Q 01/05

What is the capital and largest city of Gabon?

A) Yaoundé

B) Port-Gentil

C) Franceville

D) Libreville

Answer · why

D) Libreville

Libreville began in 1849 as a village for people freed from a captured slave ship, who held an election and chose a man named Mountier as their mayor.

Q 02/05

Gabon's name is usually traced to a hooded cloak that sailors saw in what?

A) An estuary

B) A mountain

C) An island

D) A headland

Answer · why

A) An estuary

An estuary: Portuguese navigators of the 1470s are said to have seen a gabão, their word for a hooded cloak, in the outline of the Komo river's mouth,...

Q 03/05

In its boom years under Omar Bongo, Gabon was said to drink more of what per head than any other country?

A) Cognac

B) Champagne

C) Bordeaux wine

D) Scotch whisky

Answer · why

B) Champagne

Champagne: true or not, the story dates from an oil boom that made the president's circle fabulously rich while doing little to lift the rest of Gabon...

Q 04/05

Omar Bongo likened a France without its African partners to a car without what?

A) Wheels

B) Brakes

C) Fuel

D) Headlights

Answer · why

C) Fuel

Fuel: France had huge oil interests in Gabon, and the other half of his line was that without France his own side would be a car without a driver.

Q 05/05

Omar Bongo held what distinction after Fidel Castro stepped down in 2008?

A) Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement

B) World's oldest serving president

C) Africa's last Marxist head of state

D) World's longest-ruling non-royal leader

Answer · why

D) World's longest-ruling non-royal leader

World's longest-ruling non-royal leader: in power since 1967, Bongo made Gabon a one-party state and, once rivals were allowed, won every election for...