How to play
- Press Start. You have 3 minutes 30 seconds for all 54 countries.
- Type a country’s name. It counts as soon as it matches and turns green on the map; a country from another continent clears the box, with a note saying where it is.
- Pause whenever you like. When the time is up, the lists below the map show what you named and what you missed.
About the countries of Africa
Africa is the second-largest continent by area and by population, and with 54 countries it is the biggest test in this series. Sixteen of them have no coastline, and six are island nations in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Many borders are straight lines drawn in the colonial era, which makes the Sahara region easy to picture and hard to name.
A good way through is region by region: the Mediterranean coast in the north, the long Atlantic coast of West Africa, the Sahel below the Sahara, the countries around the central rainforest basin, the Horn and the Great Lakes in the east, then the south, and finally the islands.
More about the countries of Africa (names some answers)
Algeria has been the largest country in Africa since Sudan split in 2011, when South Sudan became the newest widely recognised country in the world. Nigeria has the most people. The smallest country on the mainland is Gambia, a narrow strip along the Gambia River almost surrounded by Senegal; the smallest of all is the island nation of Seychelles. Three answers share the word Guinea, and two are called Congo. Egypt reaches into Asia across the Sinai Peninsula but counts only in Africa here.
Which countries count
Africa here follows the UN’s grouping of countries: all of its members on the continent and its islands. Territories and dependencies aren’t answers, and land outside the quiz is shown in a lighter shade.
Spelling: capitals, accents, spaces and punctuation don’t matter, and well-known alternative names count.
The accepted alternative names appear here when your quiz ends, so they don’t give any answers away.
| Country | Also accepted |
|---|---|
| Cabo Verde | Cape Verde |
| Central African Republic | CAR |
| Côte d'Ivoire | Ivory Coast |
| DR Congo | Democratic Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Congo-Kinshasa |
| Eswatini | Swaziland |
| Republic of the Congo | Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Republic of Congo |
| São Tomé and Príncipe | São Tomé |
| Tanzania | United Republic of Tanzania |
Questions
Why 54 countries?
Every country on the continent and its islands that is a member of the United Nations. That is all of Africa’s sovereign states: the continent has no UN observer states and no partly recognised countries in this quiz.
What about Western Sahara?
Its status is disputed and it isn’t a member of the UN, so it isn’t an answer and the map shows it in a lighter shade. The same goes for Somaliland, which has declared independence but isn’t recognised by the UN.
More geography
- Capitals of Africa: the same countries, naming their capitals
- Countries of the World: all 197 at once
- Other continents: Countries of Asia, Countries of Europe, Countries of North America, Countries of South America, Countries of Oceania
More to play
- Countries of the World: Type every country you can before the clock runs out.
- Capitals of the World: Name the capital of every country before the clock runs out.
- Periodic Table: Name every chemical element before the clock runs out.
- Flags of the World: Name the country from its flag.
- All quizzes
- El Trivia home