Sierra Leone Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
42 free Sierra Leone trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Forty-four questions on Sierra Leone, the West African republic founded as a home for freed slaves. Geography covers Freetown on its mountainous peninsula, Africa's largest natural harbour, Mount Bintumani, Tiwai Island's pygmy hippos, the Lungi airport ferry and 400 km of Atlantic coast. History runs from Pedro de Sintra's 'lioness mountains' in 1462, Bunce Island's slave fort, the Black Poor of London and the Province of Freedom, the Nova Scotian settlers of 1792 and the Cotton Tree, Jamaican Maroons, Liberated Africans and the birth of Krio, Fourah Bay College, Bai Bureh's Hut Tax War, Milton Margai and independence in 1961, Siaka Stevens' one-party state, the RUF, blood diamonds and Executive Outcomes, Operation Palliser, the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the presidents since. Culture rounds cover Krio spoken by 97 percent, the Temne and Mende, three-quarters Muslim with famous tolerance, the leone, rice at every meal, poyo palm wine, the green-white-blue flag and the Leone Stars. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its capital, war and people, and the sentence that establishes it is quoted under each explanation. Suits a pub quiz, a West Africa lesson or anyone who has read 'A Long Way Gone'.
30 of 42 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sierra Leone borders Guinea and which other country?
Liberia
Liberia's civil war spilled over to ignite Sierra Leone's own conflict in 1991.
Q 02Which British actor was born in London to a Sierra Leonean father and a Ghanaian mother?
Idris Elba
Idris Elba: he worked as a DJ under the name Big Driis before The Wire made his name.
Q 03Explorers from which country gave Sierra Leone its name?
Portugal
Portugal, not Spain: one very early account traces the name to thunder roaring in the mountains.
Q 04Freetown was founded by Black Loyalists who sailed from which Canadian province?
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia: facing racial discrimination there, nearly 1,200 Black Loyalists moved to Sierra Leone in 1792.
Q 05Which captive from Sierra Leone led the revolt aboard the slave ship La Amistad?
Joseph Cinqué
Joseph Cinqué: he ordered the Spaniards to sail for Africa, but they secretly steered north, and the ship was seized off Long Island.
Q 06Which Graham Greene novel draws on his wartime posting in Freetown?
The Heart of the Matter
The Heart of the Matter: its hero, a kindly colonial police officer, is driven by pity for his wife and his mistress to take his own life.
Q 07Which Sierra Leone leader was ousted by a military coup within days of being sworn in as prime minister?
Siaka Stevens
Siaka Stevens: a counter-coup restored him in 1968, and he ruled until 1985, making his APC the only legal party in 1978.
Q 08Which private military company did Sierra Leone's government hire in 1995 to fight RUF rebels?
Executive Outcomes
Executive Outcomes: within a month its force drove the rebels back from Freetown, and it then chased them out of the diamond fields.
Q 09Which British prime minister sent the troops who helped end Sierra Leone's civil war?
Tony Blair
Tony Blair: troops sent in May 2000 to evacuate foreigners stayed on in what critics called mission creep, and the war was declared over in 2002.
Q 10Which former president was indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for backing RUF rebels?
Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor: convicted in 2012 of aiding and abetting the rebels' war crimes, he was sentenced to 50 years and sent to a British prison to serve it.
Q 11Which hymn writer worked in the slave trade on the Plantain Islands off Sierra Leone before captaining slave ships?
John Newton
John Newton: a violent storm on his voyage home turned him to faith, and he later wrote 'Amazing Grace' and backed the abolition of the slave trade.
Q 12Which mineral does Sierra Leone hold in some of the world's largest deposits?
Rutile
Rutile, a titanium ore: the civil war interrupted operations at the Sierra Rutile mine in 1995.
Q 13Sierra Leone's July 2022 redenomination swapped how many old leones for one new leone?
1,000
1,000: officials said the change would make cash easier to carry and to use for payments.
Q 21Bunce Island, the British slave fort near Freetown, shipped most of its captives to planters in which region?
The Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry
The Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry planters prized rice-growing skills, and the Gullah people of the Sea Islands trace roots to Sierra Leone.
Q 22Which special forces unit took part in the 2000 rescue of soldiers held by Sierra Leone's West Side Boys?
The SAS
The SAS: working with paratroopers, it freed the hostages in a September 2000 raid and captured the gang's leader.
Q 23Sierra Leone claims Africa's largest what, next to the capital?
Natural harbour
Q 14Which language, spoken by almost every Sierra Leonean, is the country's lingua franca?
Krio
Krio: the writer Thomas Decker translated Shakespeare into this English-based creole.
Q 15Which two ethnic groups, each roughly a third of the population, dominate Sierra Leone?
Temne and Mende
The Temne lead in the north and the Mende in the southeast, and national politics runs along that axis.
Q 16Which religion do about three in four Sierra Leoneans follow?
Islam
Islam: yet Christmas and Easter are public holidays alongside Eid.
Q 17Which language did Sierra Leone declare an honorary official language in 2002?
Bengali
Bengali: Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's government declared it in recognition of Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers' work during the civil war.
Q 18What are the three colours of Sierra Leone's flag, top to bottom?
Green, white, blue
Green, white, blue: in 2010 Sierra Leone stopped letting foreign-owned fishing ships register under its flag, to curb illegal fishing.
Q 19Freetown's historic Cotton Tree, a symbol of the city, is what species of tree?
Kapok
Kapok: legend says formerly enslaved settlers prayed beneath it when they arrived.
Q 20What happened to Freetown's historic Cotton Tree on the night of 24 May 2023?
Much of it toppled in heavy rain
Much of it toppled in heavy rain: afterwards the president said he wanted pieces of the fallen tree kept, including in a museum.
Natural harbour: it made Freetown an important Allied naval base during World War II.
Q 24How have most passengers travelled between Lungi airport and Freetown?
By ferry across the estuary
By ferry across the estuary: in 2018 the government scrapped a China-funded new airport and proposed a bridge to Lungi instead.
Q 25Tiwai Island in southern Sierra Leone, with one of the world's densest primate populations, also shelters which rare animal?
Pygmy hippopotamus
A pygmy hippopotamus population shares Tiwai with over 135 bird species; the Tacugama sanctuary near Freetown shelters chimpanzees.
Q 26What is Sierra Leone's staple food, eaten at virtually every meal?
Rice
Rice is the staple, eaten at almost every meal and served under 'plasas' such as cassava-leaf, potato-leaf or groundnut stew.
Q 27Poyo, a popular Sierra Leonean drink, is what?
Palm wine
Palm wine: the sap starts fermenting as soon as it is tapped, and after about a day it begins turning into vinegar.
Q 28Which rapper's 2005 hit "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" sampled a Shirley Bassey Bond theme?
Kanye West
Kanye West: it began as a song about his record label, but after Q-Tip told him about conflict diamonds he renamed it.
Q 29The 2014 Ebola outbreak killed which leading Sierra Leonean physician who was fighting it?
Sheik Umar Khan
Sheik Umar Khan: a dose of an experimental Ebola drug was on hand, but his doctors decided not to give it to him.
Q 30Besides its directly elected MPs, Sierra Leone's parliament reserves 14 seats for whom?
Paramount chiefs
Paramount chiefs: these hereditary rulers still head the chiefdoms, though since 2004 elected local councils have shared much of their power.