Tag: geography

[279]

The following are countries ranked in descending order according to a geographical measure. Identify the measure & give the top ranking country in the world. 
X
Norway
Indonesia
Russia
Philippines
Japan
Australia

Show Answer
Length of coastline. X is Canada.
Canada has more than 50,000 islands giving it a major lead in coastline. Canada has 2,00,000 km of coastline, whereas Norway the second in the list has just 80,000 km.
See the Complete List.

[214]

X was the 6th Surveyor General of India (1830-1843) & was part of the 70 year ‘Great Trigonometric Survey’ to map out of the entire Indian subcontinent. He was known for his pioneering work & detail orientation.
Such was his reputation that when his successor Andrew Scott Waugh found a remarkable (now globally known) landmark in the region, he said it had to be named after X.
Can you identify X or the landmark named after him?

Show Answer
Sir George Everest, the person after whom Mount Everest is named.
To be fair, Everest himself objected to his name being used, as "the native of India" could not pronounce it and it could not be easily written in Hindi.
Read More about his work.