40 hard geography trivia questions (with answers)
Forty questions that catch out people who are good at geography. They're grouped by topic, and each answer is hidden until you open it, so you can use them for a quiz night, a classroom or on your own.
Keep score: 30 or more is excellent.
Borders and countries
1. Which two countries have the most land neighbours, with 14 each?
Answer
China and Russia.2. Which country is completely surrounded by South Africa?
Answer
Lesotho.3. Only two countries are "doubly landlocked": surrounded only by other landlocked countries. Name them.
Answer
Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan.4. Which two countries share the world's longest international border?
Answer
Canada and the United States, at nearly 8,900 km.5. Which country has the longest coastline?
Answer
Canada.6. What is the largest country in the world with no coastline?
Answer
Kazakhstan.7. Which US state is closest to Africa?
Answer
Maine. Its eastern tip is closer to Morocco than any point in Florida is.8. Which country has more ancient pyramids than Egypt?
Answer
Sudan, with around 200.9. Which country's national flag is not a rectangle?
Answer
Nepal. Its flag is two stacked pennants.10. Counting its overseas territories, which country covers the most time zones?
Answer
France, with 12.Capitals
11. What is the capital of Kazakhstan?
Answer
Astana. It was called Nur-Sultan from 2019 to 2022.12. What is the capital of Myanmar?
Answer
Naypyidaw, not Yangon.13. Which country has three capital cities?
Answer
South Africa: Pretoria (government), Cape Town (parliament) and Bloemfontein (courts).14. Which city is the highest seat of government in the world?
Answer
La Paz, Bolivia, at about 3,640 m. Bolivia's constitutional capital is Sucre.15. What is the capital of Nigeria?
Answer
Abuja. It replaced Lagos in 1991.16. Four capital cities stand on the Danube. Name them.
Answer
Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade.17. What is Sri Lanka's official capital?
Answer
Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte. Colombo is the largest city and commercial capital.18. What is the capital of Australia?
Answer
Canberra, not Sydney or Melbourne. It was built as a compromise between the two.19. Which is the world's southernmost national capital?
Answer
Wellington, New Zealand.20. What was Istanbul called before 1930?
Answer
Constantinople.Rivers, lakes and seas
21. Which river flows through the most countries?
Answer
The Danube, through 10.22. What is the longest river in Europe?
Answer
The Volga.23. What is the largest lake in the world by area?
Answer
The Caspian Sea. Despite the name, it's a lake: it has no outlet to the ocean.24. Which sea has no land coastline at all?
Answer
The Sargasso Sea, in the North Atlantic. Its edges are ocean currents.25. The Bosphorus links the Black Sea to which sea?
Answer
The Sea of Marmara, which in turn connects to the Aegean through the Dardanelles.26. Which strait separates Europe from Africa?
Answer
The Strait of Gibraltar.27. Which country has the most lakes?
Answer
Canada.28. Which major river crosses the equator twice?
Answer
The Congo.Mountains, deserts and islands
29. What is the world's largest island?
Answer
Greenland. Australia is counted as a continent.30. What is the largest hot desert in the world?
Answer
The Sahara. The largest desert of any kind is Antarctica.31. What is the longest mountain range on land?
Answer
The Andes, about 7,000 km long.32. Which continent has the most countries?
Answer
Africa, with 54.33. Mount Kilimanjaro is in which country?
Answer
Tanzania.34. Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside Asia, is in which country?
Answer
Argentina.35. Which country has the most islands?
Answer
Sweden, with over 260,000.Size records
36. What is the smallest country in South America?
Answer
Suriname.37. What is the largest country in Africa by area?
Answer
Algeria.38. What is Africa's smallest country?
Answer
Seychelles.39. Timbuktu is a real place. Which country is it in?
Answer
Mali.40. Which is larger by area: Greenland or Africa?
Answer
Africa, by about 14 times. Common world maps make Greenland look similar in size because of how they stretch areas near the poles.Want a new challenge every day?
Trivia tests whether you know a fact. TapGuessr tests whether you can find it: each day there are five clues about surprising places and famous sports venues, and you tap where each one is on a globe. The closer you land, the more you score (here's how scoring works).