60 free Canyons of the World trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This canyons trivia quiz travels the world's great gorges, from Arizona to Tibet, Namibia to Mars. The easy questions are the ones any geography fan can handle: what carves a canyon, which river cut the Grand Canyon, the Spanish origin of the word, and which US state has the Antelope slot canyons. From there it moves into the record book: the deepest canyon on Earth, the two Peruvian rivals for deepest in the Americas, the largest in Africa and Europe, the widest in the world and the 750 km one hidden under Greenland's ice. The harder end is for people who like their geology: how box canyons got used as corrals, why canyons favour arid country, what turbidity currents do on the seabed, the Copper Canyon railway with 86 tunnels, the Andean condors of Colca, the Leakeys at Olduvai, the Grand Canyon's Great Unconformity, the Vishnu Schist and John Wesley Powell's 1869 run, plus the greatest canyon of all, on Mars. Individual national-park quizzes for the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Canyonlands cover those places in far more depth. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the individual canyons and on canyon formation before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What primarily forms a canyon?
A river eroding rock over geologic time
Rivers cut down toward the level of the water body they drain into, especially where hard and soft rock layers alternate.
Q 02From which language does the word 'canyon' come?
Spanish
Gorge and ravine, by contrast, are French in origin and more common in Europe.
Q 03Why do canyons favour dry regions over wet ones?
Physical weathering there acts in a localised way
Frost wedging, where water freezes in cracks, also helps break off chunks of canyon wall.
Q 04What defines a box canyon?
Steep walls on three sides and one way in
Ranchers in the American West fenced their mouths and used them as corrals.
Q 05What is a river called that keeps its path through a canyon as the land uplifts around it?
Entrenched
The Colorado and the Snake are the classic American examples.
Q 06The canyon regarded by many as the deepest on Earth, at about 5,500 metres, is in which region?
Tibet
It runs along the Yarlung Tsangpo and is slightly longer than the Grand Canyon.
Q 07The Yarlung Tsangpo is the upper course of which great river?
The Brahmaputra
The gorge bends around Mount Namcha Barwa in the eastern Himalayas.
Q 08Between which two 8,000-metre peaks does Nepal's Kali Gandaki Gorge run?
Dhaulagiri and Annapurna
The river lies about 5,571 metres below the summit of Annapurna I.
Q 09The Kali Gandaki region is famous for shaligram fossils, revered by Hindus as a form of which god?
Vishnu
They are one of five non-living forms of the deity.
Q 10Which two canyons in southern Peru compete for the title of deepest in the Americas?
Colca and Cotahuasi
Both are more than 3,500 metres deep, twice the Grand Canyon.
Q 11Which bird is the star attraction of Colca Canyon, gliding past the walls at close range?
Andean condor
Colca is Peru's third most-visited destination with about 120,000 visitors a year.
Q 12Cotahuasi Canyon lies between which two Andean massifs?
Coropuna and Solimana
Its depth of about 3,354 metres is more than twice that of the Grand Canyon.
Q 13What is the largest canyon in Africa?
Fish River
It is in southern Namibia, about 160 km long and up to 550 metres deep.
What hot-springs resort sits at the lower end of Namibia's great canyon?
Q 21On which Greek island is the Samaria Gorge, a national park since 1962?
Crete
The 16 km hike ends at the Libyan Sea at Agia Roumeli.
Q 22The Verdon Gorge in Provence is named for the river's distinctive colour, which is what?
Turquoise-green
Its limestone walls carry some 1,500 rock-climbing routes.
Q 23Which river carved the Grand Canyon?
The Colorado
The canyon is 277 miles long and over a mile deep.
Q 24Roughly how many years of Earth's geological history are exposed in the Grand Canyon's walls?
ǀAi-ǀAis
Public viewpoints are near Hobas, 70 km to the north.
Q 15What makes South Africa's Blyde River Canyon unusual among the world's great gorges?
It is green, full of subtropical vegetation
It passes the Three Rondavels rock formation on the Panorama Route.
Q 16What does 'Blyde' mean in old Dutch, a name given by Voortrekkers in 1844?
Glad or happy
Hendrik Potgieter's party returned safely from Delagoa Bay to companions who thought them dead.
Q 17Which Tanzanian Rift Valley site yielded the hominin fossils excavated by Louis and Mary Leakey?
Olduvai
Its name comes from the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant.
Q 18Europe's largest canyon, 1,300 m deep and nicknamed the Tear of Europe, lies mostly in which country?
Montenegro
It is the Tara River Canyon, and part of it forms the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Q 19The most striking part of the Tara River Canyon lies within which UNESCO-listed national park?
Durmitor
Across the border it is also protected as the Tara Nature Park.
Q 20Greece's Vikos Gorge holds which Guinness record?
Deepest relative to its width
It ranges from 120 to 1,350 metres deep but narrows to a few metres in places.
Nearly two billion
The schist at the bottom of the Inner Gorge is about two billion years old.
Q 25Who led the first expedition by boat down the Grand Canyon in 1869?
John Wesley Powell
He had four reinforced rowboats built in Chicago and shipped west on the new railroad.
Q 26In which year did the Grand Canyon become a national park?
1919
It had been a national monument since 1908.
Q 27Which Spaniard was the first European known to have seen the Grand Canyon, in 1540?
García López de Cárdenas
Pueblo peoples had long regarded the canyon as a holy site.
Q 28What is the name of the gap in the Grand Canyon's rock record between 1.75 and 1.25 billion years ago?
The Great Unconformity
The rim rock, the Kaibab Limestone, is a mere 270 million years old.
Q 29Which gorge on the Snake River is North America's deepest?
Hells
At 7,993 feet it runs deeper than the Grand Canyon, along the Oregon-Idaho border.
Q 30Which Australian canyon is the widest in the world, a kilometre wider than the Grand Canyon?
Capertee
It lies 135 km north-west of Sydney beside the Wollemi National Park.