So How Well Do You Really Know Africa? QUIZ
Think you know Africa? Think again. Our continent holds a fascinating range of histories, languages, amazing people, and diverse and complex cultures. From Algeria to Zimbabwe, here’s a quick quiz to test how much of Africa you know. (Click on the answer you think is correct, and the right answer will appear below. You can Google, […]
Think you know Africa? Think again. Our continent holds a fascinating range of histories, languages, amazing people, and diverse and complex cultures. From Algeria to Zimbabwe, here’s a quick quiz to test how much of Africa you know. (Click on the answer you think is correct, and the right answer will appear below. You can Google, but it’s more fun to do it solo.)
1. How many countries are there in Africa?
[spoiler title="47, 53 or 54."]53[/spoiler]2. What is the capital of Angola?
[spoiler title="Lusaka, Luanda or Lobito."]Luanda[/spoiler]3. Where is the largest film festival in Africa held every second year?
[spoiler title="Ouagadougou, Nairobi, Johannesburg."]Ouagadougou[/spoiler]4. Where is the Grand Mosque of Bobo-Dioulasso, seen below?
[spoiler title="Mali, Gambia or Burkina Faso."]Burkina Faso[/spoiler]
5. Lake Tanganyika is the 1) longest 2) deepest 3) biggest freshwater lake in the world?
[spoiler title="a) 1 and 2 b) 1 and 3 3) 1 4) None of the above."]Longest[/spoiler]6. Which of these countries does NOT border on Lake Tanganyika:
[spoiler title="Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi."]Rwanda[/spoiler]7. What is the capital of Cameroon?
[spoiler title="Yaoundé, Douala or N'djamena."]Yaoundé[/spoiler]8. From 2001 to 2010, this country had the fastest-growing economy in the world.
[spoiler title=" Angola, Botswana, Ghana."]Angola[/spoiler]9. The population of Cape Verde equals the number of islanders who have emigrated.
[spoiler title=" Is it 150,000, 500,000 or 1 million."]500,000[/spoiler]10. The official language of Botswana is
[spoiler title="English, Setswana or both."]both[/spoiler]11. The country in red on the map below is
[spoiler title=" Cameroon, Central African Republic or Republic of Congo."]Central African Republic[/spoiler]
12. Atrocities and forced labour during the exploitation of the Congo (now the DRC) by King Leopold II of Belgium from 1885 to 1908 led to the death of how many people?
[spoiler title="500,000, 1 million or 10 million."]10 million[/spoiler]13. British actor Richard E Grant, who has appeared in “Withnail and I”, “Corpse Bride” and “Downton Abbey” comes from
[spoiler title="South Africa, Malawi, Swaziland."]Swaziland[/spoiler]14. World-famous physician and Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer administered a hospital he established in the town of Lambaréné in 1913. Which country was it in?
[spoiler title="Gabon, Equatorial Guinea or Guinea-Bissau."]Gabon[/spoiler]15. In which country can you still travel on a train, like the man in the picture below, that runs on a 19th-century track going through 20 tunnels and crossing 65 bridges?
[spoiler title="Algeria, Eritrea or Ethiopia."]Eritrea[/spoiler]
16. What is Ethiopia’s official language?
[spoiler title="English, Amharic or Coptic."]Amharic[/spoiler]17. The Republic of Congo’s main export is
[spoiler title="manganese, tropical fruit, oil."]oil[/spoiler]18. Neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo’s main export is
[spoiler title="oil, manganese or copper."]copper[/spoiler]19. Which country has land fronting on an ocean?
[spoiler title=" Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Chad or none of them."]Democratic Republic of Congo[/spoiler]20. The official language of Chad is
[spoiler title="1) Arabic, 2) English, 3) French, 4) English and Arabic or 5) French and Arabic."]French and Arabic[/spoiler]21.Which capital city is in the picture below?
[spoiler title="Abidjan, Lagos or Libreville."]Abidjan[/spoiler]
22. Notorious French mercenary Bob Denard was complicit in the attempted overthrow of the Comoro Islands, northwest of Madagascar, how many times?
[spoiler title=" 2, 3 or 4."]4[/spoiler]23. The largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world is Brazil. Which is the smallest?
[spoiler title="Sao Tomé e Principe, Guinea-Bissau or the Maldives."]Sao Tomé e Principe[/spoiler]24. The official language of Equatorial Guinea is
[spoiler title=" 1) Spanish, 2) Portuguese, 3) French, 4) All three."]All three[/spoiler]25. On the last Saturday of each month in this country there is umuganda, a national day of community service, during which most normal services close down.
[spoiler title="Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi."]Rwanda[/spoiler]26. Which capital city can be seen in the distance on the African lake pictured below?
[spoiler title="Bujumbura (L. Tanganyika), Entebbe (L. Victoria), Lilongwe (L. Malawi)."]Bujumbura (Lake Tanganyika)[/spoiler]
27. What singer from Benin was ranked by The Guardian as one of its 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World, while Forbes listed her as the first woman among the 40 Most Powerful Celebrities in Africa?
[spoiler title="Angélique Kidjo, Fatoumata Diawara, Mariam Doumbia of Amadou & Mariam."]Angélique Kidjo[/spoiler]28. Where are The Lakes of Ounianga, a series of lakes in the Sahara Desert that is also a World Heritage site?
[spoiler title="Morocco, Chad, Mauritania."]Chad[/spoiler]29. Olympic athlete Ferdinand Amadi was born in
[spoiler title="Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau or Equatorial Guinea."]Central African Republic[/spoiler]30. What is the smallest country on mainland Africa?
[spoiler title="Gambia, Swaziland, Rwanda."]Gambia[/spoiler]31. Tripoli is the capital of
[spoiler title="Mauritania, Libya or Eritrea."]Libya[/spoiler]32. Kofi Annan served as UN secretary-general for 10 years, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and chairs The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela. What country was he born in?
[spoiler title="Ghana, Nigeria, Togo."]Ghana[/spoiler]33. The capital city of Togo is
[spoiler title=" Porto-Novo, Lomé or Port Harcourt."]Lomé[/spoiler]34. It is estimated that this country contains half of the world’s reserves of bauxite, the main source of aluminum.
[spoiler title="Guinea, Angola, Zambia."]Guinea[/spoiler]35. Constantine, pictured below, is an ancient coastal town in this African country.
[spoiler title="Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt."]Algeria[/spoiler]
36. The Dja Faunal Reserve is one of Africa’s largest and best-protected rain forests, almost completely surrounded by the Dja River and sheltering 107 mammal species, five of them threatened. Is it in
[spoiler title="Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon or Gabon."]Cameroon[/spoiler]37. The Democratic Republic of Congo is bigger than South Africa by
[spoiler title="1.5 or 2 or 2.5 times."]2[/spoiler]38. The satellite picture below shows two major cities on either side of the Congo River, near the previously named Stanley Pool. To the south (bottom left corner) is Kinshasa. To the north is
[spoiler title="Elizabethville, Brazzaville or Libreville."]Brazzaville[/spoiler]
39. Lake Assal is the lowest point in Africa, at 155 metres below sea level, and the third lowest in the world after the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
[spoiler title="It is in Ethiopia, Djibouti or Egypt."]Djibouti[/spoiler]
40. The Lighthouse of Alexandria was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was in
[spoiler title="Libya, Tunisia or Egypt."]Egypt[/spoiler]41. The ruins of Great Zimbabwe are a unique testimony to a certain Bantu civilization between the 11th and 15th centuries.
[spoiler title="It was the Shona, Venda or Setswana."]Shona[/spoiler]42. Through the US African Growth and Opportunity Act, this country has become sub-Saharan Africa’s largest exporter of garments to the US.
[spoiler title="Lesotho, Mauritius, Rwanda."]Lesotho[/spoiler]43. Telecoms billionaire Mo Ibrahim, founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the associated prize for good governance in Africa, which pays leaders who leave office democratically, is from
[spoiler title="Somalia, Sudan or Ghana."]Sudan[/spoiler]44. Compared to South Africa, Kenya has 1) more people but is smaller, 2) fewer people and is the same size, 3) fewer people and is smaller.
[spoiler title="1) more people/smaller 2) fewer people/same size 3) fewer people/smaller."]fewer people and is smaller[/spoiler]45. Freed slaves from America who came to Liberia in the late 19th century named their capital after a U.S. president. It was
[spoiler title="Freetown, Monrovia or Stanleyville."]Monrovia[/spoiler]46. Because Madagascar has been an island for 88-million years, how much of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth?
[spoiler title="80 percent, 90 percent, 100 percent."]90 per cent[/spoiler]
47. The French-language novelist Claude Simon, winner of the 1985 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in
[spoiler title="Republic of Congo, Madagascar or Reunion."]Madagascar[/spoiler]48. The largest adobe structure in the world is the Grand Mosque in Djenné (picture below). Is it in
[spoiler title="Niger, Mali or Morocco."]Mali[/spoiler]
49. The Ancient Ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata were trading and religious centres founded in the 11th and 12th centuries to serve caravans crossing the Sahara. This is now a World Heritage site in
[spoiler title="Libya, Chad or Mauritania."]Mauritania[/spoiler]50. The life expectancy in this country, the age of 73, is the highest in Africa.
[spoiler title="Mauritius, Botswana, South Africa."]Mauritius[/spoiler]51. The world’s largest film studio by area is in
[spoiler title="South Africa, Egypt, Morocco."]Morocco[/spoiler]
52. At 30 percent, one of Mozambique’s major exports is
[spoiler title="cashews, aluminium or fish."]aluminium[/spoiler]53. Which of these is considered to be the oldest desert in the world.
[spoiler title="The Namib Desert, the Kalahari or the Sinai."]Namib[/spoiler]54. More than 90 percent of Niger’s exports are
[spoiler title="dates, petroleum, radioactive chemical elements."]radioactive chemical elements[/spoiler]
55. Queen’s legendary singer Freddie Mercury was born in
[spoiler title="Morocco, Tanzania, Egypt."]Tanzania[/spoiler]56. Pianist José Vianna da Motta, the last of composer Franz Liszt’s pupils, came from
[spoiler title="Algiers, Tangiers or Sao Tomé e Principe."]Sao Tomé e Principe[/spoiler]57. In the 1960s and ’70s this country was a prime film-making country for France.
[spoiler title="Morocco, Egypt, Senegal."]Senegal[/spoiler]58. Which country’s space agency plans to send an astronaut into space within the next five years?
[spoiler title="Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria."]Nigeria[/spoiler]59. The capital of Seychelles is
[spoiler title="Mahé, Victoria or Lamu."]Victoria[/spoiler]60. Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier and the author of “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier”, was born in
[spoiler title="Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea."]Sierra Leone[/spoiler]
61. The supermodel Iman Abdulmajid, who is married to musician David Bowie, comes from
[spoiler title="Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea."]Somalia[/spoiler]62. South Sudan, Africa’s newest country, got independence in
[spoiler title="2010, 2011 or 2013."]2011[/spoiler]63. The official language of Tunisia is
[spoiler title="Arabic, Tunisian or French."]Arabic[/spoiler]64. More than 90 percent of exports from the West African country pictured below are coconuts, Brazil nuts and cashew nuts.
[spoiler title="Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Togo."]Guinea-Bissau[/spoiler]
65. Which lake does Uganda NOT border
[spoiler title="Lake Victoria, Lake Albert, Lake Edward, Lake Tanganyika, Lake George."]Lake Tanganyika[/spoiler]66. Devil’s Pool at the tip of the Victoria Falls is in
[spoiler title="Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa."]Zambia[/spoiler]
Researched by Mary Alexander. Partly sourced from MediaClubSouthAfrica.