World Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Africa is the second largest continent, covering about 30.1 million km².

Only Asia, at about 44.6 million km², is larger. North America follows at 24.3 million and South America at 17.8 million.

Answer: A

Deep oceanic trenches are produced by plate tectonics, specifically at subduction zones where one plate bends downwards beneath another. The Mariana Trench, nearly 11,000 m deep, is the deepest.

Sea-floor spreading is the complementary process at mid-ocean ridges, where crust is created rather than consumed, so it builds ridges rather than trenches.

Answer: A

All four are standard air-mass types. An air mass is labelled first by its moisture source - maritime (m) or continental (c) - and then by the latitude of its source region: tropical (T), polar (P) or arctic (A).

Combining the two gives mT, mP, mA and cP, together with cT and cA, so the option covering every listed type is correct.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The Tibetan Plateau

The Tibetan Plateau averages over 4,500 metres above sea level across an area of some 2.5 million square kilometres, which has earned it the name the Roof of the World. It is the highest and largest plateau on Earth. It was raised by the same collision that built the Himalaya: India driving into Asia thickened the crust to roughly twice its normal depth, lifting the whole region. Its influence on Asian climate is profound. It heats strongly in summer, and that heating helps drive the monsoon circulation; it also blocks cold northern air from reaching the subcontinent. Its glaciers and snowfields feed the Indus, Ganga, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, which is why it is called the Water Tower of Asia and why change there matters to billions of people. The Deccan is India’s own great plateau, formed of basalt lava flows, and the Colorado Plateau is the one the Grand Canyon is cut into.

Answer: B

A sidereal month is the time the Moon takes to complete one orbit of the Earth measured against a fixed star - about 27.3 days.

The synodic month, from one new moon to the next, is longer at about 29.5 days, because in the meantime the Earth has moved along its own orbit and the Moon must travel further to return to the same alignment with the Sun.

Answer: B

Havana is the capital and largest city of Cuba, on the north-west coast of the island facing the Straits of Florida.

Founded by the Spanish in 1519, its old quarter is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Answer: B

Correct answer: The Red Sea

The Suez Canal cuts across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt to join the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, and through it the Indian Ocean. Opened in 1869, it removed the need to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and cut the voyage from Europe to Asia by thousands of kilometres. It is a sea-level canal with no locks, since the two seas differ little in height - which is what makes it far simpler in engineering terms than the Panama Canal, where ships must be lifted over an isthmus. It was nationalised by Egypt in 1956, precipitating the Suez Crisis, and remains one of the busiest and most strategically significant waterways in the world; its blockage by a grounded container ship in 2021 disrupted global trade within days. The Black Sea is reached from the Mediterranean through the Dardanelles and Bosporus, and the Caspian is entirely landlocked.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The Dead Sea

The shore of the Dead Sea, on the border of Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, lies about 430 metres below sea level - the lowest exposed land on Earth, and still falling as the lake shrinks. It sits in the Jordan Rift Valley, part of the great system of faults running from Turkey to Mozambique where the Arabian and African plates are pulling apart. The basin has no outlet, so water leaves only by evaporation, which is why it is roughly ten times as salty as the ocean. Death Valley in California, at 86 metres below sea level, is the lowest point in North America; the Caspian Sea surface is about 28 metres below sea level; and Lake Eyre in Australia about 15 metres below. The lowest point of all is beneath the ocean, in the Mariana Trench, but that is not land.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Mars

Mars is the Red Planet, and the colour comes from iron oxide - rust - in the dust covering its surface. It is the fourth planet from the Sun and about half the Earth’s diameter. Its day is close to ours at 24 hours 37 minutes, and its axis is tilted by a similar amount, so it has seasons; but its atmosphere is thin and almost entirely carbon dioxide, and its average temperature is around −60°C. It carries the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, and the vast canyon system of Valles Marineris. Abundant evidence of ancient river valleys and lake beds shows that liquid water once flowed there, which is why it is the main focus of the search for past life. It has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, probably captured asteroids. India’s Mangalyaan reached Mars orbit in 2014 at the first attempt.

Answer: B

Correct answer: The Western and Eastern Ghats

The Deccan Plateau is flanked by the Western Ghats along the Arabian Sea and the Eastern Ghats along the Bay of Bengal, with the Satpura and Vindhya ranges marking its northern edge. The two are not alike. The Western Ghats are higher, continuous and close to the coast, and they intercept the southwest monsoon - which is why their windward slopes are among the wettest places in India while the plateau behind lies in a rain shadow. They are also a global biodiversity hotspot. The Eastern Ghats are lower, discontinuous, and broken by the deltas of the Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri, which cut through them on their way to the sea. The two meet in the south at the Nilgiri Hills. The plateau itself tilts gently eastward, which is why most of its rivers flow that way.