Q 01/05

Sao Tome and Principe lies in which body of water off Central Africa?

A) The Mozambique Channel

B) The Gulf of Guinea

C) The Bight of Benin

D) The Gulf of Aden

Answer · why

B) The Gulf of Guinea

The two islands sit roughly 250 and 225 km off Gabon and about 150 km apart.

Q 02/05

Sao Tome and Principe is Africa's second-smallest and second-least populous state after which country?

A) Comoros

B) Seychelles

C) Cape Verde

D) Mauritius

Answer · why

B) Seychelles

Its population was about 201,800 in 2018 across roughly a thousand square kilometres.

Q 03/05

The islands were uninhabited until Portuguese explorers arrived on what date in 1470?

A) 1 January

B) 21 December

C) 4 July

D) 25 March

Answer · why

B) 21 December

Joao de Santarem and Pero Escobar landed on St Thomas's Day, hence the name; Principe was first called Santo Antao.

Q 04/05

Principe took its royal-sounding name in 1502 because of what?

A) A royal heir was shipwrecked on its coast

B) Its sugar duties were paid to Portugal's crown prince

C) It was reserved as a royal hunting ground

D) A Portuguese royal was born there

Answer · why

B) Its sugar duties were paid to Portugal's crown prince

Its original name was Santo Antao, after Saint Anthony, on whose day it was reached in 1472.

Q 05/05

Sao Tome's early settlers included about 2,000 of what, deported by the Portuguese crown?

A) Convicted pirates

B) Jewish children

C) Moorish prisoners

D) Plague orphans

Answer · why

B) Jewish children

Sephardic Jewish children aged eight and under were taken from Iberia to work the sugar plantations after the 1493 settlement.