World Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Estonia is a Baltic state, along with Latvia and Lithuania. All three lie on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea and regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria are Balkan countries in south-eastern Europe, on the other side of the continent.

Answer: B

The lowest point on the Earth's land surface is the shore of the Dead Sea, about 430 m below sea level.

Death Valley reaches only about 86 m below sea level. The Mariana Trench is far deeper but lies under the ocean, not on land.

Answer: B

Greenland is the world's largest island, covering about 2,166,000 km² - nearly three times the size of New Guinea, which is second.

Australia is larger still but is counted as a continent rather than an island.

Answer: C

A wind that reverses its direction with the seasons is a monsoon. The word comes from the Arabic mausim, season.

In summer the land heats faster than the sea, drawing moist air inland and bringing rain; in winter the flow reverses, blowing dry air out from the cooled interior.

Answer: A

New York is given here as the world's largest city by area, its metropolitan region covering some 8,700 km².

Rankings by area depend heavily on where the boundary is drawn - by population within the city limits, Tokyo and Delhi are far larger.

Answer: C

Africa was called the Dark Continent by 19th-century Europeans, whose maps left its interior blank long after its coasts had been charted.

The phrase records European ignorance of Africa rather than anything about the continent, and it has fallen out of use for that reason.

Answer: B

Antarctica surrounds the South Pole, lying almost entirely within the Antarctic Circle.

It is the coldest, driest and windiest continent, and the only one with no permanent human population - only research stations, occupied under the Antarctic Treaty of 1959.

Answer: B

Death Valley in California is famous as the hottest place on Earth. It recorded 56.7°C at Furnace Creek on 10 July 1913, the highest air temperature ever reliably measured.

It lies about 86 m below sea level, enclosed by mountains that trap and reheat the descending air.

Answer: C

A canyon is a large gorge - a deep, steep-sided valley cut by a river through resistant rock in a dry climate, where there is little weathering to widen the sides.

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado is 446 km long and up to 1,800 m deep.

Answer: C

Europe accounts for about 6.7 per cent of the world's land area, some 9.9 million km² out of about 149 million.

Only Australia holds a smaller share. Europe's importance has never been a matter of its size.