Western Hemisphere
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50 free Western Hemisphere trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet that lies west of the prime meridian, and most people picture it as the Americas: two continents, a land bridge between them and a sea full of islands. The map holds a few surprises, though. Parts of Europe, Africa and the Pacific fall inside the hemisphere too, and a sliver of the United States falls outside it. This quiz covers the hemisphere the way a geography class does. Expect questions on the countries and their capitals, from the far north to the stormy southern tip of South America, along with the physical map: the great rivers and lakes, the highest peaks, the driest desert and the islands offshore. A few questions deal with the meridians that mark where the hemisphere begins and ends, and with the explorers and history behind the names on the map. It suits students revising for a map test, travellers, and quiz hosts who need a ready-made geography round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something, and the questions can be printed for use on paper.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which US state's Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian into the Eastern Hemisphere?
Alaska
Alaska is therefore the northernmost, westernmost and, by longitude, easternmost state in the United States all at once.
Q 02Which country, host of the 1968 Summer Olympics, has the world's most native Spanish speakers?
Mexico
Mexico has been the most populous Spanish-speaking country since at least the 1970s, and it also gives 68 Indigenous languages equal legal standing with Spanish.
Q 03Which island, the largest in the world, is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark?
Greenland
Greenland is said to owe its name to Erik the Red, who hoped an attractive name would draw settlers, yet an ice sheet covers about four-fifths of the island.
Q 04Which Latin American country abolished its army for good after a brief civil war in 1948?
Costa Rica
Costa Rica wrote the ban into its 1949 constitution and now spends the old military budget on health care and education.
Q 05Which South American river carries more water to the sea than the next seven largest rivers combined?
Amazon
The Amazon already outflows every other river on Earth at a point where it carries just a fifth of the water it finally pours into the Atlantic.
Q 06Which country covers roughly half of South America and borders every nation there except two?
Brazil
Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas, a legacy of the fleet under Pedro Álvares Cabral that claimed the land for Portugal in 1500.
Q 07Which Great Lake, the highest and most northerly, is the world's largest freshwater lake by area?
Superior
Superior covers about 82,000 square kilometres, roughly the size of Austria, though Lake Baikal and Lake Tanganyika both hold more water.
Q 08Which country's canal, opened in 1914, spares ships the long voyage around the tip of South America?
Panama
Panama's 82-kilometre waterway lifts ships through locks to an artificial lake 26 metres above sea level, then lowers them again on the far side.
Q 09Which mountain range, the longest on any continent, runs through seven countries?
Andes
The Andes are still being built as the Nazca Plate slides beneath South America, which is why earthquakes and volcanic eruptions keep shaking the range.
Q 10Which London district is home to the Royal Observatory that marks the prime meridian?
Greenwich
Greenwich was confirmed as the world's zero of longitude at an 1884 conference in Washington, D.C., which is why the Western Hemisphere is measured from there.
Q 11Which country stretches over 4,300 km from north to south yet averages only about 175 km wide?
Chile
Chile is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, squeezed onto a strip of land between a mountain wall and the Pacific Ocean.
Q 12Which landlocked country splits its government between La Paz and its constitutional capital, Sucre?
Bolivia
Bolivia lost its Pacific coast in the War of the Pacific of 1879–84, yet it still keeps a navy and still presses its claim to the sea.
Q 13Which country, the smallest in South America, has Dutch as its official language?
Suriname
Suriname stayed Dutch under a 1667 treaty in which the English, in return, kept New Amsterdam, the settlement they had renamed New York.
Q 21Which Argentine peak, about 110 km from the city of Mendoza, is the highest mountain outside Asia?
Aconcagua
Aconcagua's first recorded ascent came in 1897, by the Swiss guide Matthias Zurbriggen, and its normal route is often called the world's highest climb that needs no ropes.
Q 22Which California desert basin contains Badwater, North America's lowest point at 86 metres below sea level?
Death Valley
Death Valley also holds the record for the hottest air temperature measured on Earth, 56.7 °C in 1913, because its high, steep walls trap warm air and keep reheating it.
Q 23Which body of water on Peru's border, 3,812 metres up, is often called the world's highest navigable lake?
Titicaca
Q 14Which country owns the Galápagos Islands, about 1,000 km west of its mainland in the Pacific?
Ecuador
Ecuador is named after the equator, which runs through the northern outskirts of its capital, Quito.
Q 15Which South American country, with Bogotá as its capital, has coasts on both the Caribbean and the Pacific?
Colombia
Colombia takes its name from Christopher Columbus, and its Pacific lowlands are jungle so thinly settled that Buenaventura is the main port on that coast.
Q 16Which Central American country, called British Honduras until 1973, has English as its official language?
Belize
Belize became independent in 1981 as the last British colony on the American mainland, and it is the only Central American country with no Pacific coast.
Q 17Which island nation, the largest in the Caribbean, lies about 150 km south of Key West, Florida?
Cuba
Cuba stayed a Spanish colony until the war of 1898, then spent four years under United States occupation before gaining independence in 1902.
Q 18Which Caribbean nation, occupying the western end of Hispaniola, was founded by a slave revolt?
Haiti
Haiti won its independence from France in 1804 and became the first country in the Americas to officially abolish slavery.
Q 19Which nation of some 700 islands was the site of Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the Americas?
The Bahamas
The Bahamas lie in the open Atlantic rather than the Caribbean Sea, and scholars still debate exactly which of the islands Columbus stepped onto in 1492.
Q 20Which European country with the world's northernmost national capital lies wholly in the Western Hemisphere?
Iceland
Iceland straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, so the island is slowly being pulled apart as the North American and Eurasian plates drift away from each other.
Titicaca is home to the Uros people, who live on floating islands that they build from layers of cut totora, a buoyant sedge.
Q 24Which Venezuelan waterfall on Auyán-tepui, 979 metres high, is the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall?
Angel Falls
Angel Falls is named after Jimmie Angel, a US aviator who flew over it in 1933 and four years later wrecked his plane trying to land on the mountain above.
Q 25Which desert, where some weather stations have never recorded rain, is the driest nonpolar place on Earth?
Atacama
The Atacama lies in a double rain shadow between two mountain chains, and its soil is so lifeless that instruments for Mars missions are tested there.
Q 26Which river flows about 3,770 km from Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its delta below New Orleans?
Mississippi
The Mississippi is only the second-longest river in the United States, because its own tributary, the Missouri, runs farther.
Q 27Which narrow waterway, named for a Danish-born explorer in Russian service, separates Asia from North America?
Bering Strait
The Bering Strait is about 82 km wide, but in the ice ages lower seas are thought to have exposed a land bridge there that people crossed on foot.
Q 28Which vast Canadian body of water is named after an English explorer whose crew mutinied in 1611?
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay covers about 1.2 million square kilometres, and the mutineers cast the explorer, his teenage son and several crewmen adrift there, never to be heard from again.
Q 29Which peninsula hides the buried Chicxulub crater, left by the asteroid blamed for wiping out the dinosaurs?
Yucatán
Yucatán's crater, about 200 km across and buried a kilometre deep, was found in the late 1970s by geophysicists who were prospecting for oil.
Q 30Which headland, first rounded by Dutch sailors in 1616, marks where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet?
Cape Horn
Cape Horn was named after the Dutch city of Hoorn, and strong winds, large waves and icebergs make the waters around it particularly hazardous.