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D.R. Congo Country Quiz

🇨🇩 Can you guess these facts about the Democratic Republic of the Congo?
Quiz by Aaron197
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Last updated: July 23, 2022
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First submittedDecember 7, 2019
Times taken30,272
Average score70.0%
Rating4.71
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Hint
Answer
Capital of the D. R. Congo
Kinshasa
National capital located just 8 km north of the above
Brazzaville
River on which these two capital cities lie (put on your thinking cap)
Congo River
Official language of the DRC
French
Former name of the DRC from 1971–1997
Zaire
Dictator of the country during that period
Mobutu Sese Seko
European country which colonized the DRC
Belgium
European king who owned the DRC as a personal possession, badly mistreating it
Leopold II
Tallest mountain in the country – named for a British explorer
Mount Stanley
Largest country that borders the DRC (hint: starts with A)
Angola
Generic term which refers to the extremely short and heavily persecuted
tribal groups in and around the DRC
Pygmy
Only country that lies on the equator and is bigger than the DRC
Brazil
Only African country that is bigger than the DRC
Algeria
African "lingua franca" which is spoken by many people in the eastern part of the country
Swahili
Scary haemorrhagic fever named for a river in the DRC
Ebola
Lake that lies between the DRC and Tanzania which is the second-largest
in the world by volume
Lake Tanganyika
Giraffe relative with stripes like a zebra which is the the national animal of the DRC
(hint: starts with O)
Okapi
Chimpanzee relative found only in the DRC
Bonobo
Metals, starting with C, which are the two most important exports of the DRC
Cobalt
Copper
+22
Level 76
May 15, 2020
Wow, I guessed it correctly, but I'm pretty surprised to hear that Mount Stanley hasn't been renamed. He was a total piece of crap even by the standards of 19th century colonialists.
+5
Level 79
Jul 9, 2020
It's named that in English because he was the first European to reach it (but it might be known by another name in native languages). I don't know much about Henry Morton Stanley at all, but he was a newspaper correspondent when he was sent to Africa to locate the missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who by the way still has several African cities named after him, as he is still revered and respected by modern Africans.
+2
Level 60
Jul 17, 2020
I think it is also called Mount Ngaliema.
+3
Level 56
Jul 5, 2022
That's actually untrue. He wasn't that bad for his time (which was still horrible by todays standards) but a smear campaign by his enemies made him out to be a monster. Though he did pave the way for the Belgians to take over the Congo which was horrible.
+1
Level 76
Aug 22, 2023
I'm just going on what I read in Leopold's Ghost, but that book seemed to imply that even the other Europeans he was with thought he was incredibly cruel. Either way, by the standards of the time or not, he was a horrible, cruel person.
+5
Level 67
May 15, 2020
Damn, how did I forget that French is the official language...
+8
Level 82
Jul 17, 2020
For any African country you probably want to guess at least English and French.
+7
Level 82
Jul 17, 2020
and Arabic
+5
Level 75
Dec 5, 2020
and Swahili
+1
Level 50
Mar 20, 2024
and Bambara
+2
Level 57
Mar 4, 2022
To be fair I bet most people would've guessed two other languages before guessing French.
+1
Level 50
Jun 30, 2022
and also maybe Italian and Portuguese
+12
Level 35
May 15, 2020
I was surprised not to see any questions about the "Rumble in the Jungle fight" between Ali and Foreman
+3
Level 86
May 16, 2020
Boxing can be totally forgotten...
+1
Level 57
Mar 4, 2022
Still would be a cool trivia question though especially when you consider how big that fight was. It was well before my time, but that was boxing at its finest. Nowadays if they tried another Rumble in the Jungle they wouldn't be able to even if they tried.
+17
Level 84
May 15, 2020
Nothing about Patrice Lumumba? He's the guy in the thumbnail...
+7
Level 86
May 15, 2020
Yes, that surprised me too. On the other hand, people won't complain that the thumbnail gives away a question...
+2
Level 57
May 28, 2020
i like you thinking
+10
Level ∞
Jul 6, 2020
As if people would recognize Patrice Lumumba if he were walking down the street...
+2
Level 75
Mar 20, 2024
There was very little here that was actually about Congo. It was a lot of "here are some things that are peripherally related to Congo, because we assume that 'people' wouldn't know things actually about Congo."
+7
Level 89
Jul 17, 2020
They probably would have in 1960. In 2020, not so much.
+9
Level 61
Jul 11, 2020
Would love a clue about him to educate the trivia masses
+13
Level 64
Jul 3, 2020
3% of people didn't put their thinking caps on
+1
Level 50
Jun 30, 2022
I don’t have one…
+2
Level 82
Jul 17, 2020
Aren't pygmies an informal name used to refer to any tribe of population of relatively diminutive people?
+4
Level 45
Jul 17, 2020
the pygamies are an actual indengenious group deep in the forests in the DRC and the central african republic. Genetically shorter than the average human being super intresting to learn about them actually
+4
Level 82
Jul 17, 2020
okay thanks. will take your word for it. Though I've heard of many other things referred to as "pygmy" not from the Congo. Maybe the word originates there?
+3
Level 75
Jul 18, 2020
I have a treasured book from my childhood, Thirty One Brothers and Sisters by Reba Paeff Mirsky, copyright 1952, about a South African Zulu girl named Nomusa who goes on an elephant hunt, and they encounter a group of small people. Her father tells her they are Pygmies, "who live in the forest here...Only once before have I ever met any, and that was when we had gone on a hunt ten sleeps away. These Pygmies have wandered a long distance from their home, far to the north."
+2
Level 82
Jul 20, 2020
^ right. And seems unlikely that this is the same tribe of people as you would find in Congo. I've also heard the term applied before to people in Indonesia, New Guinea, and other countries in Africa. Not to mention other species like hippos, goats, and even date palms.
+2
Level 68
Jul 17, 2020
brazzaville is not even 2km away
+5
Level 68
Jul 17, 2020
It's probably city-centre to city-centre distance.
+2
Level 71
Jul 17, 2020
Just a typo: "What was the former name of the DRC, from 1971 and 1997?" Should be "to"?
+2
Level 72
Jul 17, 2020
That isn't the second largest lake in the world is it? 2nd Largest in Africa...

3 of the Great Lakes in north america are larger.

+7
Level 72
Jul 17, 2020
You're confusing volume with surface area. Lake Tanganyika contains more water than even Lake Superior. Only Lake Baikal is larger.
+5
Level 62
Jul 20, 2020
lake superior is far superior tho
+4
Level 67
Jul 7, 2023
things heating up in the lake fandom
+4
Level 75
Jul 18, 2020
I typed bobono three times thinking I must have misspelled it. Turns out I did.
+5
Level 52
Jul 20, 2020
Interesting quiz. Thanks. Question about largest border does NOT need hint. Its known by 95% of takers.
+4
Level 59
Dec 20, 2020
Quiz takers who used the hint.
+1
Level 52
Mar 5, 2021
been waiting for a long time for okapi to come up in one of these quizzes didn't know it was the national animal of DRC though
+1
Level 68
Sep 17, 2021
Was expecting a question about "Heart of darkness"
+1
Level 44
Nov 24, 2021
Both Caspian Sea and Baikal are larger in volume
+1
Level 59
Jan 6, 2022
6% of people forgot their thinking caps at their vacation resort in Hawaii
+1
Level 57
Mar 4, 2022
Lol silly me thought the equator question meant another country IN Africa. Oops!
+5
Level 61
May 9, 2022
Quite disrespectful that there isn't at least one clue related to Patrice Lumumba and his work in the country. Foreign powers worked to take him out because they knew he would prioritize his people first, ending the foreign exploitation of their resources. Ignoring his legacy is ignoring the history that's actually important to the Congolese people and Africans everywhere. And if you're going to include Leopold, don't water down his atrocities to "badly mistreating." He committed genocide and enslaved the population.
+2
Level 76
Jun 30, 2022
agree - include lumumba, someone actually relevant to the DRC. not three or four whole questions about other countries that just share a trait with it. it doesn't matter if few quiz takers will get it right, we don't come here to only do quizzes we can ace! we come here to learn!
+2
Level 77
Jun 30, 2022
Well, if we want to get technical (and as a Genocide Studies teacher, I do), it wasn't a genocide. Leopold's possession of the Congo Free State was brutal, violent, and unethical, but not genocide. He did not intend to end the race or ethnicity of the Congolese people. All the policies were aimed at making money by selling rubber. His regime committed brutal crimes against humanity, with a quota or death system and millions of deaths. But it was not genocide.
+2
Level 77
Sep 26, 2022
^under the UN Genocide Convention definition anyway. Maybe one day colonial actions that are ambivalent to the survival of indigenous groups will count as genocide.
+1
Level 85
Jun 30, 2022
Surprised the Congolese dictator was the lowest answer. I went to grad school with a guy who spent four years in the French Foreign Legion almost all of it in Africa - CAR, Chad, Congo, etc. His unit was waiting for instructions but the order to kill or capture didn't come until after the dictator's motorcade had driven by. Btw, he said his scariest experience was the first Gulf War --- was afraid of friendly fire from Americans. He didn't sign up for a third term because of it. He also has some interesting stories of ex-Yugos and other eastern Europeans secret service personnel who joined for a new identity post 1989.
+1
Level 28
Dec 12, 2022
Put on your thinking cap ... On what river would you find these two cities? lol
+2
Level 49
Feb 1, 2024
i dont like this very much, brazil and algeria shouldnt be answers as they are not directly related with the country, its like having the question "name an african island country that starts with the same two letters" for marshall islands, for example
+1
Level 75
Mar 20, 2024
I think it's notable that the DRC is the second largest equatorial country in the world and the second largest African country, no problem asking to identify the #1 in each list surely?
+1
Level 49
Mar 23, 2024
brazil and algeria aren't even directly related to dr congo, they are just coincidentally the #1 in each category
+1
Level 60
Mar 20, 2024
It's questionable whether Stanley should be referred to as 'British' since he was American at the time. He was born in Wales and had British citizenship later in life.