Just the Strait Facts Trivia Quiz

Answer: Great Britain

Pas de Calais is the French equivalent of the Strait of Dover. While the English name comes from the town of Dover in England, the French comes from the town of Calais, France which is closest to the strait on the European mainland. The strait is the shortest distance between the two land masses and often chosen as the site for swimming across the English Channel.

Answer: Isle of Wight

The Solent separates the Isle of Wight from mainland England and averages a width of 3-6 km (2-4 mi). It faces the estuary called Southampton Water, to the north of which the city of Southampton lies.

The ferry company Hovertravel operates a passenger hovercraft which crosses the Solent on its route between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. The trip offers the quickest journey across the strait, taking less than ten minutes.

Answer: Bass

Bass Strait has seen the losses of several planes, ships, and people over time which have sometimes been given supernatural explanations, earning it the nickname "Bass Strait Triangle". This area was also the location of perhaps the most famous UFO-related incident in Australia.

Twenty year old Frederick Valentich was piloting a small aircraft in the area when he reported to Melbourne air traffic control that he had spotted an aircraft which he could not identify and which seemed to be approaching him. After reporting that this aircraft was hovering over him, it is said that unexplained "metallic, scraping sounds" were heard before contact with Valentich was lost. Neither aircraft nor pilot were ever found, spawning theories ranging from the sad to the strange.

Some explanations state the possibility that an extraterrestrial vehicle abducted the pilot or destroyed the plane. Others, which doubt this UFO theory, suggest that Frederick Valentich may have staged his disappearance or his suicide, or even that he became disoriented and crashed into the water.

Answer: Russia

The Kara Strait is found to the south of the Novaya Zemlya ("New Land") archipelago and shares its name with the Kara Sea, which it separates from the Barents Sea north of mainland Russia.

The 7.3 km (4.5 mi) wide Strait of Tartary separates the island of Sakhalin from Russia's mainland.

Peterhof Palace collectively refers to the gardens and palaces in St. Petersburg built in the 18th century at the orders of Peter the Great. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is sometimes called the "Russian Versailles". Among the sites at this area are impressive fountains adorned with statues and the Peterhof Grand Palace, in which one room, the Picture Hall, has its walls almost completely covered with a total of 368 paintings.

Answer: Arthur Kill

These bodies of water surround Staten Island in a more or less clockwise direction starting with Newark Bay to the north of the island. The Narrows is the area between Staten Island and the borough of Brooklyn where the two are closest. This is where the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (once the world's longest suspension bridge) connects them.

"Arthur Kill" is the anglicized name for the Dutch "achter kill", meaning "back channel". It is the strait between Staten Island and the mainland of the country, particularly the state of New Jersey. Dutch influence in the area has made Staten Island sound like a scary place to an English speaker, what with places like Arthur Kill Road and the Great Kills neighborhood.

Answer: Little Belt (Lillebælt)

The term "belt" is unique to the Danish straits and not used for any other strait in the world.

Both the Little Belt and Great Belt are within Denmark, while the Oresund strait is also bordered by Sweden. The Fehmarn Belt is between the Danish island Lolland and the German island Fehmarn. The Oresund, as a passage from the Baltic to, eventually, the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the busiest waterways in the world.

Answer: Taiwan

Taiwan's economy has grown massively since the mid-20th century, an event which has been labeled the "Taiwan Miracle". For this Taiwan has earned a spot in the "Four Asian Dragons", a group including Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong, which have all experienced similarly rapid industrialization in Asia.

The Taiwan Strait, or Formosa Strait, is the body of water between Taiwan and continental China.

Answer: Alexander Island

Alexander island, slightly larger in area than the main landmass of Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America, was discovered in 1821 and named for Tsar Alexander I of Russia. It was thought to be part of the mainland of the continent until 1940, which might explain its alternate name of Alexander Land.

Answer: River

The Brooklyn Bridge, which held the title of longest suspension bridge in the world for about twenty years, was the first to cross the East River in New York City. It was even originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and the East River Bridge. One of the oldest suspension bridges in the country, it was completed in the year 1883 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.

The East River "flows" from the Long Island Sound to Upper New York Bay.

Answer: Gibraltar

"Gate of Charity" is a translation of the Arab name for this strait, "Bab el-Zakat". The name "STROG" comes from the first few letters of the name Strait of Gibraltar.

The Alboran Sea, to the south of Spain and to the north of Morocco and Algeria, is the western part of the Mediterranean Sea. It is within a kind of arc of mountains on both the European and African sides, called the Gibraltar Arc. The Sierra Nevada mountain range, which contains the highest peak in Spain (Mulhacén), is within this geological region.