Guinea-Bissau
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46 free Guinea-Bissau trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Guinea-Bissau trivia quiz covers the small Portuguese-speaking republic on the West African coast: the Mandinka federation of Kaabu, the slave trade and Portuguese Guinea, Amílcar Cabral's PAIGC and the war that helped topple Lisbon's dictatorship, the unilateral declaration of 1973, and the coups, civil war and cocaine trafficking that have followed. It also visits the Bijagós archipelago of saltwater hippos and matriarchal islanders, the cashew economy, the Kriol language of unity and the gumbe music. The first questions suit anyone who knows why the capital's name is attached to the country's; the last ones test people who know which US president settled a colonial dispute over Bolama and how many islands the Bijagós count. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Why did Guinea-Bissau add the name of its capital, Bissau, to its own name at independence?
To avoid confusion with Guinea
To avoid confusion with Guinea, the former French colony next door, which had become independent under the old regional name first.
Q 02Which dry, dusty wind blows from the Sahara across Guinea-Bissau in the months after the rains?
Harmattan
Harmattan winds can carry enough Saharan dust to dim the sun for days; they mark the dry months that alternate with the country's monsoon-like rains.
Q 03Which revolution in Lisbon led Portugal to recognise Guinea-Bissau's independence in 1974?
Carnation
Carnation Revolution: officers worn down by the colonial wars toppled Portugal's dictatorship on 25 April 1974, and that September Lisbon recognised the independence Guinea-Bissau had declared a year earlier.
Q 04Who founded Guinea-Bissau's PAIGC independence movement in 1956 and led it until his assassination in January 1973?
Amílcar Cabral
Amílcar Cabral, the movement's chief theorist, was shot dead on 20 January 1973, eight months before the independence he had fought for was declared.
Q 05Guinea-Bissau's independence war is often called Portugal's what?
Vietnam
Vietnam is the usual comparison: a drawn-out guerrilla war that a far larger Portuguese army could not win, and one that fed the unrest at home which brought the regime down.
Q 06The first president of Guinea-Bissau was related to the PAIGC's founder how?
Half-brother
Half-brother of the party's founder, he ruled for six years until his own prime minister overthrew him in 1980; he was detained and then sent into exile.
Q 07Who overthrew Guinea-Bissau's first president in the coup of 14 November 1980?
Nino Vieira
Nino Vieira, born João Bernardo Vieira, was toppled himself in 1999, came back from exile to win the 2005 election, and was shot dead by soldiers in 2009.
Q 08President Vieira was killed on 2 March 2009 by soldiers reportedly avenging whose death?
The head of the joint chiefs of staff
General Batista Tagme Na Wai had been killed in an explosion.
Q 09Around 2005 Guinea-Bissau became a transshipment point for which commodity, prompting 'narco-state' warnings?
Cocaine
Cocaine from Latin America was routed through on its way to Europe: traffickers found a maze of islands the state could not police and, allegedly, senior officers willing to help.
Q 10Society on Guinea-Bissau's Bijagós islands is often described as tending toward what?
Matriarchy
Matriarchy is the label some writers use, because Bijagó women choose their husbands and can end the marriage; other scholars argue that men still hold the final authority.
Q 11Which UNESCO status did Guinea-Bissau's Bijagós archipelago gain in 2025?
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site status came for its coastal and marine ecosystems: UNESCO calls the islands the only active deltaic archipelago on Africa's Atlantic coast.
Q 12Along with fish and groundnuts, which crop is one of Guinea-Bissau's major exports?
Cashew nuts
Cashew nuts earn most of the country's foreign exchange and give most of its farmers a modest living; Guinea-Bissau ranks among the world's biggest producers.
Q 13Guinea-Bissau joined which monetary system in 1997?
The CFA franc
The CFA franc replaced the Guinean peso after the two currencies circulated side by side for several months, and a regional central bank took over from the national one.
Q 21Guinea-Bissau shares land borders with Guinea and which other country?
Senegal
Senegal lies to the north and Guinea to the east and south; both neighbours sent troops across the border during the civil war of 1998-99.
Q 22Tides carry brackish water up to 100 km inland in Guinea-Bissau, where farmers use it to irrigate which staple crop?
Rice
Rice grows in drowned fields called bolanhas, sealed off from the estuaries by dikes; when the independence war wrecked the dikes, salt spoiled some of the best land.
Q 23Guinea-Bissau's PAIGC launched its independence war on 23 January 1963 from a base in which West African capital?
Conakry
Conakry housed the party's headquarters in exile; in 1970 Portugal even mounted a seaborne raid on the city to seize its leaders, and failed.
Q 14The Mandinka federation of Kaabu in Guinea-Bissau began as a province of which empire?
Mali
Mali ruled the area through a local governor, the farim of Kaabu; as the empire weakened, Kaabu broke away and survived as a kingdom in its own right for some three centuries.
Q 15What were the freelance traders called who settled on the Guinea coast in defiance of Portuguese royal bans?
Lançados
Lançados married into coastal societies and dealt in goods and slaves outside crown control, so the authorities kept imposing severe penalties to rein them in.
Q 16The 1870 dispute between Portugal and Britain over Bolama island was settled in Portugal's favour through the mediation of which US president?
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was asked to arbitrate after decades of Anglo-Portuguese wrangling over the island, where Britain had first tried to plant a settlement in the 1790s.
Q 17Portuguese is Guinea-Bissau's official language, but which language do most people actually use as their lingua franca?
Kriol
Kriol, a creole that grew out of Portuguese in the slave-trade era, links the country's many peoples; only about 2 percent speak Portuguese itself as a first language.
Q 18Despite five centuries of Portuguese contact, which faith has the most followers in Guinea-Bissau?
Islam
Islam came overland with Muslim traders and herders long before Portuguese rule took hold; it now claims between two-fifths and half the population, Christianity about a fifth.
Q 19The country's primary musical export is which polyrhythmic genre?
Gumbe
Civil unrest has kept it from reaching mainstream audiences even in Africa.
Q 20Poilão, a sacred island in Guinea-Bissau's Bijagós, is one of the world's great breeding sites for which animals?
Green sea turtles
Green sea turtles come ashore in their thousands to nest on the tiny island; its sacred status long kept people away, helping to make it Africa's most important breeding site for the species.
Q 24PAIGC leader Aristides Pereira later became the first president of which country?
Cape Verde
Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau were meant to unite under the one party, but the 1980 coup in Bissau ended the plan and the islanders formed a party of their own.
Q 25Guinea-Bissau's flag echoes those of Guinea and which other country, whose flag also bears a black star?
Ghana
Ghana and Guinea were discussing a West African federation in 1961, when the independence party borrowed their red, yellow and green for its own flag; the new state kept the design.
Q 26Which Guinea-Bissau president died in a Paris hospital in January 2012, three months before another coup?
Malam Bacai Sanhá
Malam Bacai Sanhá had been ill for most of his term; with the presidency vacant, soldiers seized power that April between the two rounds of the vote to replace him.
Q 27Guinea-Bissau's 1998-99 civil war began with what event?
An army uprising
An army uprising broke out when the president sacked his military chief, whom he accused of letting weapons reach rebels across the border; the fighting drew in four foreign armies.
Q 28Which former prime minister took office as Guinea-Bissau's president in February 2020 while his rival still contested the result?
Umaro Sissoco Embaló
Umaro Sissoco Embaló held his own inauguration while a court challenge was pending; parliament swore in its speaker as a rival president, who quit two days later citing threats to his life.
Q 29Which West African bloc suspended Guinea-Bissau after soldiers seized power in November 2025?
ECOWAS
ECOWAS froze the country out a day after the takeover, which came on the eve of results from a presidential election that both leading candidates claimed to have won.
Q 30Which people of Guinea-Bissau traditionally had no kings, leaving decisions to village elders and family heads?
Balanta
Balanta communities are run by councils of initiated elders, an egalitarian habit that made them notably hard for the Portuguese to govern.