South America
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
98 free South America trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
44 free South America trivia questions with answers. South America is a continent of superlatives, and this quiz leans into them: the river that carries a fifth of the world's freshwater to the sea and has never been bridged, the tallest waterfall, the driest desert, the highest capital city, the biggest salt flat, the longest mountain range. Around a third of the questions are about the Amazon alone, from the trees and insects it holds to the Saharan dust that fertilises it and the conquistador who gave it a name from Greek myth. The rest ranges across all twelve countries: capitals and languages (why one country speaks Dutch and another Guarani), history from the Inca to Bolívar, wildlife from capybaras to anacondas, and culture from tango and Carnival to the first World Cup. Easy openers for a geography class sit beside questions that will slow down a seasoned traveller. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and the citation sits under each explanation.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which South American country lost its entire coastline in a 19th-century war?
Bolivia
Bolivia lost its Pacific shore in the War of the Pacific, yet it still keeps a small navy, which patrols its lakes and rivers.
Q 02Which river is usually ranked as longer than the Amazon?
The Nile
The Nile is traditionally ranked first by a small margin, though some researchers who re-measured the Amazon argue that it is really the longer of the two.
Q 03Francisco de Orellana is said to have named the Amazon River after what?
The female warriors of Greek myth
The female warriors of Greek myth, the Amazons, came to Orellana's mind after his expedition reported pitched battles with fighting women along the river in the 1540s.
Q 04Brazil holds about 60% of the Amazon rainforest; which of these countries shares it?
Colombia
Colombia's southern tip reaches the Amazon at Leticia, a river port that still cannot be reached by road from the rest of the country.
Q 05The Amazon rainforest spans eight countries and an overseas territory of which European nation?
France
France governs French Guiana as a full French region, so a slice of the Amazon lies inside the European Union and pays in euros; Europe's rockets launch from its coast at Kourou.
Q 06A 2013 study estimated that the Amazon rainforest holds about 390 billion of what?
Trees
Trees: the study put them at roughly 16,000 species, yet just 227 of those species account for half of all the trees in the forest.
Q 07Much of the dust that fertilises the Amazon rainforest blows in each year from which desert?
The Sahara
The Sahara's Bodélé Depression in Chad, the dried bed of an ancient lake, sends phosphorus-rich dust across the ocean, replacing what rain washes out of the Amazon's soil.
Q 08Which mammal of the Amazon is famous for its pink colour?
The river dolphin
The river dolphin, or boto, gets its blush the hard way: the pink of adult males is thought to be scar tissue from rough play and fights with rivals.
Q 09Which is the largest city in the Amazon rainforest?
Manaus
Manaus, with over two million people, sits where the dark Rio Negro meets the sandy Solimões, which flow side by side unmixed for kilometres; its 1896 opera house was built with rubber money.
Q 10Which South American animal, often seen grazing beside rivers, is the world's largest living rodent?
The capybara
The capybara lives beside water for a reason: when a predator comes near, it dives in and can stay under for up to five minutes.
Q 11The Amazon River rises in the Andes of which country?
Peru
Peru holds every rival for the river's farthest headwater, from Nevado Mismi to the Mantaro; rising within about 160 km of the Pacific, the water crosses the whole continent to the Atlantic.
Q 12Which record do the Andes hold?
The longest continental mountain range in the world
The longest continental mountain range in the world crosses seven countries; it was pushed up where the Pacific's Nazca Plate slides beneath South America, a collision that still brings earthquakes and eruptions.
Q 13Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, is in which country?
Argentina
Q 21Uyuni in south-west Bolivia gives its name to the world's largest what?
Salt flat
Salt flat: the Salar de Uyuni's crust covers more than 10,000 square kilometres and turns into a vast mirror after rain; beneath it lie huge reserves of lithium that have barely been tapped.
Q 22The Iguazu Falls sit on the border between which two countries?
Argentina and Brazil
Argentina and Brazil share the falls, which are wider than Victoria Falls yet form no single curtain of water: islands along the rim split the river into some 275 separate falls.
Q 23Simón Bolívar, 'El Libertador', was born in 1783 in which city?
Caracas
Caracas was his birthplace; he went on to free much of the continent from Spanish rule, and one of the new nations, Bolivia, took its name from him.
Argentina's Mendoza Province holds the peak; Swiss guide Matthias Zurbriggen reached the top alone in 1897, sent on ahead by the expedition's leader, who never made the summit himself.
Q 14Angel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall at 979 metres, is in which country?
Venezuela
Venezuela's Canaima National Park holds the falls, which plunge off the Auyán-tepui table mountain; they are named after Jimmie Angel, an American pilot who crash-landed on top in 1937.
Q 15Lake Titicaca, often called the world's highest navigable lake, sits on the border of which two countries?
Bolivia and Peru
Bolivia and Peru share the lake, high on the Altiplano; its first steamship was built in England in 1862 and carried up from the coast in pieces on the backs of mules.
Q 16The Uros people of Lake Titicaca live on floating islands made from what?
Layers of totora reed
Layers of totora reed, a buoyant sedge, rot from below and must be topped up constantly, so the islands are always being rebuilt.
Q 17Machu Picchu is believed to have been built around 1450 as an estate for which Inca emperor?
Pachacuti
Pachacuti, the ninth Sapa Inca, is credited with commissioning it as a royal estate; Hiram Bingham brought it to world attention in 1911 while hunting for the lost city of Vilcabamba.
Q 18The Galápagos Islands, which Darwin visited aboard HMS Beagle in 1835, belong to which country?
Ecuador
Ecuador annexed the islands in 1832, three years before Darwin arrived; Europeans had found them by accident in 1535, when a bishop's ship drifted off course on its way south from Panama.
Q 19The Galápagos Islands are named after which animal?
The giant tortoise
The giant tortoise: 'galápago' is an old Spanish word for tortoise, and Spanish sailors named the islands for the huge animals they found there; the archipelago was among the first World Heritage Sites, in 1978.
Q 20Easter Island, famous for its moai statues, has belonged to which country since 1888?
Chile
Chile annexed the island in 1888, though it lies about 3,500 km off the Chilean coast; the navigator Jacob Roggeveen named it after sighting it on Easter Sunday 1722.
Q 24Which is the only independent country outside Europe where Dutch is the official language?
Suriname
Suriname went to the Dutch in 1667, when the Treaty of Breda let them keep it while England kept New Amsterdam, today's New York; independence came in 1975.
Q 25Which is the only country in mainland South America with English as its official language?
Guyana
Guyana, a British colony until 1966, was among South America's poorest countries until deepwater oil was found off its coast in 2015.
Q 26In which South American country do most people speak Guarani, an official language alongside Spanish?
Paraguay
Paraguay made Guarani an official language in 1992; while most indigenous languages of the Americas gave way to Spanish or Portuguese, Paraguayans kept theirs as a badge of national identity.
Q 27Which Colombian city is nicknamed the 'City of Eternal Spring' for its mild climate?
Medellín
Medellín sits at about 1,500 metres in the Aburrá Valley, which keeps temperatures mild all year; it is Colombia's second-largest city.
Q 28Brasília, Brazil's purpose-built capital, was inaugurated in which year?
1960
Inaugurated on 21 April 1960 after just 41 months of building, it follows Lúcio Costa's plan, often likened to an aeroplane, with Oscar Niemeyer designing the main buildings; UNESCO listed it in 1987.
Q 29At roughly 3,650 metres, which city is the highest administrative capital in the world?
La Paz
La Paz is the seat of government, but Bolivia's constitutional capital is still Sucre, which kept the supreme court when the government moved in 1898.
Q 30Which national capital lies closest to the equator?
Quito
Quito sits just south of the line, yet at 2,850 metres it stays cool all year; a monument on its outskirts, the Mitad del Mundo, marks the equator.