Geography of Asia: Rivers, Deserts and Straits

The correct answer is A, the Malacca Strait. It runs for about eight hundred kilometres between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, joining the Andaman Sea with the South China Sea, and is the longest strait in the world as well as one of the busiest shipping lanes, carrying a large share of the oil that moves from West Asia to East Asia. Singapore sits at its southern end. B is wrong because the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra, is short and shallow and is remembered for the Krakatoa eruption. C is wrong because the Denmark Strait lies between Greenland and Iceland, outside Asia. D is wrong because the Bering Strait, between Asia and North America, is important for being narrow, not long.

The correct answer is D, Kanchenjunga. It stands on the border of Sikkim in India and the Taplejung district of eastern Nepal, and is the highest peak within India as well as the third highest in the world. Its name means the five treasures of the snow, after its five summits, and it is worshipped in Sikkim as a guardian deity. A is wrong because Makalu lies on the Nepal and Tibet border, east of Everest. B is wrong because Manaslu lies wholly within Nepal, in the Gorkha district. C is wrong because Dhaulagiri also lies wholly within Nepal, west of the Kali Gandaki gorge. Note the separate fact that K2 in the Karakoram is the highest peak in the territory claimed by India, while Kanchenjunga is the highest in the area under Indian administration.

The correct answer is C, Nepal. Nepal touches five Indian states, namely Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Sikkim, which is the largest number of States for any neighbour of India. The boundary is open, so people and goods cross it freely under the treaty of 1950. A is wrong because the border with China runs along Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, together with the union territory of Ladakh, which gives fewer States. B is wrong because Pakistan borders Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab among the States, with Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as union territories. D is wrong because Myanmar borders only Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Bangladesh, by contrast, shares the longest land boundary of India in kilometres, while Afghanistan has the shortest. Learn the two lists separately, the number of States a neighbour touches and the length of the boundary, because papers mix them.

The correct answer is B, the Ural. Asia and Europe lie on one landmass, and geographers mark the dividing line along the Ural mountains and the Ural river, then the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus and the Black Sea. Russia therefore lies in both continents, with the larger part in Asia. A is wrong because the Alps are a young fold range wholly within Europe, separating Italy from France, Switzerland and Austria. C is wrong because the Atlas mountains lie in north-west Africa, in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. D is wrong because the Andes run along the western edge of South America and form the longest mountain chain on a continent. The Ural are old, worn fold mountains, rich in iron, and their low height is why the boundary they mark is a convention rather than a barrier.

The correct answer is C, Lake Baikal. Lying in southern Siberia in a rift valley, Baikal is the deepest lake on the earth and holds the largest volume of fresh water of any lake, roughly a fifth of the unfrozen fresh water on the surface of the planet. It is also one of the oldest lakes and has unique species such as the Baikal seal. A is wrong because the Caspian Sea is the largest lake by area but is saline and far shallower. B is wrong because Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan is a shallow lake, remarkable for being fresh at one end and salty at the other. D is wrong because the Dead Sea is famous for lying at the lowest land surface on the earth and for its salinity, not for depth. Pair each superlative with its lake to avoid the usual confusion.

The correct answer is A, the Yangtze, known in China as the Chang Jiang. It rises on the plateau of Tibet, flows across central China and enters the East China Sea near Shanghai, and is the longest river of Asia and the third longest in the world after the Nile and the Amazon. The Three Gorges dam, among the largest hydroelectric projects on the earth, lies on it. B is wrong because the Mekong, though it crosses six countries of South-East Asia, is shorter. C is wrong because the Yellow river, or Huang He, is the second longest in China and is called the sorrow of China for its floods and its load of loess silt. D is wrong because the Lena is one of the three great Siberian rivers flowing north into the Arctic Ocean, along with the Ob and the Yenisei.

The correct answer is C, the Caspian Sea. Although it is called a sea because of its size and its saline water, it has no outlet to the ocean and is therefore the largest lake in the world by area. Its shores are shared by Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan, and the Volga is the chief river that feeds it; its basin holds large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. A is wrong because Lake Baikal is the deepest lake and the largest by volume of fresh water, not by area. B is wrong because the Aral Sea, once among the largest lakes, shrank drastically after the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya were diverted for cotton irrigation. D is wrong because Lake Van is a soda lake in eastern Turkey, large for that country but small in world terms.

The correct answer is B, Mongolia and China. The Gobi lies in southern Mongolia and northern China, in the rain shadow of the Himalaya, which keeps the monsoon out; it is a cold desert with bitter winters, gravel plains rather than sand seas, and is known for dinosaur fossil beds. A is wrong because the deserts of Iran are the Dasht-e Kavir and the Dasht-e Lut, and Afghanistan has the Registan. C is wrong because the Central Asian deserts of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are the Karakum and the Kyzylkum. D is wrong because the Rub al Khali, the largest continuous sand desert in the world, is the hot desert of the Arabian peninsula. Remember the pair: Gobi and Taklamakan are cold deserts, the Thar and the Rub al Khali are hot ones.

The correct answer is A, the Gulf of Oman. The Strait of Hormuz lies between Iran on the north and Oman and the United Arab Emirates on the south, and is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and so to the Arabian Sea; a very large share of the crude oil traded by sea passes through it, which is why it is called a chokepoint. B is wrong because the Red Sea is reached from the Gulf of Aden through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. C is wrong because the Black Sea is joined to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles. D is wrong because the Caspian Sea is landlocked and has no strait connecting it to any ocean.

The correct answer is B, the plateau of Tibet. Enclosed by the Himalaya in the south, the Karakoram and Kunlun in the north-west and the Chinese mountains in the east, it averages well over four thousand metres and is called the roof of the world along with the Pamir; the Indus, the Sutlej, the Brahmaputra, the Yangtze and the Mekong all rise on or near it. A is wrong because the Deccan is an old lava plateau of peninsular India, much lower and bounded by the Western and Eastern Ghats. C is wrong because the Anatolian plateau of Turkey lies between the Pontic and Taurus ranges and is of moderate height. D is wrong because the Mongolian plateau, which carries part of the Gobi, is high but far smaller and lower than Tibet.

The correct answer is A, the roof of the world. The Pamir, mostly in Tajikistan, is the knot where the Himalaya, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, Kunlun and Tien Shan meet, and its height and position earned it this name, which is also used for the plateau of Tibet. B is wrong because the land of the midnight sun is Norway, and more broadly the lands within the Arctic Circle where the sun does not set in midsummer. C is wrong because granary names are given to grain surplus plains, such as the prairies of North America or Punjab in India, not to a mountain knot. D is wrong because the cockpit of Europe is Belgium, so often a battlefield; Asia has no such standard title. Questions of this kind pair a nickname with a place, so learn them in groups.