Statistics for African Countries by Etymology

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General Stats

This quiz has been taken 984 times
The average score is 38 of 54

Answer Stats

Name Meaning	Country	% Correct
Jean Moreau de Séchelles, Louis XV's Minister of Finance	Seychelles	96%
Named for its location at the south of the continent	South Africa	94%
"Soo" and "maal," or the name of the country's clans	Somalia	93%
Literally "Saint Thomas and Prince" in Portuguese	Sao Tome and Principe	92%
"Green cape" in Portuguese	Cape Verde	91%
Portuguese for cloak, or "gabão"	Gabon	90%
Named for the river going through it (bigger country of two)	Democratic Republic of the Congo	89%
It could mean "plate," or "gabouti"	Djibouti	88%
"Land of the Swazis"	Eswatini	88%
"Serra Lyoa," the original Portuguese name for "Lion Mountains"	Sierra Leone	88%
Derives from the Zambezi River, which could mean "grand river"	Zambia	88%
The republic's location in the central part of the continent	Central African Republic	87%
Its location near both the Equator and the Gulf of Guinea	Equatorial Guinea	87%
The French term "Ruanda" was likely used for its indigenous people	Rwanda	87%
Combined Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the kingdoms that formed the country	Tanzania	87%
Name of a river in West Africa going through it (northern country of two)	Niger	85%
Historical trading of elephant tusks, or ivory, in the region	Cote d'Ivoire	83%
"Land of the Basotho"	Lesotho	82%
"Aiguptos," ancient Greek name for Memphis	Egypt	81%
"Free" and "place" in Latin	Liberia	81%
"Ngola," an iron object symbolizing kingship	Angola	80%
Maybe Marco Polo confused the island with "Mogadishu"	Madagascar	80%
"Land of the Tswana," the dominant ethnic group in the country	Botswana	79%
"The country of the Mauri"	Mauritania	79%
Comes after the Buganda kingdom	Uganda	79%
Prince Maurice Van Nassau of Holland	Mauritius	77%
Possibly from Berber, meaning "Land of God"	Morocco	76%
The oldest desert in the world, which is Nama for "vast place"	Namibia	74%
Derived from an Egyptian word for people living west of the Nile	Libya	73%
"South" and "land of the blacks"	South Sudan	72%
Arabic expression for "land of the blacks"	Sudan	72%
Means "white mountain" and namesake of Africa's second-highest peak	Kenya	71%
"Red Sea" in Greek	Eritrea	69%
After an island named after Mussa Bin Bique, an Arab trader	Mozambique	68%
Name of a river in West Africa going through it (southern country of two)	Nigeria	65%
"Rio dos Camarões," Portuguese for "River of Prawns"	Cameroon	64%
Named after its capital, and the Berber word for "encampment"	Tunisia	64%
"Maravi," an old name for the country's inhabitants, or Chewa	Malawi	60%
Named for a medieval empire in West Africa	Ghana	58%
Named for the river going through it (smaller country of two)	Republic of the Congo	58%
Its name comes from a lake in the country that literally means "lake"	Chad	56%
Named for the river, "Kambaa," that shapes the country	Gambia	56%
It could be a Portuguese transliteration of "Zenaga"	Senegal	48%
Comes from the Bini people	Benin	47%
"Person of mixed ancestry" + the name of its capital city	Guinea Bissau	46%
A former empire's name, which is Bambara for "hippopotamus"	Mali	45%
Arabic for moon, "qamar"	Comoros	42%
Greek for "burnt face"	Ethiopia	42%
One possible meaning is "person of mixed ancestry"	Guinea	42%
"Upright" in Mossi, and "fatherland" in Dioula	Burkina Faso	38%
Possibly derives from the Ha people's origin, called "Buha"	Burundi	38%
Its name could mean "houses of stones" in a Shona dialect	Zimbabwe	37%
Ewe for "behind the river"	Togo	34%
Literally means "the islands," which are off the coast of its capital	Algeria	31%