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50 free The Equator trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Equator is an imaginary line, but it has a monument that is in the wrong place, a mountain that beats Everest, a naval initiation involving King Neptune, and eleven countries arguing over who owns the most of it. This quiz covers the geography and the physics first: the length of the line, why it is the only great circle of latitude, the equatorial bulge, why rockets launch from Kourou, why the Sun sets so fast there, and why the days are always twelve hours long. It also covers what lives on the line: the tropical rainforest climate, the doldrums, snow on Volcan Cayambe, and the Coriolis myth about draining bathtubs. The second half is the human Equator: Sao Tome, Gabon, the two Congos, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, the Maldives, Indonesia, Kiribati, the Galapagos, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil; the French Geodesic Mission of 1736 that fixed the line and helped define the metre; the Mitad del Mundo monument that missed by 240 metres; Null Island; and the shellbacks and pollywogs of the line-crossing ceremony that Charles Darwin endured on the Beagle. Easy questions ask which hemispheres it divides; the expert tier asks for radii, cities and dates. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Equator, the line-crossing ceremony, Mitad del Mundo, the French Geodesic Mission and related topics, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you like this, try our quizzes on world geography and on Ecuador.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Equator divides Earth into which two hemispheres?
Northern and Southern
It sits at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the poles.
Q 02What is the latitude of the Equator?
0 degrees
By definition it is zero degrees of arc; the Tropics sit at about 23.5 degrees.
Q 03Roughly how long is the Equator?
About 40,075 km
That is about 24,900 miles, or 21,639 nautical miles.
Q 04The word "equator" comes from a medieval Latin phrase meaning what?
Circle equalizing day and night
Circulus aequator diei et noctis, from aequare, to make equal.
Q 05The Equator is one of five notable lines of latitude. What are the other four?
The two polar circles and the two tropics
Only the Equator among them is a great circle whose plane passes through Earth's centre.
Q 06What makes the Equator unique among lines of latitude?
It is the only one that is a great circle
A great circle is one whose plane passes through the centre of the globe.
Q 07On roughly which two dates does the subsolar point cross the Equator?
20 March and 23 September
On the equinoxes every latitude gets nearly a 12-hour day and 12-hour night.
Q 08At the Equator, daylight is slightly longer than night all year. Roughly how much longer?
14 minutes
Atmospheric refraction and measuring from the Sun's upper limb, not its centre, add the extra minutes.
Q 09Why are sunrises and sunsets shortest at the Equator?
The Sun's daily path is nearly perpendicular to the horizon
Noon sunlight there is never more than about 23 degrees from directly overhead.
Q 10Earth's diameter at the Equator is roughly how much greater than at the poles?
43 km
The planet bulges at its middle; the average diameter is 12,742 km.
Q 11Why are spaceports such as the one at Kourou, French Guiana, sited near the Equator?
Earth's rotation is fastest there, saving fuel
The surface moves at about 460 metres per second, a free push for eastward launches.
Q 12What is the surface rotation speed at the Equator?
About 460 metres per second
That works out to roughly 1,670 km/h.
Q 13The equatorial radius adopted by the IAU in 2009 is about how many kilometres?
6,378
Multiplying by 2 pi gives an equator of 40,075 km if it were perfectly circular.
Q 21Which island nation lies entirely between 55 and 62 km south of the Equator?
Nauru
Peru's northernmost point is even closer, just 4.3 km south of the line.
Q 22The Equator crosses the territorial sea of the United States near which uninhabited Pacific possession?
Baker Island
It also passes just south of Buariki in Kiribati and south of Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll in the Maldives.
Q 23Which country's name literally means "Equator" in Spanish?
Ecuador
It was truncated from Republica del Ecuador, taken from a department of Gran Colombia set up in 1824.
Q 14Because Earth is flattened, the Equator is longer than a meridian great circle by roughly what percentage?
0.16%
Earth is modelled as a sphere flattened 0.336 percent along its axis.
Q 15A "geographical mile" is defined as what?
One arc-minute of the Equator
It comes to about 1,855 metres, a few metres more than the nautical mile.
Q 16Earth's true equatorial plane drifts because the rotation axis wanders. By roughly how much each year?
9 metres
So the precise location of the Equator is not truly fixed.
Q 17What percentage of the Equator's length passes over land?
About 22%
Roughly 8,714 km of land against 31,361 km of sea.
Q 18Through the land of how many sovereign states does the Equator pass?
Eleven
It also crosses the territorial seas of the Maldives, Kiribati and the United States.
Q 19Which country straddles the greatest length of the Equator across land and sea?
Indonesia
The line runs through Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi and Halmahera, and the city of Pontianak.
Q 20Despite its name, which country lies entirely off the Equator?
Equatorial Guinea
Its island of Annobon is 155 km south of the line and the rest of the country is north.
Q 24The Marco Zero monument marks the Equator in which Brazilian state capital?
Macapá
The line runs precisely through the monument and along the Avenue Equatorial in Amapa state.
Q 25Which Indonesian provincial capital on Borneo sits directly on the Equator?
Pontianak
A monument there marks the line in West Kalimantan.
Q 26Which great African body of fresh water does the Equator cross, passing through Ugandan islands?
Lake Victoria
The line runs about 32 km south of Kampala and 6 km north of Kisumu in Kenya.
Q 27The Equator passes over the highest mountain of which African country?
Kenya
Mount Kenya straddles the line; the Equator also passes just north of Kisumu.
Q 28The Equator crosses which island of the Galapagos?
Isabela
It is the largest island in the archipelago, which belongs to Ecuador.
Q 29The Equator crosses Sao Tome and Principe on which islet, home to a resort?
Ilheu das Rolas
It is the first land the line meets heading east from the Prime Meridian.
Q 30Where the Equator meets the Prime Meridian in the Gulf of Guinea, mapping software jokingly places what?
Null Island
There is no land there, only a weather buoy; the name traps database entries wrongly given coordinates 0,0.