Republic of the Congo
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50 free Republic of the Congo trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Republic of the Congo trivia quiz is about Congo-Brazzaville, the smaller of the two Congos, and only the smaller one: its capital facing Kinshasa across the river, the Italian-born explorer who founded it, its stint as the capital of Free France, its years as Africa's first Marxist-Leninist people's republic, and its oil, its swamp-forest gorillas and its impeccably dressed sapeurs. The early questions cover the map and the flag; the later ones get into Tio kings, the Congo-Ocean Railway, Marien Ngouabi and the 1972 Africa Cup of Nations. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. If you want the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that is a separate quiz. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
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Q 01What is the capital and largest city of the Republic of the Congo?
Brazzaville
Brazzaville, on the north bank of the Congo River, holds more than a third of the national population and was named a UNESCO City of Music in 2013.
Q 02The Congolese capital sits directly across the Congo River from which other national capital?
Kinshasa
Kinshasa, capital of the DR Congo, faces Brazzaville across the Congo River; they are the world's closest pair of national capitals after Rome and Vatican City.
Q 03The Republic of the Congo gained full independence from which colonial power in 1960?
France
France granted the Republic of the Congo independence on 15 August 1960; the neighbouring Congo across the river had been a Belgian colony.
Q 04By what nickname is the country commonly distinguished from its larger neighbour across the river?
Congo-Brazzaville
Congo-Brazzaville, after its capital, sets the smaller republic apart from the far larger Democratic Republic of the Congo across the river, which is known as Congo-Kinshasa.
Q 05Which country does NOT share a land border with the Republic of the Congo?
Nigeria
Nigeria lies beyond Cameroon to the north-west; the republic's actual neighbours are Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the DR Congo and Angola's Cabinda exclave, plus an Atlantic coast.
Q 06The country's capital is named after an explorer born in which city?
Rome
Pietro Savorgnan di Brazzà was the seventh of thirteen children of an Italian nobleman and only became a French citizen in 1874.
Q 07The capital's name, via the explorer's family village of Brazzacco, unintentionally means what?
City of the armed wing
Brazzacco's name derives from the Latin bracchium; a nearby-sounding coincidence given the city's later military history.
Q 08Which Tio king signed the 1880 treaty with de Brazza putting land north of the Congo under France?
Iloo I
King Iloo I, the Makoko of the Teke, signed the treaty with de Brazza on 10 September 1880; after his death his widow, Queen Ngalifourou, upheld it and became an ally of the French.
Q 09During World War II, the Congolese capital served as the symbolic capital of what?
Free France
Brazzaville became the symbolic capital of Free France in 1940 after French Equatorial Africa rallied to de Gaulle, and the 1944 Brazzaville Conference went on to reshape French colonial policy.
Q 10In 1969 the country became the first in Africa to declare itself what?
A Marxist-Leninist state
The People's Republic of the Congo, proclaimed on 31 December 1969, was Africa's first self-declared Marxist-Leninist state; it lasted until 1992, complete with a Soviet-style red flag.
Q 11Who returned to the presidency of the Republic of the Congo after the 1997 civil war?
Denis Sassou Nguesso
He had already ruled from 1979 to 1992, and returned after a civil war in which Angolan forces helped install him; he has held office continuously since 1997.
Q 12The daughter of Congo's long-serving president married which neighbouring head of state in 1989?
Omar Bongo of Gabon
Edith Lucie Sassou Nguesso married Gabon's Omar Bongo in 1989 and served as his first lady until her death in 2009, binding the two oil-producing neighbours for two decades.
Q 13Who was the first President of the Republic of the Congo, from independence in 1960?
Q 21The Congo-Ocean Railway links the capital with the coast over roughly what distance?
500 km
It bypasses the rapids of the lower Congo; a luxury train, La Gazelle, was scheduled to take 14 to 16 hours for the trip.
Q 22The Congo-Ocean Railway, built after World War I, cost at least how many lives?
14,000
Building the line between 1921 and 1934 with forced labour recruited from as far away as present-day Chad and the Central African Republic cost at least 14,000 lives, and many estimates run far higher.
Q 23The Congo River is the second-longest in Africa and holds which world record?
Deepest ever recorded
The Congo is the deepest river ever recorded, with depths of around 220 metres measured in canyon-like stretches of the lower river; it is also Africa's second-longest river after the Nile.
Fulbert Youlou
Fulbert Youlou, a former Catholic priest and fervent anti-communist, became the first president at independence in 1960 and was toppled by the three-day 'Trois Glorieuses' uprising in August 1963.
Q 14President Marien Ngouabi, who proclaimed the People's Republic, met what fate in March 1977?
He was assassinated
Marien Ngouabi was assassinated in Brazzaville on 18 March 1977; an 11-member military committee under Joachim Yhombi-Opango took over the state.
Q 15The private militia that fought for Sassou Nguesso in the 1997 civil war was known by what name?
Cobras
The four-month war wrecked much of the capital and killed tens of thousands of civilians before Angola invaded to install him.
Q 16Which country's army invaded the Congo in October 1997 to install Sassou Nguesso in power?
Angola
Angolan troops crossed the border in October 1997 and tipped the war to Sassou Nguesso; Pascal Lissouba's elected government fell and Sassou declared himself president on 25 October.
Q 17The Congolese flag is a yellow diagonal band separating triangles of which two colours?
Green and red
The flag's yellow diagonal separates a green upper-hoist triangle from a red lower-fly triangle; adopted in 1959, it was replaced by a Soviet-style red flag under the People's Republic and restored in 1991.
Q 18The People's Republic of the Congo's flag emblem showed a star over a hammer and what tool?
Hoe
The emblem paired a hammer with a hoe beneath a gold star, echoing the Soviet hammer and sickle but swapping the sickle for a tool more familiar to Central African farmers.
Q 19What is the second-largest city and main economic centre of the Republic of the Congo?
Pointe-Noire
Pointe-Noire, on the Atlantic coast near the Cabinda border, is the republic's second city and its oil and port hub, linked to Brazzaville by the Congo-Ocean Railway.
Q 20Which chain of rapids begins on the Congo River just downstream of Brazzaville?
Livingstone Falls
Livingstone Falls, a roughly 350 km chain of rapids, begins just below Brazzaville and Kinshasa, which is why ocean-going ships cannot reach the twin capitals from the Atlantic.
Q 24The Congo River is the only major river in the world to do what?
Cross the equator twice
The Congo is the only major river to cross the equator twice, looping north and then south on its way to the Atlantic; it is also the world's second-largest river by discharge after the Amazon.
Q 25The word 'Congo' derives from the Bantu Kingdom of Kongo, whose people's name is said to mean what?
Hunters
The Kongo people's name is said to mean 'hunters'; their kingdom held the river's mouth when the Portuguese first arrived in the 1480s.
Q 26Which Portuguese explorer was the first European to reach the mouth of the Congo?
Diogo Cão
Diogo Cão reached the Congo's mouth in 1482 and raised a stone pillar there; centuries of trade, including in enslaved people from the hinterland, followed before direct colonisation began in the 19th century.
Q 27Which international organisation did the Republic of the Congo join in 2018?
OPEC
The Republic of the Congo joined OPEC in June 2018; petroleum had replaced forestry as the mainstay of its economy and made up 92% of exports in 2008.
Q 28In 2004 a certification scheme expelled the Congo over suspected smuggling of which export?
Diamonds
Most diamonds the Congo exported were suspected of being smuggled in from the DR Congo, so the Kimberley Process expelled it in 2004; it was readmitted in 2007.
Q 29Alongside French, which two languages are national languages of the Republic of the Congo?
Kituba and Lingala
Kituba and Lingala are the two national languages beside official French: Kituba dominates the south and the railway corridor, Lingala the north and the capital; some 62 languages are spoken in all.
Q 30Which ethnic group is the largest in the Republic of the Congo?
Kongo
The Kongo, concentrated in the south around Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, are the largest group at roughly 40 to 48% of the population; the Teke are second at about 17% and the northern Mbochi, Sassou Nguesso's group, about 13%.