Same Letter Starts the City/Country Quiz

Answer:

It's a tougher set to find than you might think! Most cities around the world do not have double-letters, alliterating their cities with their nations, and that might be a good thing, helping with differentiation. Since most city names are based on alternative historical meanings or are derived from the names of people, there can often be a wide variety from region to region. That said, the planet has more than two dozen countries where their national capital shares the same first letter as the country, and that's without thinking of countries where the capital is named 'COUNTRY CITY' (like Mexico City or Kuwait City). That'd be too easy for this quiz.

Looking at our correct options, you have a smattering of national capitals hiding in there which may or may not have been the easy ones to knock out off the top. Maputo is the capital of Mozambique, Stockholm is Sweden's capital, Bridgetown is the capital of Barbados, Niamey is Niger's, and Port Moresby is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea.

That leaves ten other correct alliterative cities, and while none of them are necessarily the largest non-capitals, they are all nonetheless interesting destinations.

In South America, the beautiful port city of Cartagena is in Colombia in the north of the continent while Concepcion, in Chile, sits on the mouth of the Bio Bio River on the continent's west coast (of which Chile makes the most).

In Europe, St. Gallen is a northeastern town high in the Alps while Poznan is one of Poland's oldest cities (found in its western region). Salamanca is found in the west of Spain while Rostov-on-Don is found near the mouth of the Don River on the Sea of Azov as it flows towards the Black Sea.

Looking to Asia, Chongqing is amongst the largest cities in China wile Isfahan is one of Iran's largest. Odd ones out amongst the rest, Adelaide is the only option in the bunch from Australia while the picturesque wine city of Stellenbosch is in South Africa.

Looking at our incorrect options, hopefully you weren't caught out by some near-misses or misconceptions. Starting with capitals of other places, Vientiane is the capital city of Laos though it is near Vietnam while Gaborone is the capital of Botswana (and not the similarly-named African nation of Gabon). Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan, and though this nation borders Iran to the west, the city is in the far east, closer to India. Kampala is the capital of Uganda while Ottawa, while in Ontario, is the capital city of Canada.

That leaves ten other cities, none of which are capitals and none of which create the level of alliteration we're looking for. Recife is in Brazil (though Belo Horizonte would have worked); Alexandria is in Egypt (and so is Edfu); Ghent is in Belgium (but so is Brussels!).

Regarding the remaining European cities, Brno is in the Czech Republic, Grenoble is in France, Brasov is in Romania, and Turku is in Finland. The others are a bit more scattered-- Surabaya is one of the larger cities on the island of East Java in Indonesia, Puerto Plata is a northern vacation destination on Hispaniola in the Dominican Republic, and Swakopmund is on the coast in Namibia.