Q 01/05

Which physician mapped cholera deaths around London's Broad Street pump in 1854?

A) Edward Jenner

B) Joseph Lister

C) John Snow

D) William Farr

Answer · why

C) John Snow

John Snow marked each death on a street plan and the cluster pointed to one water pump. Parish officials removed its handle the day after he made his ...

Q 02/05

Which name do GIS users give the spot at 0°N 0°E, where records with blank coordinates pile up?

A) Null Island

B) Point Nemo

C) Sandy Island

D) Bouvet Island

Answer · why

A) Null Island

Null Island is no island at all: a weather buoy named Soul was moored at the spot. One public map dataset lists it as a one-metre-square island to tra...

Q 03/05

Which virtual globe program began at Keyhole, a startup once funded by the CIA's venture arm?

A) NASA WorldWind

B) Bing Maps

C) MapQuest

D) Google Earth

Answer · why

D) Google Earth

Google Earth launched in 2005, the year after Google bought Keyhole. The startup's name lives on in KML, short for Keyhole Markup Language, the file f...

Q 04/05

Which third-party US presidential candidate inspired Esri's founder to launch GIS Day in 1999?

A) Ross Perot

B) Ralph Nader

C) Pat Buchanan

D) Jill Stein

Answer · why

B) Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is the person Jack Dangermond credits with the idea behind the event. It is held each year on the third Wednesday of November.

Q 05/05

Which 1569 world map design, drawn for sailors, makes Greenland look as big as Africa?

A) Mercator

B) Robinson

C) Gall–Peters

D) Mollweide

Answer · why

A) Mercator

Mercator stretches land more the farther it lies from the Equator, so Greenland matches Africa on paper although Africa is 14 times larger. Most web m...