06 October 2016

Very tough geography quiz

Do you have a friend/relative/spouse who thinks he/she is the bee's knees of geography knowledge?  I offer you a quiz question that will bring them to their knees.

Just one question: What independent country has the "highest lowest point" ?
Not the highest point, mind you.  We're not talking Nepal or Tibet.  We want the country whose lowest point is higher than any other country's lowest point.   Nepal, for example, has "southern lowland plains."

The correct answer is a country which exists "entirely above 1,000m."  To be more precise: "Its lowest point of 1,400 metres (4,593 ft) is thus the highest in the world. Over 80% of the country lies above 1,800 metres (5,906 ft)."

Where is this country?  I wouldn't have guessed it in a hundred years.

Answer here.

6 comments:

  1. Interesting. My first guess was Andorra but the lowest point is at 840m (according to Wikipedia).

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  2. If Nepal didn't make it, that would imply my guess of Bhutan wouldn't either, so my next guess was Liechtenstein, but the wiki article didn't mention the low point (unless my eyes skipped it).

    Lurker111

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  3. Your warning reminded me this was a thing I knew. Taking it as further proof of my apigenuity.

    (The maps in Stephen Baxter's 'Flood' were an eye-opener for me in terms of visualizing the relative heights of the Earth's landmasses. Everyone knows the are well-known "highest" ranges, of course, but it's easy to overlook the existence of the lower but broader plateaus, like Iran or Ethiopia.)

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    1. "Flood" sounds like an interesting book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(Baxter_novel)).

      Is your other hobby creating new words like "apigenuity"? :.)

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  4. Sort by minimum elevation for a cool list. Rwanda is second, Andorra is third.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elevation_extremes_by_country

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