50 Fun Facts About North Africa

Which country, once the heart of the ancient kingdom of Kush, has more pyramids than Egypt?

Sudan has more than 200 pyramids, the most of any country. Kushite kings and queens built them smaller and steeper than Egypt's, at sites such as Meroë.

Which Star Wars desert planet is named after a real town in the North African country where it was filmed?

Tatooine was George Lucas's spelling of Tataouine, a town he came across while scouting desert locations. Luke Skywalker's home was a real underground hotel in the same country.

Which North African country flew a plain green flag with no emblem or design from 1977 to 2011?

Libya's all-green banner was, for nearly all of that time, the only national flag with a single colour and no design. In 2011 the country went back to the red, black and green flag it first raised in 1951.

Which Moroccan city gave its name to a 1942 Humphrey Bogart film shot almost entirely in California?

Casablanca was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, with one sequence at Van Nuys Airport. The real Casablanca is Morocco's largest city and its business centre.

Which country became Africa's largest by area in 2011, when the previous record holder split in two?

Algeria covers about 2.38 million square kilometres, which makes it the tenth-largest country in the world. It is also the biggest country on the Mediterranean.

Which animal, the smallest fox in the world, uses its oversized ears to shed the heat of the Sahara?

Fennec fox ears can reach 10 cm on a body less than 40 cm long. As well as dumping heat, they pick up the sound of prey moving under the sand.

Which city, nicknamed the 'City of a Thousand Minarets', is the largest in the Arab world?

Cairo takes its name from the Arabic al-Qahira, 'the Conqueror'. The name was given by the Fatimid caliph who made the new city the capital of his dynasty.

Which waterway, opened in 1869, lets ships pass between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea?

The Suez Canal has no locks, so seawater flows freely along its length. In March 2021 the grounded container ship Ever Given blocked it for six days.

Which country, home to Africa's northernmost point, saw the 2010 protests that began the Arab Spring?

Tunisia's uprising began in the town of Sidi Bouzid after street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. It toppled a president who had ruled since 1987.

Which mountain range runs about 2,500 km across northwest Africa, dividing the Sahara from the coast?

The Atlas Mountains are linked in Greek myth to the Titan Atlas, who was condemned to hold up the sky. Their highest peaks rise above 4,000 metres.

Which Egyptian port once held a Seven Wonders lighthouse and the ancient world's largest library?

Alexandria's lighthouse stood until earthquakes ruined it, and its last stones went into a fort built on the same spot in 1480. The city was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.

Which 'Red City', famed for its Jemaa el-Fnaa square, is the origin of the European names for Morocco?

Marrakesh earned the nickname from the red walls built around it in the 1120s. Names such as Marruecos and Maroc come straight from Murrakush, the city's Arabic name.

Which sea passage, under 15 km wide at its narrowest point, separates Morocco from Spain?

The Strait of Gibraltar can be crossed by ferry in as little as 35 minutes. The ancients knew the heights on either side of it as the Pillars of Hercules.

Which queen of Egypt, who died in 30 BC, was the first of her Greek-speaking dynasty to learn Egyptian?

Cleopatra grew up speaking Greek, the language of a dynasty founded by a Macedonian general. By adulthood she could speak several other languages as well.

Which North African dish of steamed semolina granules joined UNESCO's cultural heritage list in 2020?

Couscous is traditionally cooked in a steamer set on top of a pot of stew, so the grains soak up the flavours rising from below.

Which North African general crossed the Alps with war elephants to invade Italy in 218 BC?

Hannibal went on to win at Lake Trasimene and Cannae and to occupy most of southern Italy for 15 years. His exact route over the mountains has been argued about since ancient times.

Which Egyptian city is home to the Great Sphinx and the only ancient Wonder to survive largely intact?

Giza's Great Pyramid first stood about 147 metres high and was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years.

Which capital city stands at the point where the Blue Nile and the White Nile meet?

Khartoum's name is popularly traced to the Arabic for 'trunk', after the thin strip of land between the two rivers. The meeting point is known as al-Mogran, 'the Confluence'.

Which Moroccan stew is named after the clay pot with a tall cone-shaped lid that it is cooked in?

Tagine lids catch the steam and return the condensation to the food, so meat and vegetables braise with very little water.

Which ancient city, founded in North Africa by Phoenicians, did Rome destroy in 146 BC?

Carthage fell after a siege of nearly three years, yet Rome rebuilt it a century later as the chief city of its African province. Legend credits its founding to Queen Dido.

Which Moroccan city is home to al-Qarawiyyin, a 9th-century school cited as the world's oldest university?

Fez's famous school began, tradition says, as a mosque paid for by Fatima al-Fihri, a merchant's daughter who spent her inheritance on it. The brimless fez hat is thought to take its name from the city.

Which city at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river, opposite Salé, is the capital of Morocco?

Rabat was made the administrative centre when a protectorate was set up in 1912, and it became the capital of independent Morocco in 1956.

Which inscribed slab, found by an army officer in the Nile Delta in 1799, unlocked Egyptian hieroglyphs?

The Rosetta Stone repeats one decree of 196 BC in three scripts, so scholars could set the hieroglyphs against Greek they could already read. It has been on show at the British Museum since 1802.

Which army officer seized power in a bloodless 1969 coup and ruled a North African country until 2011?

Muammar Gaddafi was in his twenties when his Free Officers deposed King Idris. Because nobody was killed, the takeover was at first labelled the 'White Revolution'.

Which North African capital's shores are sung about in the opening lines of the US Marines' Hymn?

Tripoli entered the hymn after an 1805 campaign in which a small force led by US Marines crossed more than 500 miles of desert to storm the port of Derna.

Which Egyptian city on the Nile stands on the site of ancient Thebes, beside the temples of Karnak?

Luxor is often described as the world's greatest open-air museum. The Valley of the Kings, burial ground of the New Kingdom pharaohs, lies just across the river.

Which indigenous people of North Africa, living there long before Arabic arrived, call themselves the Imazighen?

Berbers often prefer their own name, Amazigh, because 'Berber' is related to the Arabic word for barbarian. Ancient Egyptian writings were the first to mention them.

Which European power ruled most of Morocco as a protectorate from 1912 until independence in 1956?

France had begun occupying parts of Morocco in 1907, five years before the sultan signed the treaty that created the protectorate. Spain held a smaller zone in the north.

Which oil comes from the kernels of a Moroccan tree whose branches goats climb to eat the fruit?

Argan oil producers in some areas let the goats do part of the work, gathering the nuts the animals leave behind after eating the fruit.

Which Saharan people are called the 'Blue People' after the indigo veils traditionally worn by their men?

Tuareg men take up the veil as a rite of passage into manhood, while the women traditionally leave their faces uncovered. The indigo dye can rub off and tint the skin.

Which regional name, from the Arabic for 'the place where the sun sets', covers North Africa west of Egypt?

Maghreb was the name the first Arab settlers of the 7th century gave to the conquered lands west of their capital, Damascus. Its counterpart, the Mashriq, is the Arab east.

Which Mediterranean port, nicknamed 'the White', has a hillside Casbah on UNESCO's World Heritage list?

Algiers owes the nickname to its whitewashed buildings. The Casbah once reached the sea, before the lower half of the old city was cleared to make way for squares and boulevards.

Which southern Egyptian city gives its name to the High Dam on the Nile that created Lake Nasser?

Aswan's High Dam was built with Soviet help and, once finished in 1970, ended the Nile's yearly flood in Egypt. An older, lower dam nearby dates from 1902.

Which Moroccan port, facing Spain across a narrow strait, was governed as an international zone from 1923?

Tangier drew diplomats, spies, bohemians and writers from Europe and America during its years as an international zone. The arrangement was wound up after Moroccan independence in 1956.

What name is given to the old walled quarter of a North African city such as Tunis?

Medina is simply the Arabic word for 'city'. In North African towns it marks the historic district, which often matches the area inside the old walls.

Which town in Morocco's Rif mountains, founded in 1471, is famous for buildings painted in shades of blue?

Chefchaouen means 'look at the horns', a nod to the two mountain peaks that overlook the town. Its colour has earned it the nickname of the Blue Pearl.

Which pair of rock-cut temples of Ramesses II was moved to higher ground in 1968 to escape a rising reservoir?

Abu Simbel was sawn into more than a thousand blocks and rebuilt at an angle that lets the rising sun reach the innermost sanctuary on two days each year, just as before.

Which president of Egypt shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with Israel's Menachem Begin?

Anwar Sadat had stunned the region in 1977 by flying to Jerusalem to address the Knesset, the first official visit by an Arab leader to Israeli-controlled territory. He was assassinated in 1981.

Which monkey, native to Morocco's mountain forests, has a vestigial tail only a few millimetres long?

Barbary macaque males are unusually devoted carers, spending much of their time grooming and playing with infants. Every other species in the genus lives in Asia.

Which Egyptian railway halt gave its name to the 1942 battle where Montgomery defeated Rommel?

El Alamein ended the Axis threat to Egypt. Churchill later wrote, 'Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.'

Which wind blows from the Sahara across the Mediterranean, reaching hurricane speeds in southern Europe?

Sirocco air sets out hot and dry but picks up moisture over the sea. It brings dusty heat to Africa's north coast and warm, wet weather to Europe.

Which 14th-century explorer from Morocco covered about 117,000 km, more than any traveller before modern times?

Ibn Battuta went nearly five times as far as Marco Polo. Near the end of his life he dictated the story of his journeys in a book known as the Rihla.

Which North African port, once nicknamed 'little Paris', is the birthplace of raï music?

Oran gave rise to raï in the 1920s, mainly among its poor, at a time when the port was a melting pot full of nightclubs and cabarets.

Which autonomous Spanish city borders Morocco at the meeting point of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic?

Ceuta was annexed by Portugal in 1415, long before it came under Spanish rule. It belongs to Europe's Schengen area, though travellers face extra checks on the way to mainland Spain.

Which 4,167-metre peak in Morocco is the highest mountain in North Africa and the Arab world?

Toubkal stands higher than anything else within 2,000 km of its summit. Its first recorded ascent came only in 1923.

Which holy city, founded around 670 as an Arab military post, is home to the Mosque of Uqba?

Kairouan was sited, by tradition, in a dense forest full of wild beasts, picked by the general Uqba ibn Nafi as a base for the conquest of the west. Its great mosque later housed a university.

Which Roman city in North Africa, birthplace of Emperor Septimius Severus, lay preserved under sand dunes?

Leptis Magna was buried by dunes after it was abandoned, which is why its ruins rank among the best-preserved Roman sites in the Mediterranean.

Which Saharan plateau, a UNESCO site since 1982, is world famous for its prehistoric rock paintings?

Tassili n'Ajjer means 'plateau of rivers'. Its art dates from a time when the Sahara was a habitable savanna rather than a desert.

Which Moroccan town on the edge of the Sahara was a filming location for Gladiator and Lawrence of Arabia?

Ouarzazate has Morocco's biggest film studios, and parts of the series Game of Thrones were shot there too. A fortified village just west of the town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Which vast basin in Egypt's Western Desert holds the second-lowest point in Africa, 133 metres below sea level?

The Qattara Depression has a floor of salt pans, marshes and dunes, carved out as salt broke up the ground and the wind carried the debris away. Only Lake Assal in Djibouti lies lower in Africa.