Valleys
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40 free Valleys trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Valleys are where much of the world lives, farms and builds. They are the low ground between hills or mountains, and the shape of each one is a clue to what carved it. This quiz mixes the science with the stories. You will meet the lowest and hottest spots on the map, valleys on other worlds, ancient cities and royal tombs, and a surprising number of everyday things, from a cheese to a currency, that take their names from a valley. The questions range from easy to tough, so they suit curious kids, classrooms and quiz nights alike. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave with a fact worth repeating.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Valles Marineris, the largest known canyon system in the Solar System at over 4,000 km long, lies on which planet?
Mars
Mars has a canyon up to 7 km deep, named Valles Marineris after Mariner 9, the orbiter that discovered it in the early 1970s.
Q 02Which extinct human relatives are named after a valley in Germany where a fossil was found in 1856?
Neanderthals
Neanderthals are named after the Neander Valley, where the fossil surfaced three years before Darwin published On the Origin of Species.
Q 03Which creamy salad dressing was first sold to guests at Hidden Valley, Steve Henson's California guest property?
Ranch
Ranch began as a recipe Henson mixed for his work crews while he was a plumbing contractor; guests liked it so much that they bought jars to take home.
Q 04Which continent is slowly splitting in two along a rift valley, at a rate of a few millimetres a year?
Africa
Africa is tearing along the East African Rift, where the continent's plate is dividing into the Somali and Nubian plates at 8–9 mm a year.
Q 05Whose treasure-filled tomb did Howard Carter's team discover in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in 1922?
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun was robbed twice soon after his burial, yet his mummy and most of the grave goods stayed intact for more than 3,000 years.
Q 06What carves a valley into a U shape, with steep, straight sides and a wide, flat floor?
A glacier
A glacier scours rock away across its whole width as it grinds downhill, while a river cuts a narrower, V-shaped notch.
Q 07Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level, lies in which national park?
Death Valley
Death Valley also holds the record for the hottest air temperature ever measured: 134 °F (56.7 °C), logged at Furnace Creek in July 1913.
Q 08How Green Was My Valley, John Ford's drama about a mining family, beat which classic to the Best Picture Oscar?
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is frequently cited as the greatest film ever made, yet it lost on Oscar night to a film that took five awards, including Best Director.
Q 09Which currency's name comes from Joachimsthal, a Bohemian valley where silver coins were minted in the 1500s?
Dollar
Dollar descends from Joachimsthaler, the coin's full name, which was shortened to thaler and became daler in Low German before reaching English.
Q 10California's Central Valley grows about 80% of the world's supply of which nut?
Almonds
Almonds thrive there thanks to mild weather, rich soil and steady sunshine, and just four counties grow most of the state's crop.
Q 11Which river carved the Grand Canyon, cutting more than a mile down through nearly two billion years of rock?
Colorado
The Colorado settled into its course there about five to six million years ago and has been deepening and widening the canyon ever since.
Q 12Silicon Valley, the tech region south of San Francisco, is named after the silicon used to make what?
Computer chips
Computer chips gave the region its name, popularised by journalist Don Hoefler; before the tech boom it was known as the Valley of Heart's Delight.
Q 13El Capitan and Half Dome are granite giants towering over the valley floor of which California national park?
Yosemite
Q 21The Loire Valley, nicknamed the Garden of France, is famous for more than three hundred of which buildings?
Châteaux
Châteaux sprang up along the Loire when French kings built there and the nobility, not wanting to be far from the seat of power, followed suit.
Q 22At the 1976 Judgment of Paris blind tasting, wines from which California region beat France's finest?
Napa Valley
Napa Valley wines were rated best in both the red and the white category, a shock to organiser Steven Spurrier, a British merchant who sold mainly French wine.
Q 23What often spills from the mouth of a hanging valley, a side valley perched high above the main one?
A waterfall
Yosemite visitors spend most of their time in just seven square miles of valley, a tiny slice of the whole park.
Q 14Which Nordic country has nearly 1,200 fjords, steep-sided valleys that are now flooded by the sea?
Norway
Norway's coastline measures about 29,000 km when the fjords are counted and only 2,500 km without them.
Q 15Which salt lake in the Jordan Rift Valley has the lowest shores of any land on Earth?
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is also about 9.6 times as salty as the ocean, which makes swimming in it feel more like floating.
Q 16The San Fernando Valley, known to locals simply as "the Valley", lies mostly within which US city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles governs most of it, though Burbank and the city of San Fernando are separate, and San Fernando is completely surrounded by its giant neighbour.
Q 17Which general led about 12,000 Continental Army soldiers into winter quarters at Valley Forge in 1777?
George Washington
George Washington lost an estimated 1,700 to 2,000 soldiers to disease during the encampment, made worse by hunger and cold, wet weather.
Q 18Monument Valley's sandstone buttes, seen in many classic Westerns, lie on which Native American people's land?
Navajo
The Navajo consider the place sacred, and their own name for it means "valley of the rocks".
Q 19Which Russian lake, the deepest in the world at 1,642 metres, fills a rift valley that is still pulling apart?
Baikal
Baikal holds more than a fifth of the world's fresh surface water, more than all of North America's Great Lakes combined.
Q 20The Kathmandu Valley, a bowl-shaped Himalayan basin listed as a World Heritage Site, is the heart of which country?
Nepal
Nepal's capital sits in the basin, which is also known as the Nepal Valley and holds the country's largest urban area.
A waterfall forms because the tributary cut a shallower trough than the main valley, leaving its mouth stranded high up the wall.
Q 24Where are the McMurdo Dry Valleys, a nearly snow-free cold desert that scientists compare to another planet?
Antarctica
Antarctica's Dry Valleys stay bare because fierce katabatic winds scour away snowfall and moisture, making them one of the driest places on Earth.
Q 25Which US president signed the 1933 act that set up the Tennessee Valley Authority to dam rivers and supply electricity?
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt made the agency a core part of his New Deal; the region had suffered even deeper poverty in the Great Depression than the rest of the country.
Q 26Stardew Valley, built by Eric Barone alone over five years, began as a fan-made alternative to which older series?
Harvest Moon
Harvest Moon's own creator praised Stardew Valley, which sold more than a million copies within two months of release.
Q 27Tennyson's poem about the Light Brigade charging into a deadly valley describes an 1854 battle in which war?
Crimean War
The Crimean War charge at Balaclava cost the British cavalry many casualties, and the poem was published just six weeks later.
Q 28In the Scottish Highlands, which word from Gaelic names a long, deep valley that is narrower than a strath?
Glen
Glen comes from the Gaelic gleann, meaning a deep valley, and it begins many Scottish place names.
Q 29Which ancient region in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys has a Greek name meaning the land between rivers?
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is called a cradle of civilisation: cuneiform, one of the world's first writing systems, emerged in its cities.
Q 30In which country can you walk through a rift valley between the North American and Eurasian plates at Thingvellir?
Iceland
Iceland's parliament, the Althing, was founded on the same spot in 930 and went on meeting there until 1798.