Blog > Monthly Geo Trivia questions

Hi everyone,

welcome to the May 2024 edition of #fridaygeotrivia, our a social media geotrivia contest. We play on the final Friday of every month.

The game will be played on Friday, 31st of May, at 17:00 Berlin time, 4pm London time, 12 noon New York time.

See how to play below.

The May 2024 geotrivia question:

What is the longest chain of countries such that each successive country in the chain shares a land border and capital city names are in alphabetical order?

Example chain: SK 🇸🇰 (Bratislava) - CZ 🇨🇿 (Prague) - PL 🇵🇱 (Warsaw)

"SK-CZ-PL alpha capitals chain"

Some caveats:

  • We are interested only in the English version of the capital city’s name.

  • Some countries have multiple capital cities. In this case you can chose any of the capitals.

  • In the interest of adding more options - in the case of dependent territories with their own ISO code you can use either the capital of the country or the capital of the dependent territory. So, for example, you can consider the capital of French Guiana (ISO code: GF) to be Cayenne or Paris.

As always:

  • Only one answer per toot

  • You must include the hashtag #fridaygeotrivia and the emoji flag of the countries

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 #fridaygeotrivia Mastodon thread:

The winner

First prize went to Ciarán Ferrie, second place was Jan

This month’s geotrivia answer:

Three chains of 11 were discovered:
  • Addis Addiba (ET) - Juba (SS) - Kampala (UG) - Kigali (RW) - Kinshasa (CD) - Luanda (AO) - Lusaka (ZM) - Maputo (MZ) - Mbabane (SZ) - Pretoria (ZA) - Windhoek (NA)
  • Bangui (CF) - Juba (SS) - Kampala (UG) - Kigali (RW) - Kinshasa (CD) - Luanda (AO) - Lusaka (ZM) - Maputo (MZ) - Mbabane (SZ) - Pretoria (ZA) - Windhoek (NA)
  • Bujumbara (BI) - Dodoma (TZ) - Kampala (UG) - Kigali (RW) - Kinshasa (CD) - Luanda (AO) - Lusaka (ZM) - Maputo (MZ) - Mbabane (SZ) - Pretoria (ZA) - Windhoek (NA)

How to play

Anyone can join in, you just need a Mastodon account.

  • Follow us on Mastodon, our account is @opencage@en.osm.town

  • When the game starts we will post the question here on the blog and on Mastodon, and will embed the Mastodon question here. We highly recommend using a mastodon client you feel comfortable with. We’ve made the switch to the Elk client and are loving it, but use whatever works for you.

  • Reply to the question thread on Mastodon (it will be embedded above) using the hashtag #fridaygeotrivia in your answer.

  • Only one answer per response (don’t stuff multiple answers into a single reply).

  • Our definition of “country” is usually (it depends on the question) any place with an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code. Read more background about ISO and country codes in our guide.

  • 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.

  • 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.

Some people have complained that 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