Blog > Monthly Geo Trivia questions

Hi everyone,

welcome to June 2022 #fridaygeotrivia!

As is our tradition, on the final Friday of month we run a geotrivia contest on twitter under the hashtag #fridaygeotrivia. The game was played Friday, 24th of June at 18:00 Berlin time, 5:00pm London time, noon New York time.

See below for how to play. After the game is over we post the answers here on the blog.

The June 2022 geotrivia question:

Following this month’s news about the country formerly known as Turkey changing it’s name to Türkiye, our question is to name countries or major cities (population >1M) that have changed name in the last 50 years.

Prizes

#fridaygeotrivia is a game with two prizes:

  1. the sheer joy of geographic knowledge and pedantry.

  2. the bragging rights of getting the answer first.

The winner

Christopher Beddow was the June 2022 winner, well done! Second place went to Arnaud Ferrand, and third to Colin Angus (who you may recall was the winner back in Jan 2022).

This month’s geotrivia answer:

Countries:
  • Belize, previously British Honduras
  • Benin, previously Dahomey
  • Burkina Faso, previously Upper Volta
  • Cabo Verde, previously Cape Verde
  • Cambodia, previously Kampuchea
  • Czechia, previously Czech Republic
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo, previously Zaire
  • Eswatini, previously Swaziland
  • Iran, previously Persia
  • Kiribati, previously Gilbert Islands
  • Madagascar, previously Malagasy Republic
  • Myanmar, previously Burma
  • Namibia, previously South West Africa
  • North Macedonia, previously Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
  • Samoa, previously Western Samoa
  • Sri Lanka, previously Ceylon
  • State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, previously Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
  • Türkiye, previously Turkey
  • Vanuatu, previously New Hebrides
  • Zimbabwe, previously Rhodesia

Cities:

  • Almaty, Kazakhstan, previously Alma-Ata
  • Bengaluru, India, previously Bangalore
  • Beijing, China, previously Peking
  • Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, previously Frunze
  • Chennai, India, previously Madras
  • Harare, Zimbabwe, previously Salisbury
  • Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, previously Saigon
  • Kolkata, India, previously Calcutta
  • Mumbai, India, previously Bombay
  • Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, previously Astana *
  • Samara, Russia, previously Kuybyshev
  • St. Petersburg, Russia, previously Leningrad
  • Yekaterinburg, Russia, previously Sverdlovsk
- in September 2022 Nur-Sultan's name was changed BACK to Astana.

How to play

Anyone can join in, you just need a twitter account. Please note - these edition of the game was played long ago - these days we play on Mastodon, not twitter.

  • Reply to the question thread on twitter (previously embedded above, but twitter sadly broke embeds) using the hashtag #fridaygeotrivia in your answer.

  • Only one answer per tweet

  • While you can use a map, please do NOT use the internet to just search for an answer. That is cheating and will lead to seriously bad geokarma.

  • To get full points for an answer it is good form not just to name the relevant country but (if possible) to include the emoji flags of the country.

Some people have complained the format is a bit chaotic and hard to follow. Yes, the mad chaos is part of the fun. Embrace it. The goal is just to have fun and learn. We win by playing

Thanks for playing,

Ed