North Africa
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50 free North Africa trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
North Africa is the strip of the continent between the Mediterranean and the world's largest hot desert. A handful of big countries share it, and their cities are some of the oldest on Earth: ports that traded with Rome, walled market towns on the caravan routes, and capitals that grew up beside the Nile. This quiz covers the map first: which country is which, where the capitals and major cities sit, and the mountains, straits and waterways that shape the region. It then moves on to the stories behind the places, from pharaohs and Phoenician traders to modern revolutions, with a few questions on the food, wildlife and films that made North Africa famous. It suits students revising African geography, teachers who want a ready-made round on North African countries and cities, and travellers planning a trip to Morocco or Egypt. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you knowing more.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country, once the heart of the ancient kingdom of Kush, has more pyramids than Egypt?
Sudan
Sudan has more than 200 pyramids, the most of any country. Kushite kings and queens built them smaller and steeper than Egypt's, at sites such as Meroë.
Q 02Which Star Wars desert planet is named after a real town in the North African country where it was filmed?
Tatooine
Tatooine was George Lucas's spelling of Tataouine, a town he came across while scouting desert locations. Luke Skywalker's home was a real underground hotel in the same country.
Q 03Which North African country flew a plain green flag with no emblem or design from 1977 to 2011?
Libya
Libya's all-green banner was, for nearly all of that time, the only national flag with a single colour and no design. In 2011 the country went back to the red, black and green flag it first raised in 1951.
Q 04Which Moroccan city gave its name to a 1942 Humphrey Bogart film shot almost entirely in California?
Casablanca
Casablanca was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, with one sequence at Van Nuys Airport. The real Casablanca is Morocco's largest city and its business centre.
Q 05Which country became Africa's largest by area in 2011, when the previous record holder split in two?
Algeria
Algeria covers about 2.38 million square kilometres, which makes it the tenth-largest country in the world. It is also the biggest country on the Mediterranean.
Q 06Which animal, the smallest fox in the world, uses its oversized ears to shed the heat of the Sahara?
Fennec fox
Fennec fox ears can reach 10 cm on a body less than 40 cm long. As well as dumping heat, they pick up the sound of prey moving under the sand.
Q 07Which city, nicknamed the 'City of a Thousand Minarets', is the largest in the Arab world?
Cairo
Cairo takes its name from the Arabic al-Qahira, 'the Conqueror'. The name was given by the Fatimid caliph who made the new city the capital of his dynasty.
Q 08Which waterway, opened in 1869, lets ships pass between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea?
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal has no locks, so seawater flows freely along its length. In March 2021 the grounded container ship Ever Given blocked it for six days.
Q 09Which country, home to Africa's northernmost point, saw the 2010 protests that began the Arab Spring?
Tunisia
Tunisia's uprising began in the town of Sidi Bouzid after street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. It toppled a president who had ruled since 1987.
Q 10Which mountain range runs about 2,500 km across northwest Africa, dividing the Sahara from the coast?
Atlas Mountains
The Atlas Mountains are linked in Greek myth to the Titan Atlas, who was condemned to hold up the sky. Their highest peaks rise above 4,000 metres.
Q 11Which Egyptian port once held a Seven Wonders lighthouse and the ancient world's largest library?
Alexandria
Alexandria's lighthouse stood until earthquakes ruined it, and its last stones went into a fort built on the same spot in 1480. The city was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC.
Q 12Which 'Red City', famed for its Jemaa el-Fnaa square, is the origin of the European names for Morocco?
Marrakesh
Marrakesh earned the nickname from the red walls built around it in the 1120s. Names such as Marruecos and Maroc come straight from Murrakush, the city's Arabic name.
Q 13Which sea passage, under 15 km wide at its narrowest point, separates Morocco from Spain?
Strait of Gibraltar
Q 21Which Moroccan city is home to al-Qarawiyyin, a 9th-century school cited as the world's oldest university?
Fez
Fez's famous school began, tradition says, as a mosque paid for by Fatima al-Fihri, a merchant's daughter who spent her inheritance on it. The brimless fez hat is thought to take its name from the city.
Q 22Which city at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river, opposite Salé, is the capital of Morocco?
Rabat
Rabat was made the administrative centre when a protectorate was set up in 1912, and it became the capital of independent Morocco in 1956.
Q 23Which inscribed slab, found by an army officer in the Nile Delta in 1799, unlocked Egyptian hieroglyphs?
Rosetta Stone
The Strait of Gibraltar can be crossed by ferry in as little as 35 minutes. The ancients knew the heights on either side of it as the Pillars of Hercules.
Q 14Which queen of Egypt, who died in 30 BC, was the first of her Greek-speaking dynasty to learn Egyptian?
Cleopatra
Cleopatra grew up speaking Greek, the language of a dynasty founded by a Macedonian general. By adulthood she could speak several other languages as well.
Q 15Which North African dish of steamed semolina granules joined UNESCO's cultural heritage list in 2020?
Couscous
Couscous is traditionally cooked in a steamer set on top of a pot of stew, so the grains soak up the flavours rising from below.
Q 16Which North African general crossed the Alps with war elephants to invade Italy in 218 BC?
Hannibal
Hannibal went on to win at Lake Trasimene and Cannae and to occupy most of southern Italy for 15 years. His exact route over the mountains has been argued about since ancient times.
Q 17Which Egyptian city is home to the Great Sphinx and the only ancient Wonder to survive largely intact?
Giza
Giza's Great Pyramid first stood about 147 metres high and was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years.
Q 18Which capital city stands at the point where the Blue Nile and the White Nile meet?
Khartoum
Khartoum's name is popularly traced to the Arabic for 'trunk', after the thin strip of land between the two rivers. The meeting point is known as al-Mogran, 'the Confluence'.
Q 19Which Moroccan stew is named after the clay pot with a tall cone-shaped lid that it is cooked in?
Tagine
Tagine lids catch the steam and return the condensation to the food, so meat and vegetables braise with very little water.
Q 20Which ancient city, founded in North Africa by Phoenicians, did Rome destroy in 146 BC?
Carthage
Carthage fell after a siege of nearly three years, yet Rome rebuilt it a century later as the chief city of its African province. Legend credits its founding to Queen Dido.
The Rosetta Stone repeats one decree of 196 BC in three scripts, so scholars could set the hieroglyphs against Greek they could already read. It has been on show at the British Museum since 1802.
Q 24Which army officer seized power in a bloodless 1969 coup and ruled a North African country until 2011?
Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Gaddafi was in his twenties when his Free Officers deposed King Idris. Because nobody was killed, the takeover was at first labelled the 'White Revolution'.
Q 25Which North African capital's shores are sung about in the opening lines of the US Marines' Hymn?
Tripoli
Tripoli entered the hymn after an 1805 campaign in which a small force led by US Marines crossed more than 500 miles of desert to storm the port of Derna.
Q 26Which Egyptian city on the Nile stands on the site of ancient Thebes, beside the temples of Karnak?
Luxor
Luxor is often described as the world's greatest open-air museum. The Valley of the Kings, burial ground of the New Kingdom pharaohs, lies just across the river.
Q 27Which indigenous people of North Africa, living there long before Arabic arrived, call themselves the Imazighen?
Berbers
Berbers often prefer their own name, Amazigh, because 'Berber' is related to the Arabic word for barbarian. Ancient Egyptian writings were the first to mention them.
Q 28Which European power ruled most of Morocco as a protectorate from 1912 until independence in 1956?
France
France had begun occupying parts of Morocco in 1907, five years before the sultan signed the treaty that created the protectorate. Spain held a smaller zone in the north.
Q 29Which oil comes from the kernels of a Moroccan tree whose branches goats climb to eat the fruit?
Argan oil
Argan oil producers in some areas let the goats do part of the work, gathering the nuts the animals leave behind after eating the fruit.
Q 30Which Saharan people are called the 'Blue People' after the indigo veils traditionally worn by their men?
Tuareg
Tuareg men take up the veil as a rite of passage into manhood, while the women traditionally leave their faces uncovered. The indigo dye can rub off and tint the skin.