Q 01/05

The name "Kuwait" comes from an Arabic diminutive of Kut, meaning what?

A) Place of ships

B) Market beside the sea

C) Land of the two rivers

D) Fortress built near water

Answer · why

D) Fortress built near water

Fortress built near water is what kut means, and the diminutive makes Kuwait a 'little fort': the name belonged first to the 18th-century trading town...

Q 02/05

Kuwait has land borders with just two countries: Iraq to the north and west, and which other to the south?

A) Saudi Arabia

B) Iran

C) United Arab Emirates

D) Jordan

Answer · why

A) Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait long left a slab of desert between them as a shared Neutral Zone; they finally divided it in 1969, yet they still split the re...

Q 03/05

About two in every three people living in Kuwait belong to which group?

A) Foreign nationals

B) Children under 15

C) Oil-industry staff

D) Nomadic herders

Answer · why

A) Foreign nationals

Foreign nationals, mostly workers from South and Southeast Asia, outnumber Kuwaitis about two to one, and few can ever naturalise: citizenship is kept...

Q 04/05

Which Kuwaiti island, inhabited since the Bronze Age, was named Ikaros by the ancient Greeks?

A) Warbah

B) Failaka

C) Kubbar

D) Bubiyan

Answer · why

B) Failaka

Failaka got the name on Alexander the Great's orders, after the Aegean island where Icarus was said to have fallen from the sky, and the ruins of a Gr...

Q 05/05

Which family has ruled Kuwait since settler clans picked one of its members as sheikh in the 1750s?

A) Al Sabah

B) Al Saud

C) Al Thani

D) Al Khalifa

Answer · why

A) Al Sabah

Al Sabah rule began by choice, not conquest: the families who settled the town appointed one of their own, Sabah bin Jaber, as sheikh, and his descend...