Three of These Places Belong Together Quiz

Answer: Stalingrad

Saint Petersburg was capital of the Russian empire for more than two centuries. Its name was changed to Petrograd in 1914 in response to anti-German sentiment at the outbreak of World War I, and changed again to honour Lenin following his 1924 death. A referendum in 1991 resulted in the third name change when a narrow majority of voters chose to restore the city's original name.

Answer: Italy

The Iberian Peninsula lies in the far west of Europe, surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean and demarcated on the east by the Pyrenees mountain range. The peninsula's total area is approximately 580,000 square kilometres--about the same size as Kenya.

Italy lies on the aptly named Italian Peninsula, although if you want to sound learned you can also call it the Apennine Peninsula.

Answer: Egypt

The claims were made by Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and three northern hemisphere countries: France, Norway and the United Kingdom. Australia's claim covered the largest area by far.

Answer: Madagascar

The fourth-largest island in the world, Madagascar lies off the south-eastern coast of Africa.

The largest archipelago country is Indonesia, comprising more than 17,500 islands. Most of them are uninhabited.

Answer: Luxembourg

While famously small, Luxembourg has an area of almost 2,600 square kilometres. You could fit the Vatican City (0.44 square kilometres) inside it more than five thousand times, or Monaco (2.02 square kilometres) more than two thousand times.

The Pacific island of Nauru measures a hefty 21 square kilometres, making it the world's smallest island nation. You could walk across it with a bottle of water and a muesli bar.

Answer: Alimentary Canal

The Grand Canal is the major traffic corridor through Venice, and an enchanting place to spend some time around on a sunny day. There is a second famous Grand Canal, starting in Beijing and ending in Hangzhou, 1776 kilometres away. It is the longest canal in the world. It doesn't matter which Grand Canal you were thinking of, because either one can be found in an atlas.

The alimentary canal is the technical name for the digestive tube starting at your mouth and ending...well, away from your mouth.

Answer: A river in Vietnam

Also included in this list are the Victoria Falls, the capital of the Seychelles, a city in Hong Kong, a mountain in Belize, a mountain in Papua New Guinea, two mountains in New Zealand, the capital of Gozo on the Maltese archipelago, a town in Virginia USA and...you get the picture. She was a popular lady.

After centuries of dynastic rule Vietnam was colonised by France in the 19th century - a nation not in the habit of naming things in honour of the Queen of England!

Answer: India

Landlocked nations face disadvantage since they had to travel through another country to access trading ports. A number of treaties and agreements have been made to reduce the impact on landlocked countries. For example, the Danube has legal status as an international waterway so that Austria, Serbia, Slovakia and Hungary can use it to access the Black Sea.

The unusual geography of Angola--which has a small northern exclave entirely separate from the rest of the country--is a result of an agreement for the Democratic Republic of Congo to claim a thin slice of land giving it access to the Atlantic Ocean.

Answer: The Great Pyramid of Giza

The Lighthouse or Pharos of Alexandria was built in the third century BC, but destroyed by a series of earthquakes in the tenth and fourteenth centuries.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a 30 metre tall statue of the Greek God Helios, erected in the third century BC, but lasted only 56 years before it too was destroyed by an earthquake.

Guess what destroyed the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and only remaining Ancient Wonder of the World--now more than four and a half thousand years old.

Answer: Mexico

While researching this question, I discovered a surprising factoid: the equator does not touch Equatorial Guinea! This country comprises a continental region and some island off Africa's west coast, about one degree north of the equator, and another island, Annabon, roughly five degrees south of the equator.

While parts of Equatorial Guinea are situated on either side of the equator, I still think this counts as false advertising and it should be made to sit in the corner with Greenland.