Geography Trivia

From the quiz above, easy to hard in each topic: for a class, a quiz night or a car trip. The answer is under each question.

1. Which river flows through Egypt?Answer: The Nile. The Nile flows north through Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean.
2. Which river flows through London?Answer: The Thames. The Thames runs through London and out to the North Sea.
3. Which river flows through Paris?Answer: The Seine. The Seine flows through Paris to the English Channel.
4. Most of the Amazon River flows through which country?Answer: Brazil. It rises in the Peruvian Andes, but most of its length is in Brazil.
5. Which is the longest river in Africa?Answer: The Nile. The Nile is about 6,650 km long.
6. Which river flows through Rome?Answer: The Tiber. The Tiber runs through Rome to the Tyrrhenian Sea.
7. Which is the deepest lake in the world?Answer: Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal, in Siberia, is about 1,640 m deep.
8. Which is the largest lake in the world by area?Answer: The Caspian Sea. Despite its name, the Caspian Sea is a lake, bordered by five countries.
9. Varanasi, one of India's holiest cities, stands on which river?Answer: The Ganges. Pilgrims bathe in the Ganges from Varanasi's riverside steps, the ghats.
10. Which is the longest river in Asia?Answer: The Yangtze. The Yangtze is about 6,300 km long and flows only through China.
11. Which river flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam?Answer: The Mekong. The Mekong rises on the Tibetan Plateau and ends in a delta in southern Vietnam.
12. Which river carries more water than any other?Answer: The Amazon. The Amazon carries about a fifth of all the fresh water that rivers pour into the oceans.
13. Which is the deepest river in the world?Answer: The Congo. Parts of the lower Congo are more than 220 m deep.
14. Lake Tanganyika is shared by Tanzania, DR Congo, Zambia and which other country?Answer: Burundi. It is the longest freshwater lake in the world, about 670 km from end to end.
15. Where does the Okavango River end?Answer: In a delta in the Kalahari Desert. It never reaches the sea: it spreads out and evaporates in Botswana's Okavango Delta.
16. Which is the highest mountain in the world?Answer: Mount Everest. Everest is 8,849 m above sea level, on the border of Nepal and China.
17. Mount Everest is in which mountain range?Answer: The Himalayas. Nine of the world's ten highest mountains are in the Himalayas; K2 is in the nearby Karakoram.
18. Which is the highest mountain in Africa?Answer: Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, rises 5,895 m.
19. Along which side of South America do the Andes run?Answer: The west. The Andes follow the Pacific coast from Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego.
20. Which mountain range in Russia is traditionally the boundary between Europe and Asia?Answer: The Ural Mountains. The Urals run about 2,500 km from the Arctic Ocean to Kazakhstan.
21. Mont Blanc is in which mountain range?Answer: The Alps. At about 4,806 m it is the highest mountain in the Alps.
22. Which is the second-highest mountain in the world?Answer: K2. K2 is 8,611 m high and far harder to climb than Everest.
23. K2 stands on the border of Pakistan and which country?Answer: China. It is in the Karakoram range.
24. Which is the highest mountain in South America?Answer: Aconcagua. Aconcagua, in Argentina, rises about 6,960 m.
25. Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, is in which country?Answer: Argentina. It stands near the Chilean border, west of Mendoza.
26. Mount Elbrus, often called Europe's highest mountain, is in which range?Answer: The Caucasus. Elbrus, a dormant volcano in Russia, rises 5,642 m.
27. Measured from its base on the ocean floor, which mountain is the tallest on Earth?Answer: Mauna Kea. Mauna Kea in Hawaii rises about 10,000 m from the sea floor, though only 4,207 m above the sea.
28. Which mountain's summit is the farthest point on Earth from the planet's centre?Answer: Chimborazo. The Earth bulges at the Equator, so Chimborazo in Ecuador sticks out the farthest.
29. How many mountains in the world are higher than 8,000 m?Answer: 14. All 14 are in the Himalayas and the Karakoram.
30. K2 is in which mountain range?Answer: The Karakoram. The Karakoram also holds the Baltoro Glacier and four of the 8,000 m peaks.
31. Which is the largest hot desert in the world?Answer: The Sahara. The Sahara covers about 9 million km² of North Africa.
32. The Gobi Desert is in China and which other country?Answer: Mongolia. The Gobi is a cold desert, with snow in winter.
33. Counting cold deserts, which is the largest desert in the world?Answer: Antarctica. A desert is a place with very little rain or snow; Antarctica gets almost none.
34. The Sahara is on which continent?Answer: Africa. It stretches from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.
35. The Atacama Desert lies mostly in which country?Answer: Chile. It runs along northern Chile's Pacific coast.
36. Which desert covers much of Botswana?Answer: The Kalahari. The Kalahari is a semi-desert with grass and thorn bushes.
37. Which is the driest desert outside the polar regions?Answer: The Atacama. Some weather stations in the Atacama have never recorded rain.
38. Which desert is thought to be the oldest in the world?Answer: The Namib. The Namib, on the coast of Namibia, has been dry for tens of millions of years.
39. The highest air temperature ever recorded, 56.7 °C, was measured where?Answer: Death Valley. It was recorded at Furnace Creek in July 1913.
40. The lowest air temperature ever recorded, −89.2 °C, was measured at which research station?Answer: Vostok Station, Antarctica. Vostok sits on the high ice sheet of East Antarctica.
41. Oymyakon, often called the coldest inhabited place, is in which country?Answer: Russia. Winter temperatures in this Siberian village have dropped below −67 °C.
42. Which is Australia's largest desert?Answer: The Great Victoria Desert. It stretches across Western and South Australia.
43. Which is the largest desert in the Americas?Answer: The Patagonian Desert. It covers much of southern Argentina, in the rain shadow of the Andes.
44. What does "Sahara" mean in Arabic?Answer: Desert. So "Sahara Desert" really means "Desert Desert".
45. The Danakil Depression, one of the hottest places on Earth, is mostly in which country?Answer: Ethiopia. Its average yearly temperature is about 35 °C.
46. Which is the largest country in the world by area?Answer: Russia. Russia covers about 17 million km², about 11% of the world's land.
47. Which country has the most people?Answer: India. India passed China in 2023, with more than 1.4 billion people.
48. Which is the smallest country in the world?Answer: Vatican City. It covers less than half a square kilometre, inside Rome.
49. Which two countries share the longest border in the world?Answer: Canada and the United States. Their border, counting Alaska, is nearly 8,900 km long.
50. How many countries make up the United Kingdom?Answer: Four. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
51. Which country is shaped like a boot?Answer: Italy. Sicily looks like a ball at the toe of the boot.
52. China and which other country have the most neighbours, 14 each?Answer: Russia. Russia's neighbours run from Norway to North Korea.
53. Which African country has coasts on both the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean?Answer: South Africa. The two oceans are usually said to meet at Cape Agulhas.
54. Which two South American countries have no coastline?Answer: Bolivia and Paraguay. Bolivia lost its coast to Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879–1884).
55. Which is the largest landlocked country?Answer: Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the ninth-largest country in the world.
56. Which country has the longest coastline?Answer: Canada. Canada's Arctic islands give it over 200,000 km of coast.
57. Which is the only country whose flag is not a rectangle or a square?Answer: Nepal. Nepal's flag is two stacked pennants.
58. Liechtenstein and which other country are the only doubly landlocked countries?Answer: Uzbekistan. Doubly landlocked means every neighbour is landlocked too.
59. Which country is crossed by both the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn?Answer: Brazil. The Equator crosses Brazil near the Amazon's mouth, the Tropic near São Paulo.
60. Which is the largest country made up entirely of islands?Answer: Indonesia. Indonesia has more than 17,000 islands.
61. What is the capital of Canada?Answer: Ottawa. Ottawa was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1857, partly as a compromise between English and French Canada.
62. What is the capital of Australia?Answer: Canberra. Canberra was built as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne.
63. Which city is nicknamed "the Big Apple"?Answer: New York. The nickname was popularised by jazz musicians and a 1970s tourism campaign.
64. What is the capital of Japan?Answer: Tokyo. Tokyo was called Edo until 1868.
65. Which city has the Eiffel Tower?Answer: Paris. It was built for the 1889 World's Fair.
66. What is the capital of Brazil?Answer: Brasília. Brasília was built from scratch and became the capital in 1960.
67. What is the capital of Nigeria?Answer: Abuja. Abuja replaced Lagos as the capital in 1991.
68. La Paz, the highest seat of government in the world, is in which country?Answer: Bolivia. It lies at about 3,600 m; Bolivia's constitutional capital is Sucre.
69. What is the capital of New Zealand?Answer: Wellington. Wellington is the southernmost capital of any country.
70. Which is the northernmost capital of a sovereign country?Answer: Reykjavík. Iceland's capital lies at about 64°N.
71. Which city was Japan's capital for more than 1,000 years before Tokyo?Answer: Kyoto. Kyoto was the imperial capital from 794 to 1868.
72. What is the capital of Bhutan?Answer: Thimphu. Thimphu is one of the few capitals with no traffic lights.
73. The ancient city of Petra is in which country?Answer: Jordan. The Nabataeans carved it into rose-red sandstone cliffs.
74. In which city is the Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam?Answer: Mecca. Mecca is in western Saudi Arabia.
75. What is the capital of Ontario, Canada's most populous province?Answer: Toronto. Ottawa is in Ontario too, but it is the national capital.
76. Which is the largest ocean?Answer: The Pacific. The Pacific covers about a third of the Earth's surface.
77. Which ocean lies between Africa and Australia?Answer: The Indian Ocean. It is the warmest of the oceans.
78. Which is the smallest ocean?Answer: The Arctic Ocean. Much of it is covered by sea ice.
79. Which ocean lies between Europe and North America?Answer: The Atlantic. The first non-stop flight across it was in 1919.
80. Which is the largest island in the world?Answer: Greenland. Australia is bigger, but it counts as a continent.
81. The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean with which sea?Answer: The Red Sea. It opened in 1869 and saves ships the long trip around Africa.
82. What is the deepest known point in the oceans?Answer: The Challenger Deep. It is about 10,900 m deep, in the Mariana Trench.
83. The Mariana Trench is in which ocean?Answer: The Pacific. It lies east of the Mariana Islands, near Guam.
84. Which is the second-largest island in the world?Answer: New Guinea. It is shared by Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
85. Which strait separates Asia from North America?Answer: The Bering Strait. It is about 82 km wide between Russia and Alaska.
86. The Great Barrier Reef lies off which Australian state?Answer: Queensland. It is the largest coral reef system on Earth.
87. Which sea has no coastline at all?Answer: The Sargasso Sea. It is defined by ocean currents in the North Atlantic, not by land.
88. Which ocean is the deepest on average?Answer: The Pacific. Its average depth is about 4,000 m.
89. Which strait separates Australia from New Guinea?Answer: The Torres Strait. It is dotted with small islands, most of them Australian.
90. The Bass Strait separates mainland Australia from which island?Answer: Tasmania. It is about 240 km wide.
91. Which is the largest continent?Answer: Asia. Asia covers about 30% of the world's land.
92. Which is the smallest continent by area?Answer: Australia. With the Pacific islands it is often called Oceania.
93. Where is the lowest point on land?Answer: The shore of the Dead Sea. It is more than 400 m below sea level.
94. How many continents are there, as most English-speaking schools count them?Answer: Seven. Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.
95. Which continent has the most countries?Answer: Africa. Africa has 54 countries.
96. Which is the largest rainforest in the world?Answer: The Amazon. The Amazon covers more than 5 million km².
97. Which is the largest country entirely in Europe?Answer: Ukraine. Russia is bigger, but most of it is in Asia.
98. Which country is the most densely populated?Answer: Monaco. Monaco packs almost 40,000 people into 2 km².
99. Which country has the fewest people?Answer: Vatican City. About 800 people live there.
100. Which is the longest railway line in the world?Answer: The Trans-Siberian Railway. It runs about 9,300 km from Moscow to Vladivostok.