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 Gulf of Guinea: its seabed may hold large oil reserves, so the islands, long dependent on aid and a single export crop, began selling offshore exp...

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

Seychelles alone is smaller in both area and population. Sao Tome and Principe's home market is so tiny that manufacturing has never taken hold, and t...

Q 03/05

Who was living on Sao Tome and Principe when Portuguese explorers arrived around 1470?

A) Bantu fishermen

B) Nobody at all

C) Kongo settlers

D) Arab traders

Answer · why

B) Nobody at all

Nobody at all: the islands were empty, so Portugal had to people its new colony from scratch, with unwilling settlers shipped from home and enslaved A...

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) Jewish children

B) Convicted pirates

C) Moorish prisoners

D) Plague orphans

Answer · why

A) Jewish children

Jewish children: the crown had them taken from their parents, baptised and shipped out to help people the new colony, alongside convicts sent out from...