The Far East
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50 free The Far East trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Far East is a label coined by European traders and diplomats for the lands at the far end of their sea routes: China, Japan, the Koreas and their neighbours and, in its broadest sense, the countries of Southeast Asia and Russia's Pacific coast. It takes in some of the oldest states on Earth and some of the most crowded places on the planet. This quiz tests how well you know the region and its countries. Expect questions on capitals and borders, rivers, islands and volcanoes, dynasties and wars, and the food, sport and inventions the region has given the rest of the world. It is written for pub quiz teams, geography fans, students and anyone planning a trip. The early questions are ones most people can reason out, and the later ones reward players who know their history. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country, the most sparsely populated sovereign state on Earth, has only two neighbours, Russia and China?
Mongolia
Mongolia is the world's second-largest landlocked country after Kazakhstan, yet it is home to only about 3.5 million people.
Q 02Which island nation, ruled by Spain for more than three centuries, is named after a sixteenth-century Spanish king?
Philippines
The Philippines got the name in 1543, when explorer Ruy López de Villalobos honoured the future Philip II, who was still a prince at the time.
Q 03Which thorn-covered fruit, called the king of fruits, is banned from some hotels and public transport for its smell?
Durian
Durian takes its name from the Malay word for thorn, and its strong odour can linger in a room for several days.
Q 04Which Kyoto company, founded in 1889 to make playing cards, went on to create Mario and Zelda?
Nintendo
Nintendo spent its first decades selling hanafuda, handmade Japanese flower cards, long before it made a video game.
Q 05Which volcano between Java and Sumatra erupted in 1883 with the loudest sound ever measured?
Krakatoa
Krakatoa's blast was heard on Rodrigues island near Mauritius, about 3,000 miles away, and the sea surges that followed submerged whole islands.
Q 06Which kingdom, called Siam until 1939, is the only Southeast Asian country never colonised by a Western power?
Thailand
Thailand kept its independence partly because Britain and France found it useful as a buffer state between their colonies.
Q 07Which South Korean company, founded in 1938 as a grocery trader, has a name meaning three stars?
Samsung
Samsung began as a small trading firm dealing in dried fish, local groceries and noodles, long before it moved into electronics.
Q 08Which pastime's name joins the Japanese word for empty to a clipped form of the word orchestra?
Karaoke
Karaoke took off in the nightclubs of Kobe, where bandleader Daisuke Inoue says he built his first sing-along machine in 1971.
Q 09Which country is the only place where Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, live in the wild?
Indonesia
Indonesia's Komodo dragons survive on just five islands, including Komodo, Rinca and Flores, where they ambush deer, pigs and buffalo.
Q 10The word tsunami was borrowed from Japanese, where its two characters literally mean what?
Harbour wave
Harbour wave fits because fishermen out at sea often noticed nothing unusual, then sailed home to find their village devastated.
Q 11Which city was known as Edo until 1868, when Japan's imperial capital moved there from Kyoto?
Tokyo
Tokyo means eastern capital, and under its old name it had already grown from a fishing village into a city of over a million people.
Q 12Which city beat the favourite, Nagoya, in the vote to host the 1988 Summer Olympics?
Seoul
Seoul's surprise win made South Korea only the second Asian nation to stage a Summer Olympics, after Japan in 1964.
Q 13Which city became the first to host both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, completing the pair in 2022?
Beijing
Beijing, whose name means northern capital, staged the Summer Games in 2008 and the Winter Games fourteen years later.
Q 21Which S-shaped country on the South China Sea is only about 50 km wide at its narrowest point?
Vietnam
Vietnam makes up for its narrow waist in length, running 1,650 km from north to south.
Q 22Which country is the only landlocked nation in Southeast Asia, and was once a kingdom named for a million elephants?
Laos
Laos grew out of Lan Xang, a kingdom founded in the fourteenth century that became a hub for overland trade.
Q 23Which Pacific port in the Russian Far East is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway?
Vladivostok
Vladivostok means ruler of the East, and the rail journey there from Moscow covers 9,289 km and eight time zones.
Q 14Which territory did Britain hand back to China in 1997, ending 156 years of colonial rule?
Hong Kong
Hong Kong's return was timed by the 99-year lease Britain took on the New Territories in 1898, which ran out in 1997.
Q 15Which territory was expelled from Malaysia in 1965, only two years after joining the federation?
Singapore
Singapore became an independent city-state almost overnight, after its leaders and Malaysia's secretly negotiated a separation agreement.
Q 16Which twelfth-century temple complex, the largest religious structure in the world, appears on Cambodia's national flag?
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat was built as a Hindu temple to Vishnu and was gradually turned into a Buddhist one as Cambodia's kings changed faith.
Q 17Which active volcano, quiet since an eruption that began in 1707, is the highest mountain in Japan?
Mount Fuji
Mount Fuji's last eruption rained ash across eastern Japan and was followed by landslides and starvation.
Q 18Which river, the third-longest in the world, is spanned by the Three Gorges Dam, the largest power station on Earth?
Yangtze
The Yangtze dam came at a human cost: estimates of the people displaced by its construction run from 1.13 million to about 1.4 million.
Q 19Which conqueror, born Temüjin, united the steppe tribes in 1206 and founded history's largest contiguous land empire?
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan took that title at a great assembly of the steppe peoples, and historians are still unsure what the name means.
Q 20Which animal did China give to foreign governments as a diplomatic gift until 1984, and now only leases?
Giant panda
Giant panda diplomacy had a famous sequel: after Nixon's 1972 visit a pair went to Washington, and the US sent two musk oxen in return.
Q 24Which city on the island of Java was known as Batavia during three centuries of Dutch rule?
Jakarta
Jakarta got its present name from Japanese occupiers in 1942; the Dutch had named the city after the Batavi, a people they claimed as ancestors.
Q 25Which Kuala Lumpur landmark held the title of world's tallest building from 1998 to 2004?
Petronas Towers
The Petronas Towers are still the world's tallest twin skyscrapers, a title they took from New York's original World Trade Center.
Q 26Which walled palace complex in China's capital was home to 24 emperors between 1420 and 1912?
Forbidden City
The Forbidden City is the largest preserved royal palace complex still standing anywhere in the world.
Q 27Which is the largest of Japan's four main islands, home to Osaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima?
Honshu
Honshu is the seventh-largest island in the world and the second most populous, behind only Java.
Q 28Which island, the third-largest in the world, is divided among three countries, including the tiny sultanate of Brunei?
Borneo
Borneo's rainforest is estimated to be around 140 million years old, which makes it one of the oldest in the world.
Q 29Which island did Portuguese sailors mark on their maps in 1542 as Formosa, meaning beautiful island?
Taiwan
Taiwan kept the name Formosa among English speakers well into the twentieth century.
Q 30In which cold Asian desert did an American Museum expedition find the first Velociraptor fossil in 1923?
Gobi
The Gobi find was only a crushed skull and a single claw, picked up at the Flaming Cliffs by expedition member Peter Kaisen.