Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
49 free Niger trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Niger, not to be confused with its neighbour Nigeria, is a landlocked republic the size of Western Europe with four-fifths of its territory in the Sahara. It is named for the great river that curls through its south-west, was carved out of the trans-Saharan trading world of the Songhai, Kanem-Bornu and Hausa states, and has been through five coups since independence, the latest in 2023. This quiz covers the geography (Niamey, the Aïr Mountains and Mont Idoukal-n-Taghès, the Ténéré, Lake Chad, W National Park and the last West African giraffes), the empires and sultanates, Queen Sarraounia and the French conquest, the colony of 1922, Hamani Diori and independence on 3 August 1960, Kountché, Tandja and the 2023 junta. It also covers what Niger runs on and lives by: uranium from Arlit that once made it the world's fourth producer, the salt caravans to Bilma, the Cure Salée and the Wodaabe beauty pageant, the Hausa language and the ten national languages, the world-record fertility rate, the Tree of Ténéré and the flag with an orange disc. Easy questions ask which desert dominates; hard ones want the name of the 1916 Tuareg revolt and the year France finally occupied Agadez. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Niger, Niamey, the flag, Agadez, the Aïr Mountains, the Niger River, the Ténéré, the Tree of Ténéré, the Wodaabe and Niger's mining industry, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital of Niger?
Niamey
Niamey, on the Niger River in the country's south-west corner, has been the capital since 1926 and is home to well over a million people.
Q 02Roughly what share of Niger's land lies within the Sahara?
Over 80%
Over 80% of Niger's land lies in the Sahara, so most of its people crowd into the far south and west along the Niger River and the Nigerian border.
Q 03Which of these countries does NOT border Niger?
Ghana
Ghana lies two countries away, beyond Burkina Faso; Niger's neighbours are Libya, Chad, Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Algeria.
Q 04Niger ranks where in size among African countries?
Sixth-largest
Niger is Africa's sixth-largest country at about 1,267,000 km², behind Algeria, the DRC, Sudan, Libya and Chad; only Chad is a bigger landlocked state on the continent.
Q 05Niger takes its name from what?
A river
Niger is named after the Niger River, which curves through the country's south-west; the name is not from the Latin niger ('black'), despite early belief.
Q 06The oasis town of Bilma in eastern Niger is famous for producing what?
Salt
Bilma's salt pans in the Kaouar oasis have supplied Tuareg azalai camel caravans for centuries; the salt, cut into pillars, is traded south for grain and cloth.
Q 07The Niger River is the third-longest in Africa after which two rivers?
The Nile and the Congo
The Nile and the Congo are longer; the Niger runs about 4,180 km from the Guinea Highlands through Mali and Niger to the Gulf of Guinea.
Q 08Which ethnic group makes up around 56 percent of Niger's population?
Hausa
Their language is the country's official language.
Q 09Which Tuareg guitarist from Niger released the 2021 album Afrique Victime?
Mdou Moctar
Mdou Moctar, a left-handed Tuareg guitarist from Abalak, released Afrique Victime on Matador Records in 2021; fellow Nigerien Bombino plays in a similar desert-blues style.
Q 10Which Saharan sultanate, founded around 1449 in the far north, was conquered by Songhai in 1515?
Aïr
The Sultanate of Aïr, a Tuareg state in Niger's far north, fell to the Songhai Empire in 1515; France did not occupy its capital until 1906.
Q 11The Sultanate of Damagaram, founded around 1730-40, was centred on which town?
Zinder
The town briefly served as the colonial capital from 1912 to 1922.
Q 12Which Lake Chad empire controlled Bilma and Kaouar in eastern Niger in the 13th century?
Kanem-Bornu
The Kanem-Bornu Empire, centred on Lake Chad, held the Kaouar oases and Bilma in the 13th century; after moving west of the lake it became known simply as Bornu.
Q 13Which Fulani scholar declared a jihad in 1804 and founded the Sokoto Caliphate?
Usman Dan Fodio
Usman Dan Fodio launched his jihad in 1804 and built the Sokoto Caliphate across northern Nigeria; the displaced ruling house of Katsina set up a rival court at Maradi in today's Niger.
Q 21President Mamadou Tandja was ousted in 2010 after trying to do what?
Extend his term by rewriting the constitution
Tandja tried to extend his term by rewriting the constitution: he dissolved parliament and the Constitutional Court in 2009 and forced through a referendum scrapping term limits, before soldiers seized him in February 2010.
Q 22Which president was overthrown in the coup of 26 July 2023?
Mohamed Bazoum
Mohamed Bazoum, elected in 2021, was detained by his own presidential guard on 26 July 2023; its commander, General Abdourahamane Tiani, was proclaimed head of state two days later.
Q 23After the 2023 coup, Niger joined Mali and Burkina Faso in forming what?
Q 14Which queen of Lougou fought the French Voulet-Chanoine column in 1899?
Sarraounia
Sarraounia Mangou, queen of the Azna of Lougou, resisted the Voulet-Chanoine column in April 1899; the column went on to massacre the people of Birni-N'Konni, one of the worst atrocities of French colonial history.
Q 15Niger became a distinct colony within French West Africa in which year?
1922
Niger became a civilian colony within French West Africa on 13 October 1922, ending nearly two decades of rule as a military territory run by army officers.
Q 16The Tuareg Kaocen revolt against the French took place in which years?
1916-17
The Kaocen revolt of 1916-17 saw Tuareg forces besiege a French garrison in the north for months before a relief column arrived; Kaocen fled to Fezzan and was hanged there in 1919.
Q 17Niger gained full independence from France on which date?
3 August 1960
Niger became fully independent on 3 August 1960, two years after voting to stay inside the French Community; 3 August is celebrated as Independence Day.
Q 18Who was Niger's first president?
Hamani Diori
Hamani Diori, leader of the Nigerien Progressive Party, was president from independence until the army toppled him in April 1974 amid a devastating drought and famine.
Q 19By the end of 2023, how many successful coups d'état had Niger seen since independence?
Five
Five coups succeeded between independence and 2023: in 1974, 1996, 1999, 2010 and July 2023; several other attempts, including one in 2021, failed.
Q 20Which colonel seized power in 1974 and ruled until his death in 1987?
Seyni Kountché
Seyni Kountché led the April 1974 coup and ruled as head of the Supreme Military Council until he died of a brain tumour in a Paris hospital in November 1987.
The Alliance of Sahel States
The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) was created by the Liptako-Gourma Charter of September 2023 as a mutual-defence pact against a threatened ECOWAS intervention; its member juntas left ECOWAS in January 2025.
Q 24ECOWAS sanctions after the 2023 coup cut which vital import from Nigeria?
Electricity
Nigeria cut the electricity it sold to Niger, roughly 70 percent of the country's supply, leaving the capital with rolling blackouts until the sanctions were lifted in February 2024.
Q 25Which mineral, mined near Arlit, has been Niger's key export since the 1970s?
Uranium
Uranium from the open-pit and underground mines around Arlit, first shipped in 1971, has been Niger's signature export, at times placing it among the world's leading producers.
Q 26The Akokan operation near Arlit held what distinction until it closed in 2021?
Largest underground uranium mine in the world
Cominak's Akokan mine was the largest underground uranium mine in the world when it closed in March 2021, having produced about 75,000 tonnes of uranium since 1978.
Q 27The Tree of Ténéré, once considered the most isolated tree on Earth, was destroyed how?
Knocked down by a truck driver
A truck driver, allegedly drunk, knocked down the Tree of Ténéré in 1973; its dead trunk was moved to the National Museum in the capital and a metal sculpture now marks the spot.
Q 28The Tree of Ténéré was what kind of tree?
An acacia
The Tree of Ténéré was an acacia (Acacia tortilis), the last survivor of a grove that once grew there; its roots reached a water table more than 30 m down.
Q 29The historic centre of which Saharan city, seat of a Tuareg sultanate, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
Agadez
Agadez's historic centre, listed by UNESCO in 2013, includes the mud-brick Grand Mosque of 1515, rebuilt in the same style in 1844, whose 27 m minaret is one of the tallest mud-brick structures in the world.
Q 30Which region in Niger's far south-east reaches the shore of Lake Chad?
Diffa
Diffa Region occupies Niger's far south-east along the Nigerian and Chadian borders and touches Lake Chad; its capital is also called Diffa, and it has borne the brunt of Boko Haram raids.