Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A nation spread across hundreds of islands

Micronesia is not one island but a sprawling region of the western Pacific, and its name literally means "small islands". The Federated States of Micronesia, a single country within that region, is itself made up of hundreds of islands and atolls scattered across a vast stretch of ocean. That geography shapes everything from local transport to national identity, since many communities live on specks of land separated by open water.

The rivers that built a delta

Bangladesh sits at the mouth of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, the largest river delta on Earth. Its landscape is essentially a web of shifting channels, and much of the country floods seasonally when monsoon rains swell those rivers. This abundance of water supports fertile farmland, but it also makes Bangladesh one of the most flood-prone nations in the world.

Two capitals, one country

Many people assume Istanbul is Turkey's capital, but the title belongs to Ankara, which sits in the country's central Anatolia region. Istanbul, by contrast, straddles the Bosphorus strait, with districts on both the European and Asian sides, making it one of the few major cities that literally spans two continents. Its long history as Constantinople and Byzantium still shows in its architecture.

The gas behind the bubbles

Methane is the simple hydrocarbon that forms when organic matter decomposes without oxygen, which is why it bubbles up from marshes and swamps, earning it the nickname marsh gas. It is also the main component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas. Louis Pasteur, meanwhile, lent his name to pasteurization, the heat treatment that kills harmful microbes in milk and other foods.

A capital chosen as a compromise

Washington, D.C. was purpose-built as the U.S. capital rather than growing organically like New York or Philadelphia. It was carved out of land along the Potomac River and named after George Washington, with a separate federal district so that no single state would host the seat of government. The city's grid of broad avenues and monumental buildings reflects that planned origin.