Country Name Changes Trivia Quiz

Answer: Myanmar

A ruling military junta changed Burma's name in English to Myanmar in 1989. However, when Aung San Suu Kyi became State Counsellor (similar to a prime minister) in 2016, she said that Westerners could use either name, as the nation's constitution did not specify which is official.

Surrounded by India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Laos, and China, Myanmar has over 100 ethnic groups. Burmese is the official language.

Answer: Ethiopia

Ethiopia became known as Abyssinia with the establishment in 1270 of the Solomonic dynasty, which traced its legitimacy back to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. "Abyssinian" is also an ethnic term for several peoples living in the Horn of Africa, including peoples speaking languages such as Amharic, Ge'ez, and Tigre. However, the name "Ethiopia" also goes back as far as the Axumite king Ezana, who ruled in the fourth century AD. By the reign of Menelik II, emperor from 1889 to 1913, the name Ethiopia had been established as its formal title.

Located on the famous "Horn of Africa," landlocked Ethiopia is surrounded by Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea.

Answer: Suriname

Prior to the nineteenth century, Dutch Guiana was one of three small European colonies in South America situated between Brazil and the Caribbean Sea. Along with British Guiana and French Guiana, they were the last parts of that continent to remain under European control. Guyana (British) became independent in 1966.

In 1954 Suriname became a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and in 1975 it became independent of The Netherlands. It is the smallest country in South America.

Answer: Burkina Faso

In 1958 Upper Volta became a self-governing colony of France. In 1960 it became fully independent from France as Upper Volta. Following a 1983 military coup d'etat, the country came under the rule of Marxist military officer Thomas Sankara, who adopted the name of Burkina Faso for the nation in 1984.

Located in West Africa, Burkina Faso is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by its southern neighbors, including Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Ghana, Togo, and Benin. To its north lie Mali and Niger.

Answer: Thailand

The first Thai kingdom of Southeast Asia was the Sukhothai kingdom, which existed for about 200 years, from 1238 to 1438. That was followed for another 400 or so years by the Kingdom of Ayutthaya, the first to be known as "Siam," which ended in 1767. What Wikipedia calls the "Royal Kingdom of Siam" was founded in 1932 in a bloodless revolution when the ruling monarch, King Prajadhipoc, was forced to issue a constitution which ended absolute rule.

In 1939 Prajadhipoc, also known as Rama VII as the seventh ruler of the Chakri dynasty, pronounced the new name of the nation to be the Kingdom of Thailand.

Answer: Belize

Although the Spanish first explored Belize around 1506, they allowed British settlers access to the area in the 1700s in exchange for helping to limit piracy. The British then took full control of the area in 1798. In 1973 British Honduras was officially named Belize, and it became independent of the UK in 1981.

Sandwiched between Guatemala and Mexico to its west and the Caribbean Sea, Belize shares dense jungles with its neighbors while featuring the Belize Barrier Reef off its east coast.

Answer: Benin

From 1600 to 1900 much of the area of today's Benin was a kingdom called Dahomey, which was colonized by the French in 1900. In 1960 the Republic of Dahomey declared its independence from France. In 1973 Lieutenant Colonel Mathieu Kérékou overthrew the existing government and two years later he declared Dahomey to be a Marxist nation under the Military Council of the Revolution and renamed the country Benin.

Benin is squeezed between Togo to the west and Nigeria to the east while Burkina Faso and Niger to its north press Benin against the Atlantic to its south.

Answer: Vanuatu

The term "New Hebrides" is a reference to the archipelago of the Hebrides, which are part of Scotland. Colonized by both Britain and France, the New Hebrides were technically a "condominium" ruled by both countries from 1906 until their independence as Vanuatu in 1980.

Sailing on behalf of Spain, Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queiros was the first to make contact with Vanuatu, in 1606, while searching for Terra Australis. Port Vila is the capital of this Y-shaped Oceania archipelago just south of the Solomons.

Answer: Sri Lanka

Going back into the mists of time, Sri Lanka has been known by many names in many tongues, such as the Persian name Serendip, the Tamil name Eelam, and Helabima, which means "Land of Helas," as the Sinhalese were known. During its rule by the British, from 1815 to 1948, it was called Ceylon. After gaining independence in 1948, it retained the name until 1972, when it became a republic and changed its name to Sri Lanka.

Lying just 30 miles from India's landmass, Sri Lanka is separated from the subcontinent only by some islands and Adam's Bridge, a chain of limestone shoals, lying in shallow water between the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Strait.

Answer: Iran

The Persian civilization founded by Cyrus the Great goes back to 2500 years ago, following the non-Iranian civilization of the Elamites, founded about 2000 years earlier. The name "Persia" was applied by Greek historians and was used by the West, while Persian cultures have always referred to their homeland as Iran, meaning "Land of the Aryans." The name "Iran" was officially adopted in 1935, before being changed to "The Islamic Republic of Iran" following the Islamic Revolution of 1979.