World Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The layer is the Thermosphere.

Radio waves are reflected by the ionosphere, the band of the upper atmosphere where the Sun's radiation ionises the thin air. Most of the ionosphere lies within the thermosphere (roughly 80 to 600 km up), which is why the thermosphere is the layer that makes long-distance short-wave radio communication possible.

The troposphere is where weather occurs, the stratosphere holds the ozone layer, and the mesosphere is where most meteors burn up. None of them reflects radio waves back to Earth to the same extent.

Answer: A

The world's largest delta is the Sunderbans delta.

The delta formed by the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers in India and Bangladesh, whose coastal part is the Sundarbans mangrove forest, is the largest river delta in the world, covering roughly 100,000 sq km.

The Nile delta is much smaller. The Amazon carries the most water of any river but does not build a delta of comparable size, and the Okavango delta in Botswana is an inland delta that drains into the Kalahari rather than the sea.

Answer: A

The Earth's closest approach to the Sun is called Perihelion.

The Earth's orbit is a slight ellipse. It is nearest the Sun at perihelion, around 3-4 January (about 147 million km), and farthest at aphelion, around 4 July (about 152 million km).

Solstices (about 21 June and 22 December) and equinoxes (about 21 March and 23 September) depend on the tilt of the Earth's axis, not its distance from the Sun.

Answer: D

The land of morning calm is South Korea.

The epithet comes from Joseon, the name of the Korean kingdom (1392-1910), often rendered as 'land of the morning calm' or 'land of morning freshness'. Today it is used for Korea, and in quizzes for South Korea.

Japan is known as the land of the rising sun. Indonesia and Malaysia do not carry this title.

Answer: C

Mount Kailash is in Tibet.

Kailash (6,638 m) stands in the Ngari region of south-western Tibet, now in China, near Lake Mansarovar. It is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Bon followers, and the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra reaches it through the Lipulekh pass in Uttarakhand or the Nathu La in Sikkim.

Uttarakhand and Sikkim are only the Indian routes to it, and Nepal provides another overland route. None of them contains the mountain.

Answer: C

The Dead Sea lies in a rift valley.

The Dead Sea occupies part of the Jordan Rift Valley, a long depression formed where the crust has been pulled apart along the Dead Sea Transform between the African and Arabian plates. The floor of the rift has sunk so low that the lake's surface is more than 400 m below sea level, the lowest land surface on earth.

A gorge is a narrow valley cut by a river, and an intermountain valley or plateau is a lowland or upland enclosed by mountain ranges. The Dead Sea basin is none of these: it is a down-faulted block between parallel faults, which is what a rift valley is.

Answer: C

The correct matching is a-3, b-1, c-2, d-4.

• Steppes: the temperate grasslands of Eurasia, especially Russia and Kazakhstan.
• Prairies: the temperate grasslands of North America, in the United States and Canada.
• Velds (printed 'Welds'): the temperate grasslands of South Africa.
• Downs: the temperate grasslands of Australia.

The other well-known names are the Pampas of Argentina and the Canterbury grasslands of New Zealand. Only the third option gives the Steppes to Russia and the Prairies to the USA.

Answer: C

The pair not correctly matched is Elbrus - Asia.

Mount Elbrus (about 5,642 m) is in the Caucasus range in Russia and is usually counted as the highest peak in Europe, not Asia.

The other pairs are correct: Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa (Tanzania), Mount McKinley (now officially Denali) the highest in North America (Alaska), and Aconcagua the highest in South America (Argentina).

Answer: D

The Marquette Range is famous for Iron ore.

The Marquette Iron Range, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan near Lake Superior, is one of the iron ranges of the Lake Superior region, along with the Mesabi range in Minnesota. Their ore was shipped across the Great Lakes to the steel centres of the United States.

The Lake Superior region is known for iron, not uranium or zinc, and although copper was mined on Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, the Marquette Range is an iron range.

Answer: A

The Gaza Strip lies on the Mediterranean Sea.

The Gaza Strip is a narrow coastal territory about 41 km long, bordered by Israel to the north and east, Egypt to the south-west, and the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the west.

The Red Sea lies to the south, beyond the Sinai Peninsula. The Black Sea is far to the north, between Turkey and Ukraine, and the Caspian Sea is an inland sea between Central Asia and the Caucasus.