'SUM' Borders Trivia Quiz

Answer: South Africa

[Map of Namibia]

Namibia can be found in south-west Africa. It shares the majority of its northern border with Angola (although a tiny bit in the far north-west is next to Zambia), has Botswana to its east and South Africa to the south and south-east. Its southern border with South Africa is delineated by the course of the Orange River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean close to the Namibian mining town of Oranjemund (which translates to "Mouth of Orange" in English). Namibia was known as South West Africa and was under South African administration for most of the 20th century. It secured its independence in 1990 following a 24-year war known as either the Namibian War of Independence, South African Border War, or Angolan Bush War.

São Tomé and Príncipe is an island nation located off the west coast, while Sudan and Sierra Leone are both in the northern half of the African continent.

Answer: Montenegro

[Map of Albania]

The highlighted country is Albania. It is situated on the Balkan peninsula and has a coastline on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas - which both form part of the wider Mediterranean Sea. The Balkans area contains quite a few countries that begin with 'S' or 'M', but, of the options given, only Montenegro shares a border with Albania - it is the westernmost of Albania's two northern neighbours.

Albania's other neighbours include the region of Kosovo that declared its independence from Serbia in 2008 (to the north-east), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (to the east) and Greece (to the south-east). Montenegro was an independent principality in the late 19th century but was subsumed into Yugoslavia after the First World War along with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. After the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Montenegro remained in a union with Serbia, but it eventually regained full independence in 2006.

While Slovenia and Serbia are both generally defined as Balkan countries, Slovakia is located considerably further north in central Europe.

Answer: Saudi Arabia

The majority of the Arabian peninsula forms part of Saudi Arabia, which is the largest country in the Middle East and one of the world's top oil and gas exporting nations - a fact that has also made it one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The highlighted country on the map in the picture clue is Yemen, which shares land borders with Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the east. Despite its proximity to the wealthy Saudi Arabia and its own oil and gas reserves, Yemen is a relatively poor nation where political upheaval - and a civil war that began in 2015 - have caused both economic and humanitarian disasters.

The United Arab Emirates is one of Saudi Arabia's eastern neighbours. Syria - another Middle Eastern nation ravaged by civil war - is located further north and Sri Lanka is an island nation off the south-eastern coast of India.

Answer: Malaysia

Brunei is a tiny nation on the very large island of Borneo. While about three-quarters of the island's land area belongs to Indonesia, the northern section is part of Malaysia - with the exception of the bits that make up Brunei. Most of Brunei's population live in the western section of the country, which includes the capital Bandar Seri Begawan; the eastern exclave is mountainous and the southern half of it contains the Ulu Temburong National Park.

Malaysia is also divided largely into two parts - Peninsular Malaysia, located on the southern end of the Malay Peninsula, and Eastern Malaysia, which is the bit on Borneo. The two sections lie approximately 650 kilometres (400 miles) apart and are separated by the South China Sea.

Singapore is a small island city state that sits south of Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is separated from Malaysia by Thailand and Senegal is in West Africa.

Answer: Uganda

As the map in the picture clue shows, Rwanda (which is located in central Africa) is a landlocked country that is surrounded by four other countries. Generally speaking, it is bounded by the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, Burundi to the south, Tanzania to the east and Uganda (the 'SUM' country') to the north. This region of Africa is known as the Great Lakes region and a large portion of Rwanda's western border is formed by Lake Kivu, which is a rare type of lake that is prone to limnic eruptions - events where clouds of suffocating carbon dioxide gas are emitted from its waters.

Uganda is also notable for its location in the Great Lakes region and has a shoreline on both Lake Victoria - Africa's largest lake - and Lake Albert. The pair of lakes were named after Britain's Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert.

South Sudan is one of Uganda's neighbours, Malawi can be found to the south of Uganda's southern neighbour, Tanzania, and Somalia is located to the east of Uganda's eastern neighbour, Kenya.

Answer: Spain

Andorra is located high in the Pyrenees mountain range that forms the border between France (to the north and east) and Spain (to the south and west). It is one of the countries in the world whose capital city shares part of its name with that of its country - the presence of the name 'Andorra la Vella' on the map in the picture clue should hopefully have made it slightly easier to identify the highlighted country as Andorra, despite its non-distinctive shape.

Spain is one of the largest countries in Europe and occupies the majority of the Iberian Peninsula. It has existed as a nation state since the early 16th century when the nominally separate kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, León and Navarre (which had largely been held by the same monarch or monarchs since the marriage of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1469) were merged into a single country under the control of the Habsburg dynasty.

The UK and Sweden are located further north in Europe, while Monaco is another small neighbour of France.

Answer: Mali

Mali is the country on the other side of the border that lies to the north of Niamey, the capital city of the highlighted country, Niger. Both Mali and Niger are landlocked nations of West Africa and much of the territory of both countries has a desert climate and forms part of the Sahara. Including Mali, Niger has a total of seven neighbours - the others are (clockwise from Mali) Algeria, Libya, Chad, Nigeria, Benin and Burkina Faso.

The River Niger flows through the southern part of Mali and most of the country's population live in the fertile land that surrounds its course. The settlements along its banks include both Niamey and the famous city of Timbuktu, which was once a great seat of learning and an ancient Islamic cultural centre.

Mauritania is also in West Africa and Morocco is located to the north on Africa's Mediterranean coast. Mozambique is in south-east Africa and has a long coastline on the Indian Ocean.

Answer: Uzbekistan

The map depicts the country of Kyrgyzstan, which (along with three of its four neighbours) declared its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. Those three neighbours are Kazakhstan (to the north), Tajikistan (to the south-west) and Uzbekistan (to the west) - the rest of Kyrgyzstan's border (to the south-east) is with China.

The Uzbek people are a sizeable minority ethnic group in Kyrgyzstan, while Kyrgyz people make up a smaller proportion of Uzbekistan's population (where the larger minority groups are Tajiks and Kazakhs). Riots between these two ethnic groups in South Kyrgyzstan in 2010 highlighted political tensions and many ethnic Uzbek people were killed or imprisoned as a result. However, the human rights records of both countries have been criticised by external organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in the years since their independence.

The incorrect options were either once part of the former Soviet Union (Ukraine), a neighbour of the former Soviet Union (Mongolia) or the neighbour of a neighbour of the former Soviet Union (South Korea).

Answer: Switzerland

Liechtenstein has a constitutional monarchy and since the head of state is a prince, it is technically a principality rather than a kingdom. Geographically, the country is probably best known for being doubly-landlocked - i.e. both it and every country that it shares borders with is landlocked. (Uzbekistan is another country that shares this characteristic.) Liechtenstein is a German-speaking Alpine state and the countries that surround it (Austria to the north and east and Switzerland to the south and west) also both have German as an official language, and are well-known for their Alpine ski resorts.

Switzerland and Liechtenstein have close political connections as well as geographic ones. They share the same currency (the Swiss franc), have open borders and free trade agreements. Switzerland also provides consular and diplomatic services, signs some treaties on Liechtenstein's behalf and is responsible for its smaller neighbour's military defence.

San Marino is surrounded by Italy, Malta is an island nation in the Mediterranean and Moldova is located in Eastern Europe.

Answer: Suriname

The pictured country, Guyana, is located on the Caribbean coastline of South America and only two of the answer options are actually South American countries - Suriname and Uruguay. Since Uruguay can be found further south between Brazil and Argentina, that just leaves Suriname as the correct answer to this question. Suriname is bordered by the territory of French Guiana to the east and Guyana (which was formerly known as British Guiana) to the west. It therefore shouldn't be surprising that Suriname was sometimes referred to as Dutch Guiana when it was under Dutch ownership. It gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975.

The other countries that border Guyana are Venezuela (to the west) and Brazil (to the south). Mexico and Saint Lucia are also countries with Caribbean coastlines, but one is on the North American continent and the other is a small island nation (and there are no prizes available for working out which is which).