Guinea-Bissau, Her Land and Her People Quiz

Answer: Guinea and Senegal

Senegal lies to the north and Guinea lies to the south and east. The archipelago nation of Cape Verde lies abou 658 miles (1061 km) to the west. Until 1980, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde were a single country. Prime Minister João Bernardo Vieira led a coup d'etat in Guinea-Bissau that brought him to power and separated the two nations, although relations between the two states were strained for decades.

Answer: True

Only about 14% of the population speaks Portuguese. Many speak Kriol or Crioulo, a creole language derived from Portuguese and rather similar to Cape Verdean Creole. About 15% of the population speak Kriol as their first language, and about 46% use it as a language. Kriol developed rather early on as Portuguese traders and colonists intermingled with natives almost from the moment of first contact.

The Lançados ("thrown-out ones"), largely Jews fleeing the Portuguese Inquisition, married Africans and spread the Portuguese language as they defied their home government by conducting trade in weapons, spices, and slaves without paying taxes to the Crown.

Their mestiço or "half-caste" offspring became important figures in the port economies of Bissau and other cities, and they developed the Kriol lanugage.

Answer: Bissau-Guineans

Did you guess correctly? Think of it as the capital city, Bissau, modifying the demonym Guinean. They are Guineans from Bissau, or Bissau-Guineans.

Bissau-Guineans are a very ethnically diverse lot. The Balanta live along the southern coast and the Fula live in the north, but there are many other peoples, too. About half the population is Muslim and the rest practice Christianity (mostly Catholicism), or traditional animistic African religions.

Answer: Taiwan

At about 13,972 sq mi (36,188 sq km), Taiwan is very close to the size of Guinea-Bissau. To compare, Guinea-Bissau is larger than Belgium (11,787 sq mi or 30,528 sq km) and larger than the U.S. State of Maryland (12,407 sq miles or 32,133 sq km).

Answer: petroleum oil

Most of the economy depends on agricultural production. Other important resources include bauxite (aluminum ore), timber, and phosphates, which are used to make fertilizer, flame-retardent clothing and plastics, and detergents. There may be unexploited petroleum deposits in unaccessible areas.

Answer: coastal plains rising to savannas

The coastal plain rises from the North Atlantic to savannas (grasslands with widely spaced trees) in the east -- but not very far. Guinea-Bissau's highest point is only about 984 ft (300 m), making it one of lowest countries in the world. There are some mangrove swamps on the coast. (Mangroves are medium-sized trees and shrubs that thrive in brackish water.) Unfortunately, the mangrove biomes are under threat throughout Western Africa from over-exploitation for firewood and from clearing for rice farming.

Answer: harmattan

The monsoon is the season of wind and rain in West Africa. When it is not monsoon time, the harmattan is the dry, dusty wind that blows from the Sahara through West Africa. When the harmattan wind blows, it brings a noticeable haze and may cause brush fires. A winter wind, it blows between the end of November and the middle of March, and it can be as cold as 37°F (3°C). Pretty cold for the tropics!

This is not to be confused with the sirocco, a Mediterranean wind that blows across North Africa and Southern Europe and can reach hurricane force. A zephyr is a gentle wind that blows from west to east; something experienced in Greece, from which this words enters the language, but not so much in Guinea-Bissau.

Answer: None of these

None of these are names for the Republic of Guinea-Bissau; they are all different sovereign states in Africa and Oceania with distinct colonial histories. Here's the breakdown:

GUINEA-BISSAU: The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is the former Portuguese Guinea.

GUINEA: The Republic of Guinea is the former French Guinea. It is sometimes informally called Guinea-Conakry after its capital, but usually just "Guinea", perhaps because it was the first "Guinea" to declare independence, in 1958.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA: The Republic of Equatorial Guinea is the former Spanish Guinea.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: The Independent State of Papua New Guinea is in Oceania, north of Australia. It was formerly governed by Portuguese, Germans, and British, and later Australians.

I'm all Guinea'd out.

Answer: archipelagos off the coast

Since 2005, Guinea-Bissau has served as a transit country for the drug trade between Latin America and Europe. The islands off the coast -- Arquipélago dos Bijagó, or Bissagos Archipelago -- make smuggling easier. In fact, even before European colonization, the Bissagos were important for West African traders in slaves.

The ethnic inhabitants, the Bidyogo (or Bijagos), were skilled enough seamen in their almadias, or large ocean-going canoes holding 70 people, to hold off Portuguese invasion for a time.

The wild terrain also made Portuguese conquest of the Bidyogo impossible until 1936, although the Portuguese had since 1870 occupied the Bissagos and forced the Bidyogo to harvest palm trees and build factories. Since 1996 the islands have been a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve for hippopotamus, marine turtles, manatees, migratory birds, palm forests, mangrove forests, and other native flora and fauna.

Many sites have remained pristine because the Bidyogo animistic religion holds them sacred and therefore restricted from human access.

The Bissagos are the only place on Earth where one can see hippos swimming in the ocean.

Answer: Ghana

The Ghanaians' struggle for freedom in the 1950s inspired the people of Guinea-Bissau to put up their own fight, which succeeded in 1974. Both flags use the the popular pan-African colors of Ethiopia. On Guinea-Bissau's flag, two horizontal yellow and green bands sit next to a red vertical band with a black star. Ghana has three horizontal bands (red, yellow, green) with a black star in the center band.

The colors mean different things to different countries, but specifically to Guinea-Bissau they signify the sun (yellow), hope (green), bloodshed (red), and African unity (black star).