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100 free World Facts trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free world trivia questions with answers. World trivia for kids should be about the amazing stuff: the deepest trench in the ocean, the country that is landlocked twice over, the flag that is not a rectangle, the mountain that is still growing. This quiz starts with questions an 8-to-12-year-old can get right, then climbs to facts about demographics, currencies and natural wonders that catch adults out too. There are 100 questions covering geography, world records, languages, cultures and the odd corners of the map, so it works as a classroom warm-up, a family car-ride game or a world trivia game at a quiz night. Questions arrive one at a time with four choices, instant scoring and a one-line explanation. Every answer has been checked against a reference source, and the citation shows under each explanation, so a back-seat argument can be settled on the spot.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the smallest country in the world by land area?
Vatican City
At 44 hectares it would fit inside New York's Central Park more than seven times over, and it is the smallest state by population too, with fewer than 900 residents.
Q 02Which country has the longest coastline in the world?
Canada
Its shoreline runs about 243,000 km along the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans, thanks largely to the fjords and islands of the Arctic Archipelago.
Q 03What is the capital of Mongolia?
Ulaanbaatar
Nearly half of all Mongolians live there, and by average yearly temperature it is the coldest national capital on the planet.
Q 04Which river is the longest in the world?
Nile
The Nile stretches about 7,088 km through eleven countries, though studies that trace the Amazon further upstream hand the title to it.
Q 05With about 1.43 billion people, which country overtook China in 2023 to become the world's most populous?
India
India passed China in 2023 with about 1.43 billion people, while China's population has started to shrink.
Q 06Which country spans the most time zones?
France
Overseas territories from French Polynesia to Reunion push the count to 12, one more than Russia's 11 contiguous zones.
Q 07What is the driest desert in the world?
Atacama
Parts of it around the ghost town of Yungay have almost no recorded rain, and its near-sterile soil is used to test instruments bound for Mars.
Q 08Which lake is the deepest in the world?
Baikal
The Siberian rift lake plunges 1,642 metres, is 25 to 30 million years old and holds 22-23% of the planet's fresh surface water, more than all the Great Lakes combined.
Q 09What is the capital of New Zealand?
Wellington
Wellington took over from Auckland as the seat of government in 1865, and no sovereign capital lies further from the equator.
Q 10Which country has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites?
Italy
Its 60-plus listings run from the Colosseum and Pompeii to the vineyards of Piedmont and the Dolomites.
Q 11What is the most spoken language in the world by total number of speakers?
English
Ethnologue counted more than 1.4 billion speakers in 2021, yet as a native tongue it ranks only third, behind Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.
Q 12Which waterfall has the highest uninterrupted drop in the world?
Angel Falls
Water tumbles off the Auyan-tepui table mountain in Venezuela's Canaima National Park; the name honours Jimmie Angel, the American aviator who flew over it in 1933.
Q 13Which country produces the most coffee in the world?
Brazil
Brazil's harvest is more than double that of second-placed Vietnam, with most plantations in Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Espírito Santo.
Q 21Which is Africa's largest lake by surface area?
Victoria
Shared by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, it is also the world's largest tropical lake, yet its average depth is only about 40 metres.
Q 22Which African country is the most populous?
Nigeria
More than 242 million people make it the sixth most populous nation on Earth, and Lagos is among the fastest-growing cities anywhere.
Q 23What is the largest island in the world (excluding continental landmasses)?
Greenland
Around 2.17 million square kilometres of it are home to only about 56,000 people, making it the least densely populated country on Earth.
Q 14Introduced in 1871, which Asian currency was the world's third most traded in 2022, behind only the dollar and euro?
Yen
The yen was also the third most held reserve currency in 2022, and its symbol shares two strokes with the Chinese yuan sign.
Q 15Which mountain is the tallest in the world measured from base to peak?
Mauna Kea
Its rise from the seafloor of the Hawaiian Trough is about 9,330 metres, more than Everest's height above sea level, but its summit sits only 4,207 metres above the waves.
Q 16The rose-red Nabataean city of Petra, whose Greek name simply means 'rock', is carved into cliffs in which country?
Jordan
Petra sits in southern Jordan; its inhabitants called it Raqmu, and it is both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.
Q 17What is the largest ocean on Earth?
Pacific
The Pacific covers about 165 million square kilometres, more area than every continent and island on Earth combined.
Q 18Which country is home to the most active volcanoes?
Indonesia
Around 130 of them are active, and the archipelago has recorded more deadly eruptions than any other country; Merapi and Kelut on Java are the most restless.
Q 19What is the official currency of South Africa?
Rand
The name comes from the Witwatersrand, the gold-bearing ridge on which Johannesburg was built.
Q 20Which country has more pyramids than Egypt?
Sudan
Around 255 steep, narrow Kushite pyramids stand at Meroe, Napata and Nuri, more than double Egypt's total.
Q 24In which country is the Great Barrier Reef located?
Australia
The Great Barrier Reef runs some 2,300 km along Australia's Queensland coast and has been a World Heritage Site since 1981.
Q 25Which country topped the CIA World Factbook's life expectancy ranking in 2024?
Monaco
Residents of the principality were estimated to live to nearly 90 on average, helped by wealth, a Mediterranean climate and heavily subsidised healthcare.
Q 26What is the largest desert in the world?
Antarctic
Deserts are defined by scant precipitation, not heat: the frozen continent gets the equivalent of about 150 mm of water a year, so it and the Arctic outrank every hot desert.
Q 27Which country shares land borders with 14 others, tying with Russia for the most in the world?
China
Its neighbours run from Afghanistan and Pakistan to North Korea and Vietnam, along more than 22,000 km of frontier.
Q 28Brazil, South America's largest and most populous country, has which European language as its official tongue?
Portuguese
Brazil now has far more Portuguese speakers than Portugal itself, a legacy of colonisation that began in 1500.
Q 29Which country is known as the Land of the Rising Sun?
Japan
Nippon and Nihon both mean 'origin of the sun', a name that reflects the country's position east of the Asian mainland.
Q 30What is the deepest point in the world's oceans?
Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep is so deep that Everest would sink into it with two kilometres of water to spare.