There's That River! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Murray River

The Murray River is the world's 16th longest, at over 2500 km (1600 mi), and is a major source of water for the farming regions through which it runs. For many years it offered the best way of carrying supplies to farms, and produce from farms to the cities, and you can still take a ride on an old-fashioned steamboat.

Answer: Yellow River

The Yellow River, also called the Huang He (and I grew up calling it the Hwang Ho) is also called the Black River in Mongolian, because it flows clear and dark in the upper reaches. The lower part, however, carries yellow silt that gives it a distinctive color.

Its valley is often called the cradle of Chinese civilisation, because it was one of the most prosperous and developed regions in early Chinese history.

Answer: Ganges

As well as having immense religious significance, the Ganges river provides water for over 400 million people who live in its basin. Unfortunately, it is also one of the world's most polluted rivers, making the ritual bathing a less healthy activity than one might wish.

Answer: Africa

In the short story "The Elephant's Child", which told the story of how elephants got their trunks, there are repeated references to "the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River" where the baby elephant had his encounter with the crocodile responsible for stretching his nose. The Limpopo is one of the largest rivers in the southeastern part of Africa.

Answer: Nile

The White Nile and the Blue Nile join near Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. From there it flows through Sudan and Egypt, where use of the Nile floodplain was an important factor in the rise of early civilisation. Most of the famous Egyptian sites you have heard of lie in the Nile floodplain - the pyramids, the Sphinx, the tomb of Tutankhammun, and the cities of Cairo and Thebes.

Answer: Seine

The Seine flows from Dijon in northeastern France roughly northwest through Paris and on the the English Channel near Le Havre. The Left Bank was the residence of many famous artists in the first half of last century, and you can still take tours to see where some of them lived and (more importantly) socialized with each other to exchange ideas and creativity.

The Right Bank is more elegant - the Champs-Elysees, where the Tour de France bicycle race finishes, is on the Right Bank.

Answer: Russia

Flowing north from the Caspian Sea, the Volga River drains most of western Russia, and over half of the largest cities of Russia, including Moscow, are in its catchment area. It is often considered to be Russia's national river, and is used in songs and stories to symbolize the nation as a whole.

Answer: Mississippi

The Mississippi River was an important river that runs from the very north of the United States (Minnesota) to the Gulf of Mexico, dividing the country roughly in half. It was an important transport route in the 19th century, and Samuel Clemens worked on the riverboats as a young man.

He took his pen name, Mark Twain, from a call used to inform those guiding the boat how deep the water was - twain meant two, so mark twain meant the river was two fathoms deep, or about 12 feet (3.7 m), and the boat could proceed in safety.

Answer: Colorado

The Colorado River goes from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, passing through seven American states and two Mexican ones. Over 17 million years of erosion have produced the Grand Canyon, with its steep sides that reveal a wealth of geological information.

Answer: Chile

Chile is too far south to be part of the Amazon basin, which includes most of South America north of the southernmost tributaries, in Bolivia, Peru and Brazil. There is an amazingly complex system of intertwining tributaries, covering a vast area. The Amazon basin is larger than those of the next seven river basins combined!