Straits of the World
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50 free Straits of the World trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A strait is a narrow stretch of sea between two pieces of land, and a surprising amount of history squeezes through them. A handful of these passages carry much of the world's oil and container traffic, which is why navies watch them and why one stuck ship can snarl global trade for days. Others are famous for whirlpools, shipwrecks, record-breaking bridges or the explorers who first found a way through. This quiz tours the straits, channels and chokepoints of every ocean. You will be asked to place the big names between the right countries and continents, and to match lesser-known waterways to the islands, tunnels and legends that go with them. There are questions on naval battles, daring swims and flights, and the unexpected places a strait turns up, including the middle of a great American city. The opening questions suit anyone who likes maps, and the later ones will stretch geography bowl regulars and pub quiz captains. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you finish knowing why each narrow strip of water matters.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which waterway, flanked by the ancient Pillars of Hercules, separates Spain from Morocco?
Strait of Gibraltar
The Strait of Gibraltar is only about 14 km wide at its narrowest point. If it ever closed, the Mediterranean is estimated to lose most of its water to evaporation within a thousand years.
Q 02Which narrow strait splits Istanbul in two, leaving part of the city in Europe and part in Asia?
Bosporus
The Bosporus narrows to just 700 metres, making it the world's narrowest strait used for international shipping, with a city of millions spread along both banks.
Q 03Which waterway between Alaska and Russia holds two islands nicknamed Tomorrow Island and Yesterday Island?
Bering Strait
In the Bering Strait, the two Diomede Islands sit on opposite sides of the International Date Line, so Russia's Big Diomede is almost a day ahead of America's Little Diomede.
Q 04Which waterway between Iran and Oman is the only sea route out of the oil-rich Persian Gulf?
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most strategic chokepoints. Its shipping lanes are only two nautical miles wide in each direction.
Q 05Which artificial waterway did the giant container ship Ever Given block for six days in March 2021?
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal was shut when the 400-metre Ever Given was caught by strong winds and wedged across the channel, its bow and stern stuck in opposite banks.
Q 06Which strait linking San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean got its name decades before a famous bridge crossed it?
Golden Gate
The Golden Gate was named by the explorer John C. Frémont in 1846, before gold was even found in California. The bridge that shares its name did not open until 1937.
Q 07Which American city takes its name from the French word for strait, after the narrow river it stands on?
Detroit
Detroit comes from détroit, because French settlers called the river there the strait of Lake Erie. The city began as a French fort founded by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in 1701.
Q 08Which landform, the dry-land counterpart of a strait, does the Panama Canal cut across to link two oceans?
Isthmus
An isthmus is a narrow strip of land joining two larger areas, and its name comes from the ancient Greek word for neck.
Q 09Which waterway, formed when seas rose after the last ice age, separates Tasmania from mainland Australia?
Bass Strait
Bass Strait is named after George Bass, the English explorer and physician who sailed across it in 1798–99 on a voyage right around Tasmania.
Q 10Which sheltered route through southern Chile was the main steamship link between oceans until the Panama Canal opened?
Strait of Magellan
The Strait of Magellan is shorter and more sheltered than the open sea route around Cape Horn, which is beset by gale-force winds and icebergs.
Q 11Which narrow waterway between Sicily and mainland Italy is linked to the Greek legend of Scylla and Charybdis?
Strait of Messina
The Strait of Messina is about 3 km wide at its narrowest, and a natural whirlpool in its northern part has been tied to the legend's ship-swallowing monster.
Q 12Which New York waterway separating Manhattan from Brooklyn is, despite its name, a tidal strait?
East River
The East River links Upper New York Bay with Long Island Sound, and the clashing tides of its narrow Hell Gate stretch caused a number of shipwrecks.
Q 13Which body of water between Cape Horn and Antarctica is feared by sailors for waves that top 12 metres?
Drake Passage
Q 21Which waterway, called the Hellespont by the ancient Greeks, was fought over in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915?
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles is 61 km long but as little as 1.2 km wide, and it forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia.
Q 22Which strait in Washington's Puget Sound was spanned by Galloping Gertie, the bridge that tore itself apart in 1940?
Tacoma Narrows
The Tacoma Narrows bridge opened in July 1940 and collapsed that November in a 40-mph wind, after its deck twisted until it tore apart.
Q 23Which Canadian province is joined to the mainland by the Confederation Bridge across the Northumberland Strait?
Prince Edward Island
The Drake Passage is named after Sir Francis Drake, whose ships were blown far south by a tempest in 1578 after they had entered the Pacific Ocean.
Q 14Which shipping lane between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra is the main sea link between the Indian and Pacific oceans?
Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is named after an old trading port, which legend says was itself named after a tree its founder rested under.
Q 15Which waterway between New Zealand's North and South Islands did Abel Tasman mistake for a closed bay in 1642?
Cook Strait
Cook Strait is just 22 km wide at its narrowest, yet it is regarded as one of the most dangerous and unpredictable stretches of water in the world.
Q 16Which waterway off China's Fujian province, about 180 km wide, was once known as the Black Ditch?
Taiwan Strait
The Taiwan Strait was long called the Formosa Strait as well, after a dated name for the island on its eastern shore.
Q 17Which country is linked to Malaysia by a causeway built across the Johor Strait in the 1920s?
Singapore
Singapore's road and rail link to Johor Bahru also carries a water pipeline. Retreating Allied forces blew it up in two places in World War II to slow the Japanese advance.
Q 18Which arm of the Indian Ocean, about 1,700 km long, separates Madagascar from the African mainland?
Mozambique Channel
The Mozambique Channel is more than 400 km across even at its narrowest point, and it plunges to depths of more than 3,000 metres.
Q 19Which Italian island lies just across the Strait of Bonifacio from the French island of Corsica?
Sardinia
Sardinia and Corsica are only 11 km apart at the narrowest point, yet no bridge joins them, so travellers rely on ferries through waters notorious for weather and shoals.
Q 20Which Norwegian explorer led the first voyage through the Northwest Passage, in a small sloop named Gjøa?
Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen spent 1903 to 1906 working a former herring boat through the Arctic. Five years later he led the first party to reach the South Pole.
Prince Edward Island got its 12.9-km fixed link in 1997. It is Canada's longest bridge and the longest in the world over water that freezes in winter.
Q 24Which Great Lake is joined to Lake Michigan by the Straits of Mackinac, making the two a single body of water?
Huron
Huron and Michigan are studied by hydrologists as one lake, Michigan–Huron. The bridge across the straits joins Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas.
Q 25Which island is separated from mainland Wales by the Menai Strait, which Thomas Telford bridged in 1826?
Anglesey
Anglesey's farmers once had to drive their cattle into the water and make them swim to reach mainland markets, before Telford's suspension bridge opened.
Q 26Which waterway between India and Sri Lanka is bounded by Ram Setu, the chain of shoals also called Adam's Bridge?
Palk Strait
Palk Strait is named after Robert Palk, an 18th-century British governor of Madras. In the Ramayana, its shoals are the remains of a bridge built by Rama's army.
Q 27Which waterway between Java and Sumatra was reshaped when the volcano Krakatoa erupted in 1883?
Sunda Strait
The Sunda Strait takes its name from the Sunda Kingdom, which ruled the western part of Java for some nine centuries, until around 1579.
Q 28Which waterway between Australia's Cape York and New Guinea is dotted with islands that Queensland annexed in 1879?
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is named after Luís Vaz de Torres, the Spanish navigator who sailed through it in 1606, although a Scottish geographer chose the name much later.
Q 29Which small inland sea in Turkey sits between the two straits that connect the Black Sea to the Aegean?
Sea of Marmara
The Sea of Marmara, the Propontis of the ancient Greeks, is named after Marmara Island, which is rich in marble.
Q 30Which Romantic poet swam the Hellespont strait in 1810, inspired by the myth of Leander's nightly crossing?
Lord Byron
Lord Byron swam from Europe to Asia in May 1810, then worked the feat into his poetry, including The Bride of Abydos three years later.