Eastern Hemisphere
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50 free Eastern Hemisphere trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Eastern Hemisphere is the half of the planet that lies east of the prime meridian and west of the 180th meridian. It takes in Africa, Asia, Australia and most of Europe, which means it holds most of the world's land and the great majority of its people. That much ground produces a long list of extremes and oddities: the highest and lowest places on land, the deepest water, countries with strange borders, flags and calendars, and animals found nowhere else. This quiz turns those fun facts into multiple-choice questions, each with a short explanation of why the answer is worth knowing. It suits students meeting the Eastern Hemisphere in a geography or social studies class, teachers who want a ready-made review, and anyone who likes a good fact about the world. The questions start easy and get harder as you go.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which European country is the smallest in the world by both area and population?
Vatican City
Vatican City is the smallest country on Earth by both area and population, with fewer than a thousand residents.
Q 02Which African mammal, the tallest land animal on Earth, has only seven neck bones, the same number as humans?
Giraffe
The giraffe has a long neck because each of its seven neck vertebrae is stretched to more than 28 centimetres, not because it has extra bones.
Q 03Which island country off the southeast coast of Africa is the only place where lemurs are native?
Madagascar
Madagascar is the lemurs' only natural home, and 17 lemur species have vanished there since humans arrived about 2,000 years ago.
Q 04Which salt lake between Israel and Jordan has shores that are the lowest land elevation on Earth?
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is nearly ten times as salty as the ocean, which makes its water so dense that swimmers float without effort.
Q 05Which Turkish city straddles the Bosphorus strait, leaving part of it in Europe and part in Asia?
Istanbul
Istanbul sits on both banks of the Bosphorus, and under its earlier name Constantinople it served as the capital of four empires.
Q 06Which egg-laying mammal of eastern Australia has a duck-like bill and venomous spurs on the male's hind feet?
Platypus
The platypus looked so odd that the first specimens baffled European naturalists, and the male's venom is strong enough to cause people severe pain.
Q 07Which island city-state at the tip of the Malay Peninsula has banned the sale of chewing gum since 1992?
Singapore
Singapore outlawed gum sales after used gum was found jamming the door sensors of its subway trains, lock cylinders and lift buttons.
Q 08Which Asian country spans five geographical time zones but officially keeps just one standard time?
China
China sets every clock to the time in Beijing, so its far western regions run well out of step with their local solar time.
Q 09Which country's flag, made of two stacked pennants, is the only national flag that is not a rectangle?
Nepal
The flag of Nepal joins two pennants once flown by rival branches of the ruling dynasty, and its sun and moon had human faces until 1962.
Q 10Which country was the first where all women could vote in national elections?
New Zealand
New Zealand passed the law in 1893 after years of campaigning led by Kate Sheppard, and women first voted that November.
Q 11Which Himalayan peak, first climbed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, is the highest on Earth?
Mount Everest
Mount Everest reaches the greatest height above sea level, though Hawaii's Mauna Kea is taller when measured from its base on the ocean floor.
Q 12Which natural wonder off the coast of Queensland is the largest single structure built by living organisms?
Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is made up of more than 2,900 individual reefs and stretches for over 2,300 kilometres through the Coral Sea.
Q 13Which desert, stretching across much of North Africa, is the largest hot desert in the world?
Sahara
Q 21Which boundary in the Pacific, roughly following the 180th meridian, separates one calendar day from the next?
International Date Line
The International Date Line has shifted over time: the Philippines spent 323 years a day behind its Asian neighbours before switching sides in 1844.
Q 22Which ocean, the warmest in the world, is the only one that lies entirely within the Eastern Hemisphere?
Indian
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the five oceans, and the exact centre of the Eastern Hemisphere lies in its waters.
Q 23Which country, the largest in the world, spans eleven time zones and shares land borders with fourteen countries?
Russia
The Sahara has swung between desert and grassy savanna in a cycle of roughly 20,000 years, driven by a slow wobble in Earth's axis.
Q 14Which river, the longest in Africa, flows north through Sudan and Egypt to empty into the Mediterranean Sea?
Nile
The Nile was the foundation of ancient Egyptian civilisation, which relied on the river for nearly every part of life in a desert land.
Q 15Which white marble mausoleum in Agra did the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan build to house the tomb of his wife?
Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal employed more than 20,000 workers and artisans, and Shah Jahan himself was later entombed there beside his wife.
Q 16Which Egyptian monument is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still largely intact?
Great Pyramid
The Great Pyramid, built as the tomb of the pharaoh Khufu, stood as the tallest human-made structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years.
Q 17Which European capital city hosted the first Olympic Games of the modern era in 1896?
Athens
Athens was chosen at an 1894 congress in Paris organised by Pierre de Coubertin, where the International Olympic Committee was also created.
Q 18Which bear, found wild only in a few mountain ranges around Sichuan, eats almost nothing but bamboo?
Giant panda
The giant panda has a thumb on its forepaw that helps it hold bamboo in place while it feeds.
Q 19Which country of thousands of islands, including Java and Sumatra, is the world's largest archipelagic state?
Indonesia
Indonesia has so many islands that the total depends on how they are counted, with published figures running from about 13,000 to more than 17,500.
Q 20Which London district, home to the Royal Observatory, gives its name to the meridian at 0° longitude?
Greenwich
Greenwich was picked for Charles II's Royal Observatory partly because its royal palace grounds came with a useful hill.
Russia reaches so far east that it crosses the 180th meridian, which puts its farthest tip in the Western Hemisphere.
Q 24Which body of water, bordered by five countries including Iran and Kazakhstan, is the world's largest lake?
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea covers more area than Germany and holds over 40 percent of all the lake water in the world.
Q 25Which Siberian lake, the deepest in the world, holds more water than all of North America's Great Lakes combined?
Baikal
Lake Baikal is also the oldest lake on Earth, at 25 to 30 million years, and holds around a fifth of the planet's unfrozen fresh surface water.
Q 26Which crescent-shaped chasm in the western Pacific seabed holds the Challenger Deep, the oceans' deepest known point?
Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench was first reached by people in 1960, when Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard rode the bathyscaphe Trieste to the bottom.
Q 27Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, appears on the national flag of which Southeast Asian country?
Cambodia
Cambodia is home to Angkor Wat, built in the 12th century as a Hindu temple to Vishnu and later adapted for Buddhist worship.
Q 28Which sandstone monolith in Australia's Northern Territory was named Ayers Rock by a surveyor in 1873?
Uluru
Uluru is sacred to the local Pitjantjatjara people, and most of the rock's bulk lies hidden underground.
Q 29Which East African island sultanate lost history's shortest recorded war, beaten by Britain in under an hour in 1896?
Zanzibar
Zanzibar gave in after 38 to 45 minutes of fighting, in a war sparked by a disputed succession when its pro-British sultan died.
Q 30Which landlocked country, whose capital is Ulaanbaatar, is the most sparsely populated sovereign state in the world?
Mongolia
Mongolia packs roughly half its people into the capital, while about 30 percent of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic.