Mastermind Club
Quiz 2022-14
Geography
Set by Mel Kinsey
Answers
1/ Its name possibly deriving from ‘coconut tree’ from Malayalam, which southern India state on the Malabar Coast has its capital at Thiruvananthapuram?
Kerala
2/ Located in the south of the island on the plains of Campidano, which city is the capital of the island of Sardinia?
Cagliari
3/ Its name deriving from the Berber for ‘two lions’, referencing the legend that lions lived in the area until around 900 AD, which major city on the Mediterranean coast (the second largest in its country) is the setting for novels such as Paul Bowles’ ‘The Sheltering Sky’ and Albert Camus’ ‘The Plague’?
Oran (Algeria)
4/ Its name translating from the Maghrebi Arabic for ‘water spring’, which is the largest city in the disputed territory of Western Sahara? It served as the capital of Spanish Sahara from 1940 to 1976.
Laayoune/ El-Aaiun
5/ Rising in the Black Forest and flowing mainly through Baden-Wurttemberg, which German river is a major right tributary of the Rhine? It flows through cities such as Stuttgart and Heidelberg before discharging into the Rhine at Mannheim.
Nekar
6/ Which Southeast Asian capital city has a name that derives from a flowering mangrove tree that grew on the shores of its eponymous bay and the delta of the Pasig river (which flows through the city, dividing it into northern and southern parts)?
Manila
7/ Designed by Nikolai Nikitin to mark the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, which 540m-tall radio and television tower is named after the district of Moscow in which it is located? Currently the tallest free-standing structure in Europe, it was the tallest in the world before being overtaken by Toronto’s CN Tower in 1975.
Ostankino Tower
8/ Located on the eastern bank of the Dniester River and officially the second-largest in Moldova, which city founded by the Russian generalissimo Alexander Suvorov in 1792 is effectively considered the capital of the unrecognized region of Transnistria?
Tiraspol
9/ Formerly known as Charles Town (after England’s King Charles II), the capital of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas was given its current name in 1695, after which town in the Lahn River valley in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate?
Nassau
10/ In terms of land area, Rhode Island is the smallest of the United States of America. Which state, that takes its name from the title of Thomas West (an English nobleman who was the first colonial governor of Virginia) is the second smallest?
Delaware
(3rd Baron De La Warr)
11/ Having a name that translates as ‘Coastal Defense’, which city on the mouth of the Cam River is Vietnam’s third most populous (behind Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi), and was subjected to heavy aerial bombardment during the Vietnam was as it was North Vietnam’s only major port?
Haiphong
12/ Designed by a group led by the artist Bachir Yelles and fashioned in the shape of three standing palm leaves that shelter the Eternal Flame beneath, in which capital city would you find the monument named the Maqam Echahid (Martyrs’ Memorial)? It opened in 1982, on the 20th anniversary of the country’s independence.
Algiers
13/ Also known as the West Sea, which body of water is the northern extension of the East China Sea that separates mainland China from the Korean Peninsula? Cities located on its shores include Qingdao and Incheon.
Yellow Sea
14/ Lying on the Mysore Plateau, which city of over 10 million population is the capital of the state of Karnataka, and is also known as the ‘Silicon Valley/ IT Capital of India’?
Bangalore/ Bengaluru
15/ Its name supposedly derived from the old Cumbric for ‘green valley/ basin’, which major European city was reputed to have been founded in the 6th century AD by the Christian missionary St. Mungo, when he established a church on the Molendinar Burn on the River Clyde?
Glasgow
16/ Known as the Gulf of Eilat to the Israelis, which body of water at the northern tip of the Red Sea is situated east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian mainland, and takes its name from a Jordanian city on its shore (in fact Jordan’s only coastal city)?
Gulf of Aqaba
17/ At a height of 5881m and found within the Khakaborazi National Park, Hkakabo Razi is widely considered Southeast Asia’s tallest mountain, and is located in which country?
Myanmar
18/ Having a name that means ‘the plains around the palace’, which world capital city arose out of the Neolithic Butmir culture and later that of the Illyrians? It is situated along the Miljacka River and surrounded by the peaks of the Dinaric Alps.
Sarajevo
19/ Located northeast of the city of Latacunga and one of the worlds highest active volcanoes, in which Latin American country would you find Cotopaxi?
Equador
20/ Which US state capital traces its origins to 1829 when former federal judge James Duane Doty purchased over a thousand acres of swamp and forest land on an isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona? Known as The City of Four Lakes (referencing the four successive lakes of the Yahara River : Mendota, Monona, Waubesa and Kegonsa), it is one of several state capitals named after a former US president.
Madison, Wisconsin
21/ The 11th largest African country by area, which nation is bordered to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, the southwest by Senegal, the east by Mali, northeast by Algeria and north & northwest by Western Sahara?
Mauritania
22/ Dating back to the 10th century and named after the town in which they were discovered, in which Scandinavian country will you find the Jelling Stones, raised by King Gorm the Old and his son Harald Bluetooth?
Denmark
23/ Currently one of the world’s most active volcanoes, Mount Karthala is located on the island of Ngazidja – which together with Mwali (Moheli) and Nzwani (Anjouan) forms which sovereign archipelago island nation? It lays claim to the nearby island of Mayotte, currently an overseas departement of France.
Comoros
24/ Located close to the border tripoint between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, which spa city in North Rhine-Westphalian became the imperial residence of Charlemagne, and served as the site where successive Holy Roman Emperors (from 936 to 1531) were crowned?
Aachen
25/ Named after a 16th-century Dutch seeker of the northeast passage to Asia, which marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean is located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia, separated from the Kara Sea by the Novaya Zemlya archipelago?
I
Barents Sea