Two random geography quiz questions

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

So, the team I'm in at work won our office quiz a year ago, which meant that we had to set and deliver this year's, which was held last night. It went down well - lots of positive feedback about a good balance of easy and hard questions, highbrow and lowbrow topics etc. But there were two questions in the geography round which not a single one of the twelve teams got right, so I'll offer them to the rather higher calibre quizzers of OTF.

1. Six of the eleven largest cities/towns in the world located more than 60 degrees north are in the same country. Which country?

2. Multiple choice: which is the only sovereign state in the world, every bit of whose territory is at an altitude of over 1,000m above sea level? it is one of Bolivia, Lesotho, Nepal or Liechtenstein.

[San Bernardhinault]

1 - I'd guess at Russia

2 - Of your list, I'd guess at Lesotho. But if you hadn't given me the multi-choice I'd probably not have got there.

[ursus arctos]

Those are both correct

[Diable Rouge]

Yes, Lesotho is known for having the "highest lowest point" in the globe .

[Sam]

What do you mean by 'largest' for number 1? That's a word I always avoid when writing geography questions, there are too many interpretations (as I learnt when visiting Juneau, Alaska, which by city limits is one of the largest cities in the world at over 6,000 square miles, but has a population of about 30,000 people).

Given how few countries there are with any significant number of cities north of 60 degrees north, though, I'm staggered that no one got it. Did they all simply guess Canada instead?

[San Bernardhinault]

I was actually surprised that it's only 6/11 for Russia, but having checked, there's a few outside Russia just beyond 60. My guess is that if you put the line at 62 degrees, Russia would become even more dominant

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Largest by population Sam.

But more to the point - bloody hell, I thought when ursus posted that something must have gone wrong, because I had checked many times and got the answer Finland, but ursus is never wrong. So I rechecked my source, and it has been edited very recently by the insertion of 3 new Russian entries, which appear in bold in the list in this link:

https://panethos.wordpress.com/2016/...orth-latitude/

[MsD]

Russia most big and important country in world.

[ursus arctos]

I would consider "largest".to be population unless specified

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Very disappointing, as Russia is the obvious guess. Finland, when it looked correct, was much more of a suprise.

[DCI Harry Batt]

So did people say Russia and get marked as wrong?

[diggedy derek]

I was going to guess Finland because its bottom is around 60 degrees north, and a lot of the Nordic countries have their largest cities around the bottom. And also because I like Finland.

[San Bernardhinault]

And there's the core of it, isn't it? Only one of the 6 Finnish cities is north of 62, only two are north of 61 degrees. It a fascinating coincidence that almost the entire south coast of Finland is just north of 60N, but St Petersburg is 1/20th of a degree south. I would not have known or guessed at that. So, even if the official answer was wrong, I've been enlightened.

[ursus arctos]

Speaking of the imprecision of "largest", would this question in a British quiz be limited to urban settlements with a cathedral if it wasn't for the addition of "towns"?

[ad hoc]

Speaking of the imprecision of "largest", would this question in a British quiz be limited to urban settlements with a cathedral if it wasn't for the addition of "towns"?

In a question about Britain, yes probably
In a question in a quiz in Britain about anywhere in the world, probably not

[MsD]

We set our own fucking rules now.

[ursus arctos]

I should have taken that into account, of course

Schoolboy error, really

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

So did people say Russia and get marked as wrong?

Yes, a few teams. One point. The winning team won by a margin of 17 points so it's not a major scandal. We still have the answer sheets, and I'll probably circulate a correction on Monday.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Phew.

[Guy Profumo]

Speaking of the imprecision of "largest", would this question in a British quiz be limited to urban settlements with a cathedral if it wasn't for the addition of "towns"?

No.

A city is defined by having a charter saying it is, rather than a town.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Well that sent me off down a rabbit hole, which ended up with my earning that Southwark applied for city status in 1955.