Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
This continent trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers all seven continents and the lines between them: which is largest, smallest, coldest, flattest and youngest by population, where Europe stops and Asia starts, which strait and which canals divide the landmasses, and the highest mountain on each one, from Everest to Vinson. It also digs into the deep past (Pangaea, Gondwana, Laurasia) and the geological oddities, including Zealandia, the continent that is 94 percent underwater, and Greenland's place on the North American plate. The easy questions suit school geography units and family quiz night: which continent has no permanent residents, which desert is the largest hot one, which city sits on two continents. The medium ones cover the Antarctic Treaty, the Bering Strait, Aconcagua and Kilimanjaro. The hard ones want the height of Europe's tallest peak, the length of the Urals and the year Denali got its name back. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which continent is the second-smallest by area after Australia?
Europe
Europe, at about 10.2 million km², is the second-smallest continent; Antarctica is about 14 million km² and South America about 17.8 million km².
Q 02Roughly what share of the world's population lives in Asia?
60%
About 60%: Asia's roughly 4.7 billion people are three-fifths of a world population near 8 billion, with China and India each above 1.4 billion.
Q 03How many fully recognised sovereign states does Africa contain, more than any other continent?
54
54: every African state from Algeria to Zimbabwe is a UN member, more than any other continent; Western Sahara and Somaliland have only limited recognition.
Q 04Africa is the only continent to straddle both the equator and which other line of reference?
Prime meridian
The two lines cross in the Gulf of Guinea, just off the coast; South America is crossed by the equator but not the prime meridian.
Q 05Besides the Urals, Caucasus, Black Sea and Turkish straits, which sea divides Europe and Asia?
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea: the conventional line runs down the Urals and Ural River, across the Caspian, along the Caucasus and through the Black Sea and Turkish straits.
Q 06Which country spans about 39 percent of Europe, making it the continent's largest and most populous?
Russia
Europe itself covers only about 2 percent of Earth's surface, so Russia's European portion alone dwarfs every other state on the continent.
Q 07Which continent is the coldest, driest and windiest, with the highest average elevation?
Antarctica
Antarctica: its ice sheet averages about 1.9 km thick, its interior is a desert receiving only a few centimetres of precipitation a year, and katabatic winds pour off the high plateau.
Q 08The lowest air temperature ever recorded on Earth, -89.2 °C, was measured in 1983 at which Antarctic station?
Vostok
Vostok, the Russian (then Soviet) station on the East Antarctic plateau, logged -89.2 °C on 21 July 1983; it sits above subglacial Lake Vostok.
Q 09Roughly what proportion of the world's fresh water is frozen in the southern polar ice sheet?
About 70%
About 70%: the Antarctic ice sheet, averaging 1.9 km thick, locks up roughly 70 percent of Earth's fresh water; melting it all would raise seas by almost 60 metres.
Q 10Vinson Massif, Antarctica's highest peak at 4,892 metres, stands in which mountain range?
Ellsworth Mountains
The Ellsworth Mountains: Vinson Massif rises in their Sentinel Range; it was first sighted from the air in 1958 and first climbed in 1966.
Q 11In which year was the Antarctic Treaty opened for signature?
1959
1959: twelve nations active in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year signed the treaty in Washington on 1 December 1959; it entered into force in 1961.
Q 12Which country holds almost half of South America's population?
Brazil
Brazil: its roughly 215 million people are close to half of South America's 430-plus million; it is the continent's only Portuguese-speaking country, a legacy of the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas.
Q 13Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas and the highest outside Asia, stands in which country?
Argentina
Argentina: Aconcagua rises to 6,961 metres in Mendoza Province, about 15 km from the Chilean border, the highest peak in the Western and Southern Hemispheres.
Q 21The supercontinent Pangaea began to break apart roughly how many years ago?
200 million
200 million years ago, at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, Pangaea began rifting apart; the C-shaped landmass had been surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa.
Q 22The southern supercontinent Gondwana was named by Eduard Suess after a region of which modern country?
India
The name comes from Sanskrit for 'forest of the Gonds'; Gondwana's remnants make up about two-thirds of today's continental area, including Antarctica and Australia.
Q 23Gondwana fused with which northern landmass during the Carboniferous to form Pangaea?
Laurasia
Laurasia later split into North America and Eurasia, while Gondwana's pieces drifted off to become the southern continents and India.
Q 14Which mountain is Africa's highest and the world's tallest free-standing peak?
Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro, a dormant volcano in Tanzania, rises 5,895 metres straight from the plains with no surrounding range, making it the tallest free-standing mountain on Earth.
Q 15North America's highest peak, in Alaska, was officially known by what name from 1917 until 2015?
Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley, named for President William McKinley, was the federal name from 1917 until 2015, when it became Denali; a January 2025 executive order restored McKinley. The summit is 6,190 metres.
Q 16The generally accepted highest summit in Europe, a dormant volcano in the Caucasus, is which mountain?
Mount Elbrus
Mount Elbrus, a twin-summited dormant volcano in Russia's Caucasus, tops Mont Blanc by more than 800 metres, but only if the Caucasus is counted as European.
Q 17Which Andean peak's summit is the point on Earth's surface farthest from the planet's centre?
Chimborazo
Chimborazo, a 6,263-metre volcano in Ecuador, sits almost on the equator, where Earth's bulge pushes its summit about 2 km farther from the centre than Everest's.
Q 18Mount Everest's summit marks part of the border between Nepal and which other country?
China
China and Nepal jointly surveyed it in 2020 and put the height at 8,848.86 metres; Nepalis call it Sagarmatha and Tibetans Qomolangma.
Q 19Which peak replaces Kosciuszko on the Messner version of the Seven Summits?
Puncak Jaya
Puncak Jaya, also called Carstensz Pyramid, is a 4,884-metre peak in Indonesia's Papua highlands; Messner counted it as Australasia's top, since Kosciuszko is only 2,228 metres.
Q 20Who became the first person to climb the highest mountain on every continent, finishing on 30 April 1985?
Richard Bass
Bass, a Texas businessman, used the mainland-Australia version of the list; the peaks range from Everest at 8,849 metres to Kosciuszko at 2,228.
Q 24Roughly what fraction of Zealandia, argued in 2017 to be a continent, is underwater?
About 94%
About 94%: only New Zealand, New Caledonia and a few small islands break the surface of Zealandia's roughly 4.9 million square kilometres.
Q 25The Americas take their name from which Italian explorer, thanks to German cartographers?
Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci: Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 map labelled the southern landmass 'America' in his honour, while Columbus died insisting he had reached Asia.
Q 26What is the world's largest island, a self-governing part of Denmark that sits on the North American plate?
Greenland
Greenland looks to Copenhagen politically but belongs with Canada geographically; Iceland, by contrast, straddles the North American and Eurasian plates.
Q 27The Australian continent, or Sahul, includes mainland Australia, Tasmania and which large island?
New Guinea
New Guinea shares the Sahul shelf with mainland Australia and Tasmania, and the three were joined by dry land during the last ice age; New Zealand belongs to Zealandia instead.
Q 28Which of these is one of Oceania's four sub-regions, along with Australasia, Melanesia and Micronesia?
Polynesia
Polynesia, the eastern triangle from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island, is the fourth sub-region; Oceania as a whole counts 14 sovereign states.
Q 29Which headland is the southern tip of Africa and the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian oceans?
Agulhas
Cape Agulhas, Portuguese for 'Cape of Needles', is Africa's southernmost point and the official Atlantic-Indian divide; the Cape of Good Hope lies about 150 km to the north-west.
Q 30Which artificial waterway, opened in 1869, links the Mediterranean and the Red Sea?
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal, opened in November 1869 after ten years of digging, is a lockless sea-level channel; it technically puts Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in Asia.