World Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Africa accounts for about 20.3 per cent of the world's land area, roughly 30.1 million km².

Only Asia's share is larger. Africa is also the only continent crossed by both tropics and the equator.

Answer: A

Antarctica accounts for about 8.2 per cent of the world's land area, some 13.2 million km².

That makes it the fifth largest continent, larger than both Europe and Australia, though almost all of it is buried under ice.

Answer: A

The total surface area of the Earth is about 510.94 million km².

Of that, about 361 million km² is ocean and about 149 million km² is land - a split of roughly 71 to 29 per cent.

Answer: A

North America covers about 24,256,000 km², making it the third largest continent.

It stretches from the Arctic islands of Canada to the Isthmus of Panama, and includes Greenland, the world's largest island.

Answer: C

The Aral Sea lies in Central Asia, between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Once the fourth largest lake in the world, it has shrunk to a fraction of its size since the 1960s, when the Amu Darya and Syr Darya that fed it were diverted to irrigate cotton.

Answer: B

The Pacific is the largest ocean, covering about 165 million km² - about a third of the Earth's surface, and more than the Atlantic and Indian oceans together.

It also holds the deepest point on the planet, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.

Answer: B

Australia covers about 7,687,000 km², making it the smallest continent and the sixth largest country.

It is also the flattest and, after Antarctica, the driest, with about 70 per cent of it arid or semi-arid.

Answer: C

Rain produced by mountains is orographic rainfall. Moist air forced to rise over a range cools as it expands, its water vapour condenses, and rain falls on the windward slope.

The descending air on the far side warms and dries, which is why a rain shadow lies behind every such range.

Answer: C

The regions within the polar circles, around the North and South Poles, form the frigid zones. They lie poleward of 66½° in each hemisphere.

The Sun there never rises far above the horizon, and for part of the year does not rise or does not set at all. Between the tropics is the torrid zone, and between the two lie the temperate zones.

Answer: B

Asia covers about 44,579,000 km², making it by far the largest continent - roughly 30 per cent of the world's land.

It holds both the highest point on Earth, Everest, and the lowest land point, the shore of the Dead Sea.