; Canberra, Australia; Madrid; Ottawa; Washington, D.C.; and Wellington, New Zealand became capital cities . Sometimes, the location of a new capital city was chosen to terminate squabbling or possible squabbling between various entities, such as in the cases of Canberra, Ottawa, Washington, and Wellington . </Li> <Li> The British - built town of New Delhi represented a simultaneous break and continuity with the past, the location of Delhi being where many imperial capitals were built (Indraprastha, Dhillika, and Shahjahanabad) but the actual capital being the new British - built town designed by Edwin Lutyens . Wellington, on the southwestern tip of the North Island of New Zealand, replaced the much more northerly city of Auckland in to place the national capital close to the South Island and hence to placate its residents, many of whom sympathies with separatism . </Li> <Li> During the American Civil War, tremendous resources were expended to defend Washington, D.C., which actually bordered on the Confederate States of America (with the Commonwealth of Virginia), from Confederate attack even though the relatively small federal government could easily have been moved elsewhere . Likewise, great resources were expended by the Confederacy in defending the Confederate capital from attack by the Union, in its exposed location of Richmond, Virginia, barely 100 miles (160 km) south of Washington . </Li> </Ul> <Li> The ruined and almost uninhabited Athens was made capital of newly independent Greece in 1834, four years after the country gained its independence, with the romantic notion of reviving the glory of Ancient Greece . Similarly, following the Cold War and German reunification, Berlin is now once again the capital of Germany . Other restored capital cities include Moscow after the October Revolution . </Li> <Li> A symbolic relocation of a capital city to a geographically or demographically peripheral location may be for either economic or strategic reasons (sometimes known as a forward capital or spearhead capital). Peter the Great moved his government from Moscow to Saint Petersburg to give the Russian Empire a western orientation . The economically significant city of Nafplion became the first capital of Greece, when Athens was an unimportant village . The Ming emperors moved their capital to Peking from the more central Nanking to help supervise the border with the Mongols . During the 1857 rebellion, Indian rebels considered Delhi their capital, and Bahadur Shah Zafar was proclaimed emperor, but the ruling British had their capital in Calcutta . In 1877, the British formally held a' Durbar' in Delhi, proclaiming Queen Victoria as' Empress of India' . Delhi finally became the colonial capital after the Coronation Durbar of King - Emperor George V in 1911, continuing as independent India's capital from 1947 . Other examples include Abuja, Astana, Brasília, Helsinki, Islamabad, Naypyidaw and Yamoussoukro . </Li>

What land did the constitution set aside for the national capital city