Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

When element names travel across borders

Lanthanum takes its name from the Greek word "lanthanein", meaning "to lie hidden". It was discovered in the 19th century in a mineral that had long puzzled chemists, and the name reflects how difficult the element was to isolate. Today it is used in camera lenses and hybrid car batteries. Iron, by contrast, has been known since antiquity, and its symbol Fe comes from "ferrum", the Latin word for the metal.

A mountain range shared by two countries

The Rocky Mountains stretch from northern British Columbia in Canada down through the United States to New Mexico. Canada's share includes famous ranges such as the Canadian Rockies in Alberta and British Columbia, home to Banff and Jasper national parks. The range was shaped by tectonic activity and later carved by glaciers, which is why it features sharp peaks and deep valleys.

The novel Hemingway wrote after Spain

Ernest Hemingway published For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940, drawing on his experiences reporting on the Spanish Civil War. The title comes from a meditation by the English poet John Donne, which argues that no person is an island. The novel follows an American dynamiter working with a Republican guerrilla group, and it became one of Hemingway's best-known works.

The world's largest butterfly

Queen Alexandra's birdwing, native to the forests of eastern Papua New Guinea, is generally considered the largest butterfly in the world, with females reaching a wingspan of around 25 to 30 centimetres. It was named after Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII. The species is now endangered, largely because its rainforest habitat has been cleared for agriculture.

Amman, an ancient city with a modern face

Amman has been inhabited for thousands of years and was known in antiquity as Philadelphia, named after a Ptolemaic ruler. It sits on hills between the desert and the Jordan Valley, and its Roman theatre and citadel are reminders of its long history. Today it is a busy political and commercial centre, and one of the Middle East's largest cities.