Countries of Africa quiz

The 54 countries in the quiz

They’re the 54 UN member countries of Africa, on a map of the continent. Territories and areas that aren’t asked, such as Somaliland, Western Sahara, and Bir Tawil, are shown in gray.

5 are so small that they have a circle you can tap; at sea, tapping close to it is enough.

How to play

In Point mode we name a country and you tap it on the map; in Type mode one lights up and you type its name (accents don’t matter); and in Time trial you get 6 seconds per question. If you miss, we show you where it was, which way it lies and a hint drawn from the data: the countries it borders and its capital.

Each game has 10, 20 or all the questions, and at the end you can practice just the ones you missed. Your best score for each mode is saved in this browser only: neither we nor anyone else can see it, and there’s no sign-up.

The hardest ones

The smallest countries are the hardest, since they barely show on the map: the Seychelles (176 sq mi), São Tomé and Príncipe (371 sq mi), and the Comoros (about 650 sq mi). Zoom in with the buttons or two fingers to tap them.

And watch out for look-alike names: Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo; Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau; Gambia and Zambia; South Sudan and Sudan.

Tips to learn them

• Start with the countries on the Mediterranean, from Morocco to Egypt, and the big ones in the center and south; save the West African coast, with its row of small countries, for last.
• Start with the three largest: Algeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan cover 22% of the area of Africa.
• There are 16 landlocked countries: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Look for them inland.
• Cape Verde, The Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, São Tomé and Príncipe, and The Seychelles have no land border with any other country on the map: look for them at sea.
• The Democratic Republic of the Congo has the most neighbors: it borders 9 countries. Once you place it, you have a landmark for many more.

Playing in class

Put the map on the interactive whiteboard and play in teams: each right answer scores a point, and if one team misses, the other gets a turn.

With the Challenge your class link, everyone gets the same questions in the same order, with no accounts or passwords, and each student sees their own score, time and streak. To practice on paper, there’s a printable worksheet of the same map with an answer key.

List of all 54 countries

1. Algeria Algiers
2. Angola Luanda
3. Benin Porto-Novo
4. Botswana Gaborone
5. Burkina Faso Ouagadougou
6. Burundi Gitega
7. Cameroon Yaoundé
8. Cape Verde Praia
9. Central African Republic Bangui
10. Chad N'Djamena
11. Comoros Moroni
12. Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa
13. Djibouti Djibouti
14. Egypt Cairo
15. Equatorial Guinea Malabo
16. Eritrea Asmara
17. Eswatini Mbabane
18. Ethiopia Addis Ababa
19. Gabon Libreville
20. Gambia Banjul
21. Ghana Accra
22. Guinea Conakry
23. Guinea-Bissau Bissau
24. Ivory Coast Yamoussoukro
25. Kenya Nairobi
26. Lesotho Maseru
27. Liberia Monrovia
28. Libya Tripoli
29. Madagascar Antananarivo
30. Malawi Lilongwe
31. Mali Bamako
32. Mauritania Nouakchott
33. Mauritius Port Louis
34. Morocco Rabat
35. Mozambique Maputo
36. Namibia Windhoek
37. Niger Niamey
38. Nigeria Abuja
39. Republic of the Congo Brazzaville
40. Rwanda Kigali
41. São Tomé and Príncipe São Tomé
42. Senegal Dakar
43. Seychelles Victoria
44. Sierra Leone Freetown
45. Somalia Mogadishu
46. South Africa Pretoria
47. South Sudan Juba
48. Sudan Khartoum
49. Tanzania Dodoma
50. Togo Lomé
51. Tunisia Tunis
52. Uganda Kampala
53. Zambia Lusaka
54. Zimbabwe Harare