The Ultimate Pub Mastermind: Geography, Flags & Oddities

The planned bush capital of Australia, chosen as a diplomatic compromise halfway between arch-rivals Sydney and Melbourne.

Answer:Canberra

Note:Canberra is an entirely purpose-built city, designed by American Chicago architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin.

The national capital of Canada, situated on the border of Ontario and Quebec, frequently confused with Toronto or Montreal.

Answer:Ottawa

Note:Queen Victoria handpicked Ottawa in 1857 because its inland location shielded it from potential military raids by the United States.

The airplane-shaped modernist federal capital of Brazil inaugurated in 1960 to encourage development of the country's vast interior.

Answer:Brasília

Note:Brasília replaced Rio de Janeiro after being constructed from raw savannah dirt in just 41 months under urbanist Lúcio Costa.

The Anatolian plateau city that replaced Istanbul as the official capital of modern Turkey in 1923 under Atatürk.

Answer:Ankara

Note:While Istanbul boasts over 15 million residents, Ankara was chosen as a strategic inland stronghold away from vulnerable sea coasts.

The city that serves as the de facto federal seat of government in Switzerland, widely mistaken for Zurich or Geneva.

Answer:Bern

Note:Switzerland's constitution intentionally avoids naming an official capital ('Hauptstadt'); Bern is designated simply as the 'Federal City'.

The world's smallest fully independent sovereign city-state, completely surrounded by the city of Rome, Italy.

Answer:Vatican City

Note:Covering just 49 hectares (121 acres) with roughly 800 citizens, Vatican City issues its own euros, passports, and postal stamps.

The oceanic pole of inaccessibility furthest from any landmass on Earth, where the closest humans are astronauts aboard the ISS.

Answer:Point Nemo

Note:Space agencies intentionally aim de-orbited spacecraft, including the Mir space station and over 260 satellites, to crash at Point Nemo.

The transcontinental nation spanning 11 consecutive time zones from Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea to the Bering Strait.

Answer:Russia

Note:When Russian residents on the western border are having breakfast at 7 AM, miners in Chukotka in the far east are having dinner at 5 PM.

The massive East Asian nation that spans over 3,000 miles from east to west yet operates under a single nationwide official time zone.

Answer:China (Beijing Standard Time / UTC+8)

Note:In western Xinjiang province, the sun frequently does not set until past midnight in the summer because of the unified national clock.

The Belgian/Dutch border town famous for having 30 separate exclave jigsaw fragments running through roads, living rooms, and cafes.

Answer:Baarle-Nassau / Baarle-Hertog

Note:White cross markings on the sidewalks indicate where the border cuts directly through buildings, allowing diners to sit in two nations at once.

The colossal 277-mile-long gorge in Arizona carved over six million years by the Colorado River, reaching depths over one mile.

Answer:The Grand Canyon

Note:The Grand Canyon exposes nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history across its vividly layered horizontal rock strata.

The world's largest salt flat, located in southwest Bolivia at 11,995 feet elevation, which acts as a giant mirror after rainfall.

Answer:Salar de Uyuni

Note:Containing an estimated 10 billion tons of salt and massive lithium reserves, NASA satellites use the flat plain to calibrate their orbital sensors.

The deepest oceanic trench on the planet, located in the western Pacific Ocean, plunging nearly 36,000 feet at the Challenger Deep.

Answer:The Mariana Trench

Note:Water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench exceeds 1,000 atmospheres, equivalent to resting an eight-ton elephant on your thumb.

The towering waterfall on the Zambezi River between Zambia and Zimbabwe known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya ('The Smoke That Thunders').

Answer:Victoria Falls

Note:Scottish missionary David Livingstone became the first European to view the cataract in 1855, naming it in honor of Queen Victoria.

The tallest mountain on Earth when measured from its submerged oceanic base to its summit, standing over 33,500 feet in total height.

Answer:Mauna Kea (Hawaii)

Note:While Everest has the highest elevation above sea level (29,032 ft), Mauna Kea's base lies 19,700 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific.

The only sovereign national flag in the world that is non-quadrilateral, formed instead by two stacked triangular pennants.

Answer:Nepal

Note:The two triangles symbolize the Himalayas and represent Nepal's two primary religions: Hinduism and Buddhism.

The eastern Mediterranean island nation whose national flag explicitly features a full copper-orange silhouette of its geographic map.

Answer:Cyprus

Note:The copper color symbolizes the island's historical wealth in copper ore, from which the Greek name 'Kypros' originates.

The Caribbean island nation that possesses the only current national flag containing neither red, white, nor blue colors.

Answer:Jamaica (Features only green, gold, and black)

Note:Gold represents the natural wealth and sunlight, green represents agriculture and hope, and black represents the strength of the people.

The African nation whose official flag displays a modern Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle with a bayonet crossed with an agricultural hoe.

Answer:Mozambique

Note:The rifle stands for national defense and the struggle for independence from Portugal, while the hoe symbolizes the country's agricultural backbone.

The two only sovereign countries in the world that fly an officially square national flag with a 1:1 aspect ratio.

Answer:Switzerland and Vatican City

Note:All other 191 recognized member states of the United Nations fly rectangular flags of varying aspect ratios.

The isolated Polynesian territory famous for nearly 1,000 colossal monolithic stone heads and torsos called Moai.

Answer:Easter Island (Rapa Nui)

Note:Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen named the island when he made landfall on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722.

The otherworldly Yemeni archipelago in the Arabian Sea famous for its bizarre umbrella-shaped Dragon's Blood Trees with crimson sap.

Answer:Socotra

Note:Over one-third of Socotra's plant life is found nowhere else on planet Earth, earning it the nickname 'the most alien place on Earth'.

The Norwegian Arctic archipelago that houses the Global Seed Vault, built inside a permafrost mountain to survive apocalyptic disasters.

Answer:Svalbard

Note:The vault holds over 1.2 million backup seed samples from virtually every nation on Earth at a constant chilling temperature of -18°C.

The volcanic British South Atlantic island recognized as the most remote permanently inhabited archipelago on the planet, 1,500 miles from South Africa.

Answer:Tristan da Cunha

Note:With no airstrip, the island's 250 residents can only be reached via a six-day deep-sea boat voyage departing from Cape Town.

The volcanic Pacific archipelago whose endemic marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, and giant tortoises inspired Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories.

Answer:The Galápagos Islands (Ecuador)

Note:Darwin spent five weeks studying the islands aboard HMS Beagle in 1835, cataloging how finch beaks adapted to specific seeds on different islands.