Quiz on The Nile

On which continent will you find the Nile River?

• Africa ✓ (Correct answer)
• Asia
• South America
• Europe

Source: Though forever tied to Egypt, the Nile actually drains nearly a tenth of the African continent.

Which ancient civilization built its entire society around the Nile?

• Mesopotamian
• Roman
• Greek
• Egyptian ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Without the Nile's yearly floods there would have been no pharaohs, no pyramids, and no ancient Egypt.

Which reptile shares its name with the Nile and is feared along its banks?

• Alligator
• Crocodile ✓ (Correct answer)
• Monitor lizard
• Cobra

Source: The Nile crocodile can top five metres and is Africa's largest crocodilian.

Which Agatha Christie novel sees detective Poirot solve a murder aboard an Egyptian steamer?

• Murder on the Orient Express
• Evil Under the Sun
• Death on the Nile ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Blue Train Mystery

Source: Christie's 1937 thriller has been filmed repeatedly, most recently in a 2022 blockbuster.

Which Egyptian capital city sits on the banks of the Nile?

• Alexandria
• Luxor
• Giza
• Cairo ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Greater Cairo, Africa's largest city, grew up where the Nile begins to fan into its delta.

Which Nile-bank plant did ancient Egyptians turn into an early form of paper?

• Papyrus ✓ (Correct answer)
• Bamboo
• Flax
• Cotton

Source: Our very word 'paper' comes straight from papyrus, the Nile reed pressed into writing sheets.

The Nile finally empties its waters into which sea?

• Red Sea
• Mediterranean Sea ✓ (Correct answer)
• Black Sea
• Arabian Sea

Source: After thousands of kilometres the Nile spills into the Mediterranean through a wide, fan-shaped delta.

The Nile is fed by two great tributaries known by which pair of names?

• Blue Nile and White Nile ✓ (Correct answer)
• Black Nile and White Nile
• Blue Nile and Green Nile
• Red Nile and White Nile

Source: The silt-rich Blue Nile meets the paler White Nile in Sudan to form the main river.

The Nile is unusual among the world's great rivers for flowing in which direction?

• South
• West
• North ✓ (Correct answer)
• East

Source: People assume rivers flow south, but the Nile runs northward, downhill toward the sea.

The Aswan High Dam holds back the Nile to form which vast reservoir?

• Lake Chad
• Lake Nasser ✓ (Correct answer)
• Lake Albert
• Lake Turkana

Source: Lake Nasser, one of the world's largest reservoirs, drowned ancient temples later rescued and relocated.

Which river is the Nile's chief rival for the title of world's longest?

• Amazon ✓ (Correct answer)
• Mississippi
• Yangtze
• Congo

Source: Measurements are so close that some scientists now argue the Amazon is actually the longer river.

Which massive Nile river mammal is ranked among Africa's deadliest animals to humans?

• Elephant
• Hippopotamus ✓ (Correct answer)
• Buffalo
• Rhinoceros

Source: Territorial and aggressive, Nile hippos are blamed for an estimated 500 human deaths every year.

The Blue Nile pours down from the rainy highlands of which African country?

• Sudan
• Uganda
• Ethiopia ✓ (Correct answer)
• Kenya

Source: Ethiopia's summer rains drive the Blue Nile, supplying most of the floodwater that once reached Egypt.

The White Nile's traditional source is which huge African lake?

• Lake Tanganyika
• Lake Malawi
• Lake Albert
• Lake Victoria ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, is generally credited as the White Nile's starting point.

Roughly what share of Egypt's people live within a few kilometres of the Nile?

• About 65%
• About 45%
• About 95% ✓ (Correct answer)
• About 85%

Source: Around 95% of Egyptians cluster along the Nile, leaving most of the country as empty desert.

What are the rocky rapids that repeatedly interrupt the Nile's flow historically called?

• Fjords
• Gorges
• Deltas
• Cataracts ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: The Nile's six cataracts long blocked boats; the same word also describes a clouded eye lens.

Ancient Egyptians called their land 'Kemet', a name pointing to which colour of Nile soil?

• Black ✓ (Correct answer)
• Red
• Yellow
• Grey

Source: Kemet meant 'the black land' after the dark fertile silt; the surrounding desert was the 'red land'.

Which Greek historian famously called Egypt 'the gift of the Nile'?

• Homer
• Plato
• Aristotle
• Herodotus ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Herodotus coined the phrase around 450 BC, recognising that the river alone made Egypt habitable.

Which Victorian explorer first claimed Lake Victoria was the source of the Nile?

• David Livingstone
• Henry Morton Stanley
• John Hanning Speke ✓ (Correct answer)
• Richard Burton

Source: Speke's 1858 claim sparked a bitter, lifelong feud with his sceptical travelling companion Richard Burton.

The Nile's drainage basin spreads across how many African countries?

• 7
• 11 ✓ (Correct answer)
• 5
• 9

Source: The Nile basin touches 11 countries, from Tanzania and Rwanda all the way north to Egypt.