Places Starting with "A" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alaska

The largest city in the state is not always also the capital, although, in the case of Georgia, Atlanta does meet both criteria. The largest city in Maine, Portland, is home to 65,000 but the state capital is the tiny Augusta, which has less than 20,000 residents. It is not the smallest state capital, though -- both Pierre SD and Montpelier VT are smaller. New York City is not only the largest city in the state but also in the entire U.S. and has been since 1790. The state capital, though, is Albany, which is home to just under 100,000.

The odd one out is Alaska, where it is the "A" city, Anchorage, "The City of Lights and Flowers", which is home to almost 300,000 hardy souls. The state capital is Juneau which is huge (it is larger in terms or area than two states, Rhode Island and Delaware, and almost as big as the two combined). Home to just over 30,000, Juneau has been the capital of Alaska since 1906, long before statehood was achieved.

Answer: Australia

Although to all practical intents and purposes Australia is a republic, it is technically a constitutional monarchy with the British monarch as the titular head of state. Its official title is The Commonwealth of Australia.

The other three are all officially republics. Albania gained independence in 1914 as a principality, switched the a short-lived "First Republic" in 1925 and then restored the monarchy in 1928. It then disappeared behind the Iron Curtain as a so-called "People's Republic" following WWII and re-emerged as a fledgling democracy in 1992. The Kingdom of Armenia dates back to the 6th Century B.C. It was also a Soviet satellite state in the latter 20th century, becoming a presidential republic in 1991.

Other "A" countries that also do not match the "Republic of A..." criteria include The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, the Argentine Republic and The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Answer: Amur-Argun

None of these compares to the mighty Amazon's 4,000-mile journey, but at 2,763 miles in length the Amur-Argun is still the world's tenth longest river system. The Amur's Chinese name, "Heilong Jiang" translates as "Black Dragon River". Rising at nearly 7,000 feet in the mountains of Mongolia, it flows generally eastwards. For hundreds of miles it forms the border between Far Eastern Russia and northeastern China (Inner Manchuria). It eventually empties into the Pacific Ocean at the Strait of Tartary.

The Araguaia River (the name means "river of (red) macaws" in the Tupi language) crosses northeastern Brazil for 1,632 miles before joining the Tocantins River. The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi, flowing 1,469 miles southeastwards from Colorado and across Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Major cities enroute include Pueblo, CO, Wichita, KS, Tulsa, OK and Little Rock, AR. The Allegheny River rises in the township of the same name in north-central Pennsylvania. It flows 325 miles south to Pittsburgh where it joins the Ohio River. Continuing southwest across West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois for another 980 miles, it eventually joins the Mississippi at Cairo IL.

Answer: Atlas Mountains

The Atlas Mountains extend 1,600 miles through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Their highest peak is "Toubkal" (elevation of 13,671 feet) in southwestern Morocco.

The Apennines run for 750 miles across northern Italy and San Marino. Their highest peak is Corno Grande at 9,544 feet. The Appalachians extend more than 1,500 miles from Newfoundland in eastern Canada to Georgia in the southern U.S.A. Their highest peak is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at a relatively low 6,684 feet. The Al-Hajar Mountains run 350 miles across northern Oman. Their highest point is the Jebel Akhdar at 9,834 feet.

Answer: Ashgabat

Ashgabat is certainly not located on an island or, indeed, particularly close to salt water of any kind. Ashgabat is the capital of Turkmenistan, which has its only coastline on the Caspian Sea which is often classed as the world's largest lake since it has a salinity rate of only a third of the rest of the world's seawater. Known as Poltoratsk from 1919-27, Ashgabat is located in central-southern Turkmenistan, near to the Iranian border.

The alternative are all capital cities that are located on islands: Apia is the capital of the Pacific Ocean island nation of Samoa; Antananarivo is the capital of the African nation of Madagascar which is located in the Indian Ocean; and Avarua is the capital of the Cook Islands, a self-governing territory of New Zealand also located in the Pacific. There are two more of the 19 capital cities that are located on islands -- Adamstown is the capital of the Pitcairn Islands, a British overseas territory, and Alofi is the capital of Niue, another self-governing territory of New Zealand.

Answer: Cyprus

Officially "The Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia", these were established by the 1960 treaty that gave independence to Cyprus. Akrotiri is located on the southeastern coast to the east of Larnaca, in the U.N. Buffer Zone between the Greek and Turkish parts of the island. Dhekelia is at the extreme southern end of the island, just west of Limassol.

Answer: Antigua & Barbuda

Antigua & Barbuda (from the Spanish meaning "ancient" and "bearded") is a former British colony in the Caribbean Sea. The population is around 80,000 with 25,000 of those living in the nation's capital, St Johns, which is at the northern end of Antigua. The combined coastline of the twin-island nation is just under 100 miles, 153km.

Anguilla, another former British colony in the Caribbean, has a coastline of just 61km. Aruba, also in the Caribbean, is one of the four constituent countries that comprise The Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a coastline of 68.5km. American Samoa, an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific, has the longest coastline of the alternatives at 116km.

Answer: Arizona

With an area of slightly less than 114,000 square miles Arizona, America's 6th-largest state, is roughly the same size as Italy.

Arkansas and Alabama, respectively the 29th and 30th-largest states, have an area just a little over or under 53,000 square miles -- which would rank between Greece and Tajikistan. Alaska is, of course, much larger, with a total area of more than 660,000 square miles, which is only sightly smaller than Libya, the world's 17th-largest country.

Answer: Ankara

With a population in excess of 4.3 million, Turkey's capital, Ankara, is not a small city by anyone's reckoning. It is dwarfed by the country's largest city, Istanbul, though, which is home to almost 14 million. Located at 39 52N it is comfortably the furthest north of the four capitals listed above. The Algerian capital, Algiers ("Alger" in French and "Dzayer" in the local Berber language) is located at 36 46N. Amman, the capital of Jordan, was founded in 7,000 B.C. and is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities.

It is at 31 57N. The furthest south of the alternatives, at 24 28N, is Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It is the only one of the four with a population below the 1 million mark.

Answer: Kazakhstan

Originally called Akmolinsk when it was founded in 1824, the city was renamed Tselinograd in 1961. When Kazakhstan gained independence in 1990, the city was renamed Akmola (meaning "White Temple"). It was given its current name, Astana, which literally means "capital" in the Kazakh language, when it became the national capital in 1997. It was chosen as the capital partly because of its central location.

The former capital, Almaty, suffers from both proximity to seismic activity and a lack of room for expansion. It is also located in the extreme south of the country, on the border with Kyrgyzstan. It still remains, though, the country's largest city with a population of around 1.5 million, twice that of Astana.
Of the alternatives, one does have a current capital starting with "A" -- Ashgabat is the capital of Turkmenistan. Azerbaijan fails the test by one letter and will probably therefore feature in some way in the next quiz in this series as its capital is Baku. The capital of Uzbekistan is nearly an "A" (its second letter is "A" rather than its first) -- its capital is Tashkent.