Arab World
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Arab World trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Arab world stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the shores of the Gulf, taking in the 22 member states of the Arab League, two continents and several hundred million people. It is a region of record-breaking deserts and skyscrapers, some of the oldest cities on Earth and a language that has lent English dozens of everyday words. This quiz tests how well you know it. Expect questions on country names and what they mean in Arabic, capitals and famous cities, straits, rivers and mountain ranges, national flags, and the travellers, writers and singers the region is proud of. Some questions are gentle openers; others reward anyone who has studied the map. It suits geography students revising the Arabic-speaking countries, quiz writers looking for a themed round, and anyone curious about a part of the world that is often in the news but rarely on the syllabus. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you guess wrong.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which desert, the largest hot one on Earth, has a name that comes from the Arabic word for 'desert'?
Sahara
The Sahara covers about 9.2 million square kilometres, so saying 'Sahara Desert' really means 'desert desert'.
Q 02Which country, known in Arabic as Misr, has the largest population of any nation in the Arab world?
Egypt
Egypt is home to more than 100 million people, and it bridges two continents because its Sinai Peninsula lies in Asia.
Q 03Which Dubai skyscraper became the tallest building in the world when it opened in 2010?
Burj Khalifa
Burj Khalifa was called Burj Dubai until its opening day, when it was renamed after the president of the United Arab Emirates.
Q 04Which Gulf state, bordered on land only by Saudi Arabia, hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup?
Qatar
Qatar was the first Arab country to host the tournament, which moved to November and December to escape the summer heat.
Q 05Which salt lake on Jordan's western border has shores that form the lowest land point on Earth?
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea lies more than 430 metres below sea level and is nearly ten times as salty as the ocean, so bathers float with no effort.
Q 06Which eastern Mediterranean country shows a cedar tree at the centre of its red and white flag?
Lebanon
Lebanon has treated the cedar as a national symbol for centuries, and the flag's white band is often read as its snow-capped mountains.
Q 07Which single colour filled the entire flag of Libya from 1977 to 2011, with no emblem at all?
Green
Green stood alone under Muammar Gaddafi, and for almost all of those years it was the world's only national flag of one colour with no design.
Q 08The digits 0 to 9 are known as Arabic numerals, but in which country was the system invented?
India
India is where mathematicians devised the system between the 1st and 4th centuries, and Europe named it after the Arab scholars who passed it on.
Q 09Which branch of mathematics is named from an Arabic term that first meant setting broken bones?
Algebra
Algebra comes from 'al-jabr', a word the scholar al-Khwarizmi put in the title of his 9th-century book on solving equations.
Q 10Which rock-cut Nabataean capital in southern Jordan is listed among the New 7 Wonders of the World?
Petra
Petra is nicknamed the Rose City for the colour of its sandstone, and it stayed unknown to Europeans until a Swiss traveller reached it in 1812.
Q 11Which country, the largest in Africa by area, has a name from the Arabic for 'the islands'?
Algeria
Algeria became Africa's largest country in 2011, when Sudan split in two, and its name recalls small islands that once lay off its capital.
Q 12Which Arab state, linked to Saudi Arabia by the King Fahd Causeway, has a name meaning 'two seas'?
Bahrain
Bahrain is an island nation, and nobody is sure which 'two seas' its name first meant: one idea is the salt water around it and the fresh springs beneath.
Q 13Which island nation off Mozambique is the only Arab League member wholly in the Southern Hemisphere?
Comoros
The Comoros takes its name from an Arabic phrase meaning 'Islands of the Moon'.
Q 21Which capital, called the 'city of a thousand minarets', hosts the Arab League's headquarters?
Cairo
Cairo anchors the largest urban area in Africa and the Arab world, and has housed the League since 1945 apart from a spell in the 1980s.
Q 22Which city on the Tigris was founded in 762 as the circular capital of the Abbasid caliphs?
Baghdad
Baghdad was officially named the 'City of Peace' by its founder, and its House of Wisdom earned it a reputation as a centre of learning.
Q 23Which Arab capital, nicknamed the City of Jasmine, is often called the oldest capital in the world?
Damascus
Damascus also holds the Umayyad Mosque, one of the largest mosques in the world and a site of continuous prayer since the rise of Islam.
Q 14Which country on the Horn of Africa contains Lake Assal, the lowest point on the African continent?
Djibouti
Djibouti's Lake Assal lies 155 metres below sea level, and the salt cut from its shores gave rise to ancient caravan routes.
Q 15Which country includes Socotra, an island of dragon blood trees lying nearer to Africa than Arabia?
Yemen
Yemen's Socotra is so isolated that about a third of its plant life is found nowhere else on Earth.
Q 16Which Atlantic-coast country, with its capital at Nouakchott, holds the ringed Richat Structure?
Mauritania
Mauritania's Richat Structure, nicknamed the Eye of Africa, is a 40-kilometre dome worn down into concentric rings of rock.
Q 17In which country did the Arab Spring begin in 2010, after a street vendor's protest in Sidi Bouzid?
Tunisia
Tunisia's president of 23 years stepped down within a month, and the wave of protest then spread across the region.
Q 18Which Arab League member has the longest coastline on the African mainland?
Somalia
Somalia is one of the few Arab League members that is not ethnically Arab, and its shoreline wraps around the tip of the Horn.
Q 19Which kingdom was the first Arab nation in a FIFA World Cup semi-final, finishing fourth in 2022?
Morocco
Morocco was also the first African semi-finalist, and its run ended only with a 2–0 defeat by France.
Q 20Which landlocked country directly south of Libya has two official languages, Arabic and French?
Chad
Chad is home to more than 200 ethnic and linguistic groups, so Arabic and French serve as its two shared official tongues.
Q 24Which city in western Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Muhammad, do Muslims face when they pray?
Mecca
Mecca is closed to non-Muslims, and the hajj pilgrimage to it is a journey every able Muslim is asked to make once in a lifetime.
Q 25Which Saudi capital, set on the Najd plateau, is the largest city on the Arabian Peninsula?
Riyadh
Riyadh grew out of an 18th-century walled town, and most of the modern metropolis dates only from the 1950s onward.
Q 26At which capital city does the Blue Nile join the White Nile before the river flows north?
Khartoum
Khartoum's name, in one folk etymology, comes from an Arabic word for 'trunk', after the thin strip of land between the two rivers.
Q 27Which capital, first built on seven hills, was known as Philadelphia in Greek and Roman times?
Amman
Amman was renamed in the 3rd century BC by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who called the city after himself.
Q 28Which city, home to a Louvre museum opened in 2017, is the capital of the United Arab Emirates?
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi stands on a T-shaped island less than 250 metres from the mainland, and it is only the country's second-biggest city, behind Dubai.
Q 29Which Atlantic port city holds the Hassan II Mosque, whose 210-metre minaret rises beside the ocean?
Casablanca
Casablanca means 'white house', and the minaret of its great mosque is the second tallest in the world.
Q 30Which city's skyline is dominated by the golden Dome of the Rock, a shrine completed in the 690s?
Jerusalem
Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock is the oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture, though its present gold plating dates only from the 20th century.