Welcome to Estonia Trivia Quiz

Answer: Latvia

Finland lies to the north of Estonia across the Gulf of Finland. Sweden is to the west across the Baltic Sea. Estonia has land borders in the other two directions -- with Russia to the east and with Latvia to the south.

Answer: Lake Peipus

Straddling the Estonia-Russia border, Lake Peipus is the fifth-largest lake in Europe (after Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega in Russia, Lake Vänern in Sweden and Lake Saimaa in Finland). With a surface area of about 1,300 square miles, it is about three times the size of Hong Kong and only slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Rhode Island.

Answer: Yellow

Adopted in 1918, the national flag of Estonia is a tricolor of three horizontal bands, blue at the top, black in the middle, and white at the bottom. Native Estonian poet Martin Lipp interpreted the meanings of the three colors in his poem "The Estonian Flag": blue to represent the sky above the native land; black to symbolize the soil of the homeland and the fate of Estonians (black with worry); and white for purity, hard work and commitment.

Answer: Stenbock House

Completed in 1792, Stenbock House on Toompea Hill in Tallinn was used as a courthouse for much of its first two centuries. In danger of collapse, the Estonian government began a complete renovation in 1996, and it became the official seat of the Estonian government in 2000. The Riigikogu, the single-chamber Estonian Parliament, bas met in the neighbouring Toompea Castle since 1922.

Of the alternatives, Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen is the seat of the Danish "Folketing"; The Sejm Building in Warsaw is home to both houses of the Polish Parliament; and the Verkhovna Rada Building in Kiev houses the Supreme Council of the Ukraine.

Answer: Narva

The River Narva flows out of the northeastern end of Lake Peipus near the Estonian village of Vasknarva. After passing through the cities of Narva and Ivangorod, the river empties in to Narva Bay near the town of Narva-Jõesuu. The 162-meter long Friendship Bridge, built in 1960, carries the main E20 Tallinn-St. Petersburg highway across the Narva just downstream from Hermann Castle and the Ivangorod Fortress, two medieval structures that face each other from the Estonian and Russian sides of the river respectively.

The alternatives are Estonia's three longest rivers, although the total discharge from the ten longest rivers in the country combined is less than that of the Narva. The Võhandu is 101 miles long, the Pärnu is 90 miles in length, and the Põltsamaa runs for 86 miles.

Answer: Saaremaa

Estonia has more than 1,500 islands, with around one third of those forming the West Estonian archipelago. Of those 1,500, only the four listed in the question have an area larger than Guernsey's 30 square miles.

With an area of 1,032 square miles, Saaremaa is almost three times the size of the next largest (Hiiumaa) and is slightly larger than Luxembourg (which covers 998 square miles). The southernmost of the main islands that form the West Estonian archipelago, Saaremaa divides the Baltic Sea (to the north and west) from the Gulf of Riga (to the south). Roughly 15,000 of the island's total population of 39,000 live in the capital, Kuressaare.

Answer: Estonia

With an area of 17,462 square miles, Estonia is the world's 132nd-largest country. The alternatives rank 133rd (Denmark with an area of 16,639 square miles), 134th (Netherlands, 16,160 sq miles) and 135th (Switzerland at 15,940). All are slightly smaller than the Dominican Republic and Slovakia. To give Americans an idea of scale, Estonia is very slightly less than half the size of the U.S. state of Maine.

Answer: All are further south than Tallinn

Tallinn is located at latitude 59.26N. Russia's capital, Moscow, is southeast of Tallinn, at a latitude of 55.45N. Toronto, Canada is further south again, at latitude 43.42N. Tokyo, Japan is even further south, at 35.41N.

Answer: St Olaf's Church

Originally built in the 12th Century and dedicated to Saint Olaf, who was also King Olaf II of Norway from 995-1030, the current St Olaf's Church in Tallinn was extensively rebuilt in the 1400s. Standing 406 feet (123.7 m) when finished in 1519, it was the world's tallest building from 1549 until 1625.

Of the alternatives, St. Mary's Church in Lubeck, Germany was built in 1350 and was the world's tallest church with two steeples until overtaken by Cologne Cathedral in 1880; Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montreal was completed in 1967 and at 423 feet is the tallest church in the Americas; and St Elisabeth's Church in Wroclaw, Poland, stood at a height of 426 feet until the spire collapsed in a 1529 storm.

Answer: 10pm

Estonia is two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and one hour ahead of Central European Time, so at midnight on New Year's Eve in Tallinn it will be 10pm in London. Other countries in the same time zone as Estonia include (among others) Ukraine, Turkey, Greece and Finland in Europe, Israel, Lebanon and Syria in the Middle East, and South Africa, Rwanda, Egypt and Zimbabwe in Africa.