160 Fun Facts About Geography Trivia for Kids

How many continents do most English-speaking countries say there are?

Some countries teach six, joining two of them together or counting the Americas as one.

Which is the largest continent?

It is home to about 60 percent of all the people on Earth.

Which is the largest and deepest ocean on Earth?

It covers nearly a third of the whole planet, more than all the land put together.

What is the deepest known point in any ocean?

It lies in the Mariana Trench and goes down about 10,928 metres, deeper than Everest is tall.

Which river is usually called the longest in the world?

It runs about 7,088 kilometres through northeast Africa, though other rivers carry far more water.

Which river carries more water than any other on Earth?

It pours out more water than the next seven biggest rivers combined.

What is the largest hot desert in the world?

Only the two icy polar deserts are bigger.

Which continent is the coldest, driest and windiest of all?

Temperatures there have dropped as low as minus 90 degrees Celsius.

What is the highest mountain on Earth above sea level?

A 2020 survey put its height at 8,848.86 metres, and it sits on the border of Nepal and China.

Which country is the largest in the world by area?

It shares land borders with fourteen countries and reaches across two continents.

What is the smallest country in the world?

It covers only 44 hectares, about the size of a big park, and fewer than 900 people live there.

Which country has more people than any other?

It passed China in 2023 with more than 1.4 billion residents.

What is the largest island in the world?

Australia is bigger, but it is counted as a continent rather than an island.

What is the capital city of Australia?

It was purpose-built as a compromise between rival cities Sydney and Melbourne and named in 1913.

Which country is the second-largest in the world by area?

It also has the longest coastline of any country, touching three different oceans.

The shore of which body of water is the lowest land on Earth, more than 430 metres below sea level?

Its water is so salty that swimmers float on top like corks.

What is the name of the world's largest coral formation, found off Queensland?

It is made up of more than 2,900 separate reefs and 900 islands stretching over 2,300 kilometres.

The Grand Canyon in Arizona was carved out over millions of years by which waterway?

Nearly two billion years of rock layers are exposed in its walls.

What is the highest mountain in Africa?

It rises 5,895 metres and is the tallest free-standing mountain in the world, not part of any range.

Which mountain range is the longest on land, running down the western side of South America?

It forms a continuous highland along the whole western edge of the continent.

Angel Falls, the tallest uninterrupted waterfall in the world, is in which country?

It plunges 979 metres, more than 15 times the height of Niagara Falls.

What is the largest lake in the world, even though it is called a sea?

Its water is slightly salty, which is one reason people argue about whether it is a lake or a sea.

Which body of water in Siberia is the deepest in the world?

It goes down 1,642 metres and holds about a fifth of all the fresh surface water on Earth.

The Panama Canal lets ships take a shortcut between which two oceans?

Without it, ships had to sail all the way around the stormy southern tip of South America.

Roughly how long are all the sections of the Great Wall of China put together?

A survey found 10,051 separate wall sections plus thousands of towers and forts.

What is the imaginary line at 0 degrees latitude that divides Earth into northern and southern halves?

It runs about 40,075 kilometres around the middle of the planet.

The prime meridian, the starting line for measuring east and west, runs through which London district?

Twenty-two countries voted to make it the world standard at a conference in 1884.

Which country is made up of about 17,000 islands, more than any other?

Its islands include Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and parts of Borneo and New Guinea.

How many fully recognised countries are there in Africa?

That is more than any other continent.

Which is the largest US state by area?

It is bigger than Texas, California and Montana combined.

How many Great Lakes are there along the northern border of the United States?

They are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, and their first letters spell HOMES.

The Atacama Desert, the driest non-polar place on Earth, lies mostly in which country?

Some weather stations there have never recorded a single drop of rain.

Which continent is the second smallest, just ahead of Australia?

It may be small, but it holds far more people than the smallest continent.

Which two continents are the only ones completely surrounded by ocean, with no land link to any other?

Every other continent touches at least one neighbour by land.

About what fraction of Earth's water surface does the biggest ocean cover?

It is bigger than all of the world's land put together.

How tall is the world's highest mountain, according to a 2020 survey by Nepal and China?

That is 8,848.86 metres, and the mountain is still growing a few millimetres a year.

How many time zones does the world's largest country stretch across?

When people in the far west are eating breakfast, people in the far east are heading to bed.

The famous desert city of Timbuktu is in which African country?

It sits on the southern edge of the great desert and was once a centre of learning and the salt and gold trade.

The biggest US state by area ranked only 48th by population in 2020, ahead of which two states?

Its huge size holds fewer people than the city of Boston.

Which of the five Great Lakes is the largest one lying entirely inside a single country?

The other four straddle the border with the country to the north.

The Eiffel Tower stands in which city?

Locals nickname it 'La dame de fer', the Iron Lady, because it is made of wrought iron.

The Eiffel Tower was built as the centrepiece of a World's Fair in which year?

It also marked 100 years since the French Revolution.

The Statue of Liberty stands on an island in the harbor of which US metropolis?

The statue shows a robed and crowned woman holding a torch.

The Taj Mahal, a white marble mausoleum, is in which country?

Emperor Shah Jahan built it for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a tomb for which pharaoh?

It was the world's tallest human-made structure for more than 3,700 years.

Mount Rushmore shows the carved heads of how many US presidents?

Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln are each about 60 feet tall.

Mount Rushmore is carved into the Black Hills of which US state?

The Lakota name for the mountain means Six Grandfathers.

The Golden Gate Bridge links which city to Marin County?

The strait it crosses is about a mile wide.

Big Ben is really the nickname of what?

The tower it hangs in was renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012.

The Sydney Opera House was designed by an architect from which country?

Jørn Utzon won an international design competition in 1957.

The Colosseum in Rome is the largest ancient example of what kind of building?

It is also the largest amphitheatre still standing anywhere in the world.

The giant statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooks which city?

It stands 30 metres tall on top of Corcovado mountain.

The ancient rock-carved city of Petra, the 'Rose City', is in which country?

Its colour earned it the nickname 'Rose City'.

Chichen Itza, with its famous step pyramid, was built by which people?

It sits in the Yucatán region of Mexico.

The best-known parts of the Great Wall of China were built by which dynasty?

The Ming ruled from 1368 to 1644.

Angkor Wat, the largest religious complex in the world, is in which country?

It was built in the 12th century by the Khmer king Suryavarman II.

Stonehenge stands on Salisbury Plain in which English county?

Building began around 3100 BC.

What kind of building is the famous leaning landmark in Pisa, Italy?

Repairs between 1993 and 2001 reduced its tilt to just under 4 degrees.

The Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, is in which city?

It stands about 828 metres to the roof, just over half a mile.

Machu Picchu, the 'Lost City of the Incas', is in which country?

It sits on a mountain ridge 2,430 metres up.

Uluru, also called Ayers Rock, is a huge monolith made of what?

It is sacred to the Anangu Aboriginal people.

Table Mountain, famous for its flat top, overlooks which city?

Its national park draws about 4.2 million visitors a year.

Which river flows through London?

At 215 miles it is the longest river entirely in England.

The Mississippi River empties into which body of water?

It flows about 2,340 miles from Lake Itasca in Minnesota.

The Danube, Europe's second-longest river, empties into which sea?

It starts in Germany's Black Forest and passes through ten countries.

Which is the longest river in China?

Its Chinese name, Chang Jiang, simply means 'long river'.

The Seine flows through Paris and reaches the sea at which port?

It reaches the sea at Le Havre after 777 kilometres.

Niagara Falls sits on the border between the US state of New York and which Canadian province?

The largest of its three waterfalls is Horseshoe Falls.

The great waterfall the locals call 'The Smoke that Thunders' is on which African river?

Victoria Falls, 1,708 metres wide, sits on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Which is the largest body of fresh water in Africa, and the world's largest tropical one?

It is also the world's largest tropical lake.

Which of the Great Lakes is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area?

It is the northernmost, westernmost and highest of the five.

Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake, lies on the border of Peru and which country?

It sits high in the Andes mountains.

Loch Ness, home of the legendary monster 'Nessie', is in which country?

A loch is the Scottish word for a lake.

Which is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceans?

It is also the coldest of all the oceans.

The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea to which other sea?

It opened in 1869 and separates Africa from Asia.

The English Channel separates southern England from which country?

At its narrowest it becomes the Strait of Dover.

The Bering Strait separates Russia from which US state?

It lies between the Pacific and Arctic oceans.

The Red Sea lies between Africa and which large peninsula?

The Gulf of Suez at its north end leads to the Suez Canal.

Which country is the largest archipelago country in the world?

An archipelago is a chain or cluster of islands.

What is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land called?

The Isthmus of Panama joins North and South America.

A fjord is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides carved out by what?

Norway has nearly 1,200 fjords.

An iceberg is a chunk of ice that has broken off what?

Smaller floating pieces are called 'growlers' or 'bergy bits'.

Mount Fuji, Japan's highest mountain, is on which island?

It last erupted from 1707 to 1708.

Which volcano's eruption in AD 79 destroyed the Roman city of Pompeii?

It sits on the Gulf of Naples in Italy.

Mount Etna, one of the world's most active volcanoes, is on which Italian island?

It is in an almost constant state of activity.

The Gobi Desert lies in China and which other country?

It is a cold desert where temperatures can drop below minus 30 degrees Celsius.

K2, the second-highest peak on Earth, is nicknamed what?

Before 2021, about one climber died for every four who reached the top.

Which mountain range separates the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau?

More than 100 of its peaks are over 7,200 metres high.

Mount Everest is known locally as Sagarmatha in which country?

In Tibet it is called Qomolangma.

Which mountain range is the largest mountain system in North America?

It stretches about 3,000 miles from western Canada to New Mexico.

Which mountain in Tanzania is a large dormant volcano and Africa's tallest peak?

Its name may mean 'mountain of greatness' or 'unclimbable'.

The Ring of Fire, a belt of volcanoes and earthquakes, surrounds most of which ocean?

It contains around two-thirds of the world's volcanoes.

Where was the hottest air temperature ever recorded on Earth, 56.7 °C in 1913?

The reading was taken at Furnace Creek.

Yellowstone National Park is mostly in which US state?

It is famous for the Old Faithful geyser.

What is Yellowstone's most famous geyser called?

Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years.

About 60% of the world's largest rainforest lies in which country?

Peru has the next biggest share at 13%.

Which river carries more water than the next seven largest rivers combined?

It flows across South America into the Atlantic.

A tundra is a cold biome where what cannot grow because of frigid temperatures?

There are Arctic, Alpine and Antarctic tundras.

Which continent is the coldest and least populated, and about 40% larger than Europe?

Its ice sheet is on average 1.9 km thick.

The northern lights are also called what?

They are caused by charged particles from the Sun hitting the atmosphere.

What is the capital of Japan?

Greater Tokyo has about 33 million residents.

What is the capital of Egypt?

The Giza pyramids are inside the modern city's limits.

Which capital city is the only one in the world with a national park inside its boundaries?

It is nicknamed the 'Green City under the Sun'.

Which planned city, founded in 1960, replaced Rio as a national capital?

President Juscelino Kubitschek founded it on 21 April 1960.

What is the capital of Canada?

It sits in Ontario, right across the river from Gatineau, Quebec.

Washington, D.C. stands on the bank of which river?

Virginia lies just across the water.

What is the capital of Spain?

It sits about 660 metres above sea level in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula.

What is the capital of Germany?

It is completely surrounded by the state of Brandenburg.

Beijing, the capital of China, was previously spelled how in English?

Together with Hebei and Tianjin it forms the Jing-Jin-Ji cluster.

What is the capital of India?

It is home to the presidential palace, parliament and Supreme Court.

Which capital has more people than any other in North America?

Greater Mexico City has almost 22 million people.

What is the capital of Argentina?

It lies on the Río de la Plata.

Which city replaced Lagos as the capital of Nigeria in 1991?

It sits at the geographic midpoint of the country, near the giant Aso Rock.

What is the capital of Turkey?

Istanbul is bigger, but Ankara in central Anatolia is the capital.

What is the capital of Nepal, the home of Mount Everest?

Nepal has eight of the world's ten highest mountains.

What is the capital of New Zealand?

Auckland is the biggest city, but Wellington is the capital.

What is the capital of Iceland?

About 35% of the country's roughly 395,000 people live there.

New Zealand's two main landmasses are the South Island and which other?

It also has more than 700 smaller islands.

Which country is the southernmost in the world?

It runs along a narrow strip between the Andes and the Pacific.

Which tiny country is the second-smallest in the world after Vatican City?

It is also the most densely populated country.

Nauru, the third-smallest country in the world, is an island in which ocean?

It covers only 21 square kilometres.

Which is the world's largest landlocked country by area?

A landlocked country has no coastline at all.

Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan are the world's only 'doubly landlocked' countries. Why?

There are 44 landlocked countries in total.

Japan's archipelago has four major islands and roughly how many smaller ones?

Honshu is the largest of the four main islands.

Which two large islands lie off the toe of Italy's boot-shaped peninsula?

Italy has nearly 800 islands altogether.

Which country is home to nearly 1,200 fjords?

Norway also owns the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

Which is the world's fourth-largest island, lying off the southeast coast of Africa?

It split from Africa around 180 million years ago.

Which is the only US state that is an archipelago?

It has 137 volcanic islands.

Kangaroos are native to New Guinea and which other country?

They are marsupials whose family name means 'large foot'.

The giant panda is a bear species found in the wild only in which country?

Its diet is almost entirely bamboo.

Sri Lanka, formerly called Ceylon, is separated from India by which narrow stretch of sea?

It sits in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal.

Easter Island is famous for nearly 1,000 giant statues called what?

The island is a special territory of Chile.

The Galápagos Islands belong to which country?

They lie around the equator, about 900 km west of South America.

Which is the third-largest island in the world?

It has a population of about 23 million.

Which is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea?

Crete is fifth, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus and Corsica.

Tasmania is an island state of which country?

It is separated from the mainland by the Bass Strait.

The Seychelles is a country made up of how many islands?

Its capital, Victoria, is 1,500 km east of mainland Africa.

Fiji is made up of more than how many islands?

Only about 110 of them are permanently inhabited.

Manhattan is the smallest and most crowded of how many boroughs of NYC?

It is also the smallest county by area in New York State.

Puerto Rico is a Caribbean territory of which country?

Its capital is San Juan.

On a compass, which direction is at 90 degrees?

North is 0 degrees, south is 180 and west is 270.

A compass needle turns to line up with what?

Compasses are used for navigation and finding your way.

What is a book that is a collection of maps called?

There are also atlases of the stars and other planets.

Unlike a flat map, what does a globe NOT do to the Earth's surface?

A globe is a spherical model of Earth.

Lines of latitude measure position in which direction?

Latitude runs from 90 degrees south to 90 degrees north.

Imaginary lines running from pole to pole that mark longitude are called what?

The prime meridian is at 0 degrees longitude.

The International Date Line runs roughly along which line of longitude?

It marks the boundary between one calendar day and the next.

The Tropic of Cancer is the northernmost line where the Sun can be seen doing what?

Its southern twin is the Tropic of Capricorn.

How long is the equator, roughly?

It sits halfway between the North and South Poles.

What is the northernmost point on Earth called?

It is where Earth's axis of rotation meets the surface.

The Vatican City, the world's smallest country, is enclosed by which city?

It is ruled by the pope.

Where on Earth are most volcanoes found?

Most of Earth's plate boundaries are under the sea.

Which sea's shore is the lowest land on Earth, more than 430 metres below sea level?

It is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan and Israel.

Which mountain is the highest peak in North America?

It rises 20,310 feet in Alaska, and its summit towers about 18,000 feet above the land around it, one of the biggest rises on Earth.

Which river in Europe empties into the North Sea after flowing through the Netherlands?

It starts high in the Swiss Alps and forms borders with Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and France along the way.

Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, is in which country?

At 6,967 metres it is also the tallest peak anywhere outside Asia and one of the Seven Summits.

Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe, is what kind of mountain?

Its two summits are both volcanic domes, and the taller western one reaches 5,642 metres in Russia's Caucasus.

Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, sits on the border between France and which country?

At 4,807 metres it is the highest peak in Europe outside the Caucasus, and the two countries have long argued over who owns the summit.

The Ganges river flows through India and which other country?

It is 2,525 kilometres long and starts high in the western Himalayas; in Bangladesh it is called the Padma.

Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain on mainland Australia, is in which state?

It stands 2,228 metres tall in the Snowy Mountains and was named in 1840 after a Polish general.