West Africa
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50 free West Africa trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
West Africa packs a remarkable amount into one corner of a continent: desert caravan towns and rainforest shores, some of the wealthiest empires of the medieval world, and the most populous country in Africa. Its map is a puzzle too, with tiny seaside states tucked beside giants and several capitals that are not the cities most people would guess. This quiz covers the region the way a good atlas does. It starts with the countries and their capitals, then moves through the rivers, lakes, winds and deserts that shape daily life, the kingdoms and trading cities that made the region famous, and the leaders who took their nations to independence. Music, food, film, football and literature get their turn as well. It is written for students revising a map of western Africa, for teachers and quiz hosts who want a ready-made geography round, and for travellers and curious readers who want to know the region better. Every question gives a clue to reason from, every answer comes with a short explanation, and the whole set can be printed for use on paper.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Mali Empire ruler, often called the richest person ever, made a lavish pilgrimage to Mecca?
Mansa Musa
Mansa Musa handed out so much gold in Cairo on his way east that he is said to have lowered its value across Egypt. His wealth came from taxing the trade in gold and salt.
Q 02Which country, settled by freed Black Americans, later elected Africa's first female president?
Liberia
Liberia declared independence in 1847, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the economist who became its president, went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Q 03The African Renaissance Monument, a bronze built by a North Korean firm, towers over which capital?
Dakar
Dakar unveiled the statue in April 2010, for the 50th anniversary of Senegal's independence from France, in front of 19 African heads of state.
Q 04Ivory Coast overtook Ghana in 1978 to become the world's leading producer of which crop?
Cocoa
Cocoa brings in about 40% of Ivory Coast's export income, and West Africa as a whole supplies two-thirds of the beans that the world's chocolate makers use.
Q 05The Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali, replastered every year, is the world's largest building of what?
Mud brick
Mud brick dried in the sun forms every wall, under a coat of earth that the rains wear away. The whole town turns out for a festival to repair it, and the present mosque dates from 1907.
Q 06Which country, the smallest on mainland Africa, is the homeland of Kunta Kinte in the novel Roots?
Gambia
Gambia is a sliver of land along a single river, bounded by Senegal on every side except its short Atlantic coast.
Q 07What nickname is given to Nigeria's film industry, ranked second in the world for output in 2009?
Nollywood
Nollywood took off with the 1992 straight-to-video hit Living in Bondage, and by 2009 UNESCO ranked it behind only Indian cinema for the number of films made.
Q 08Which planned city in the centre of Nigeria replaced Lagos as the national capital in 1991?
Abuja
Abuja was placed in the middle of the country as a sign of neutrality and national unity, following the same logic Brazil used for Brasília.
Q 09Which colour gives Lake Retba in Senegal its nickname, thanks to salt-loving algae in the water?
Pink
Pink water, tinted by Dunaliella salina algae, earned the lagoon the name Lac Rose. Its salt content reaches 40% in places, and collectors from across the region harvest it by the tonne.
Q 10Which capital of Ivory Coast is home to a basilica Guinness lists as the world's largest church?
Yamoussoukro
Yamoussoukro was the birthplace of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who made it the capital in 1983 and then gave the vast basilica to the Catholic Church.
Q 11Freetown, founded in 1792 as a home for freed slaves, is the capital of which country?
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone takes its name from the 'lioness mountains' that a Portuguese explorer mapped in 1462. Freetown itself was built by nearly 1,200 Black settlers who sailed from Nova Scotia.
Q 12Lomé, whose city limits reach the border with Ghana, is the capital of which country?
Togo
Togo began as the German colony of Togoland, and Lomé became its capital in 1897. The frontier lies only a few hundred metres west of the city centre.
Q 13Ouagadougou, host of Africa's biggest film festival, FESPACO, is the capital of which country?
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso took its present name in 1984 on the initiative of Thomas Sankara; it is usually translated as 'land of the honest men'. FESPACO began as a film week in 1969.
Q 21Which city is the official capital of Benin, although the government works from the larger Cotonou?
Porto-Novo
Porto-Novo is Portuguese for 'New Port', a name left by the Portuguese traders who shipped enslaved people from its harbour in the 18th century. Benin's parliament sits there.
Q 22Which lake in Ghana, held back by the Akosombo Dam, is the world's largest reservoir by area?
Volta
Lake Volta drowned 15,000 homes in 740 villages as it filled, and 78,000 people had to be resettled. The dam generates a large share of the country's electricity.
Q 23Which lake, where Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon meet, shrank dramatically between 1960 and 1990?
Chad
Lake Chad lost about nine-tenths of its open water, shrinking from 25,000 square kilometres in the early 1960s as the climate dried and rivers were diverted.
Q 14Which country on the Atlantic coast includes the Bijagós, a group of about 88 islands and islets?
Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau added the name of its capital at independence to avoid confusion with its neighbour, the former French Guinea. Only about twenty of the islands are lived on all year.
Q 15Praia is the capital of which country, homeland of the 'Barefoot Diva' of morna, Cesária Évora?
Cape Verde
Cape Verde is made up of ten volcanic islands about 570 km out in the Atlantic, uninhabited until Portuguese explorers settled them in the 15th century.
Q 16Nouakchott, a small fishing village until building began in 1958, is the capital of which country?
Mauritania
Mauritania had no capital city as independence approached, so a new one was laid out on the Atlantic edge of the Sahara, planned for just 15,000 people.
Q 17Which city, the capital of Ghana, takes its name from an Akan word for ants?
Accra
Accra grew from settlements around three rival European forts, British, Dutch and Danish, and its name recalls the anthills of the nearby countryside.
Q 18Which city on the Niger River, made the capital of French Sudan in 1908, is now the capital of Mali?
Bamako
Bamako boomed after a railway reached it from Kayes in 1904, and it stands near the rapids that divide the upper and middle Niger valleys.
Q 19Which city on the Niger River took over from Zinder as the capital of Niger in the 1920s?
Niamey
Niamey won out because Zinder lay too close to the border with Nigeria and too far from the ports that France controlled.
Q 20Which port city, first settled on tiny Tombo Island, is the capital of Guinea?
Conakry
Conakry later spread along the 36-kilometre Kaloum Peninsula and became the capital of French Guinea in 1904, shipping out groundnuts brought by rail from the interior.
Q 24Which dry belt south of the Sahara takes its name from an Arabic word meaning 'coast' or 'shore'?
Sahel
Sahel is a figurative name for the southern edge of the great desert, and the belt runs 5,900 km across Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.
Q 25Which dry, dusty wind blows from the Sahara over West Africa between late November and mid-March?
Harmattan
Harmattan dust can block the sun for days and costs airlines millions in cancelled flights, yet the dry air is such a relief from the humidity that it is nicknamed the doctor wind.
Q 26Which island off Senegal, a World Heritage Site since 1978, is home to the House of Slaves museum?
Gorée
Gorée was among the first twelve places in the world to be listed by UNESCO, though historians dispute how many captives really passed through its 'Door of No Return'.
Q 27Which desert-edge city in Mali became a centre of Islamic learning around the Sankoré Madrasah?
Timbuktu
Timbuktu grew rich on gold, salt and the caravan routes across the desert, and in its golden age its scholars supported a thriving trade in books.
Q 28Which leader took Ghana to independence from Britain in 1957 and became its first prime minister?
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in February 1966 while on a state visit to China, only weeks after he had opened the giant Akosombo Dam.
Q 29By what name was Ghana known under British rule, from 1821 until independence in 1957?
Gold Coast
Gold Coast was one of four stretches of shoreline that European traders named after their main exports; its neighbours were known for ivory, slaves and a peppery spice.
Q 30Which tree, nicknamed the upside-down tree, appears beside a lion on the coat of arms of Senegal?
Baobab
Baobab branches are so sparse that they look like roots, which earned the tree its nickname. Its scientific name honours a French botanist who described one in Senegal in 1749.