Currency Wanderings Trivia Quiz

The map indicates the South American country of Chile which uses the peso as its official currency. It first used the peso as legal tender in 1817 in place of the colonial real of the Spanish currency system. This lasted until 1960 when it was replaced by the escudo at the rate of one escudo to 1,000 peso during inflationary times.

A new version of the peso came back in 1975, replacing the escudo at the rate of one peso to 1,000 escudo.

A member of the European Union since 1995, Sweden (indicated on the map) is one of those few member states to retain its own currency, the krona. This was introduced in 1876 with the creation of the Scandinavian Monetary Union where the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish currencies (all meaning "crown") were equivalent and based on the gold standard. Equivalence lasted until World War I.

In 2003 a referendum vote went against using the euro and a loophole was found to keep the krona. The nation's intentions have not been tested since.

The map points to Switzerland however the Swiss franc is also currency of Liechtenstein and the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia. At the end of the 18th century multiple bodies were making in effect local community currencies based mostly on French or South German currencies.

There were hundreds of different coins in circulation at this point. The frank was introduced by the short-lived Helvetic Republic but it was not until 1848 that the federal government became the monopoly supplier of money and until 1850 that the Swiss franc became the monetary unit for the country.

A part of the Ottoman Empire at one point, Egypt shared a common currency with Turkey in the form of the piastre. In the early 19th century, Egypt went its own way and eventually the Egyptian piastre was linked to the British gold sovereign with 100 piastres being referred to as a pound.

In 1885 the pound became an official unit of Egyptian currency with the country moving to a purely gold standard. It was tied to sterling until the 1960s when it switched to a peg to the US dollar.

The Roman libra is the source of several European and Middle Eastern currencies including the Turkish lira. Others include or included the French livre, the Lebanese pound and the British pound as well as the Italian lira. Some of these have now been replaced by the euro. Turkey is the country indicated on the map.

The Turkish lira replaced the Ottoman pound (or lira) in 1927. It actually overlapped with the Ottoman lira from 1923. Inflation destroyed that version with the current Turkish lira being created in 2005 with the removal of 6 zeros from the old one.

The euro is the currency of 20 of the European Union member states with various micro states and territories more than doubling that number. It was created in 1992 by the Maastricht Treaty. The country indicated is Cyprus which replaced the Cypriot pound (or lira) with the euro on 1 January 2008, although the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus uses the Turkish lira.

With different spellings, the riyal is used by a number of Middle Eastern countries. In this case, the country indicated is Saudi Arabia. The Saudi riyal is pegged to the US dollar with a dollar being equivalent to 3.75 SAR. The Saudi riyal came into being along with the country in 1932. Before that, it was the currency of Hejaz, now the western region of the country.

This earlier currency was one of those used in the Mediterranean region during the Ottoman era, the four centuries starting at the beginning of the 16th century.

The dinar is used by a number of countries in the Mediterranean region. It can trace its roots to the Roman denarius, the standard silver coin in use for around four centuries in the Roman Empire from about 2,300 years ago. The word is a transliteration of the Arabic word.

The Bahraini dinar was introduced in 1965, replacing the Gulf rupee. Its value was pegged in 1980 and is worth just under US$2.66 for a dinar. The map shows the approximate location of the island of Bahrain.

The Spanish Empire introduced the silver dollar into the Asia Pacific through its Manila trading galleons from the 16th century. Singapore, as part of the Straits Settlements and whose rough position is indicated on the map, used the Straits dollar from 1845.

The Malayan dollar came next as a shared currency with Malaysia and Brunei. This monetary union ended in 1967 and Singapore issued its own currency, the Singapore dollar, which remains pegged at par with the Brunei dollar.

The won is etymologically related to the Chinese yuan and Japanese yen. It comes from the Hanja-written word "won", meaning "round" which is a reference to the Spanish silver dollar widely in use for trade between Asia and the Americas from the 16th to 19th centuries. Both North and South Korea use their own versions.

The current South Korean won (KRW) has been in use since 1962. The third version of the North Korean won (KPW) was first issued in 2009, inflation having eroded the value of earlier versions.

The Korean peninsula is indicated on the map.