Geographical Epithets of the World: Nicknames of Places

The correct answer is B, Bhutan. Bhutan calls itself Druk Yul, which means the land of the thunder dragon, and the dragon appears on its national flag; the name is traced to the thunderstorms that roll through its Himalayan valleys. Option A, Nepal, is wrong; it is better known as the birthplace of the Buddha at Lumbini and as the country of Mount Everest, and it carries no dragon epithet. Option C, Myanmar, is wrong because it was historically called the Golden Land or the Land of Pagodas. Option D, Thailand, is the most tempting distractor because it is called the Land of White Elephants and, in older books, the Land of Smiles; candidates who recall only that the nickname involves an animal often pick it. Keep Bhutan with the dragon and Thailand with the white elephant.

The correct answer is B. A large part of Norway lies north of the Arctic Circle, and at such latitudes the sun does not set for weeks around the summer solstice, so it can be seen at midnight; this is the phenomenon behind the epithet. Option A is wrong; the coastline with its fjords is indeed famous, but it is the reason Norway is called the Land of the Fjords, not the Land of the Midnight Sun. Option C is wrong because the Land of a Thousand Lakes is Finland, its neighbour, which is the commonest confusion in this question. Option D is wrong since the eastern position belongs to Japan, which is the Land of the Rising Sun. Remember that the midnight sun is a question about latitude, not about coasts or lakes.

The correct answer is B, Egypt. The annual flood of the Nile spread fertile silt over a narrow strip of desert and made settled agriculture and the Egyptian civilisation possible, which is why Egypt is called the Gift of the Nile. Option A, Sudan, is wrong although the Nile flows through it and the Blue Nile and the White Nile meet at Khartoum; the epithet is not used for Sudan. Option C, Ethiopia, is wrong even though the Blue Nile rises there at Lake Tana and supplies most of the flood water, because the gift was received downstream. Option D, Libya, is wrong since the Nile does not flow through it at all and it is largely desert. The lesson of the phrase is that a river, not the soil of the country itself, created Egypt's wealth.

The correct answer is B, Playground of Europe. Switzerland earned the name from its Alpine scenery, its lakes and the mountaineering and skiing resorts that drew European travellers from the nineteenth century onwards. Option A, Cockpit of Europe, is wrong; that belongs to Belgium, on whose soil so many European battles were fought that the country became a byword for a battlefield. Option C, Sick Man of Europe, is wrong because it was applied to the declining Ottoman Empire, that is to Turkey, in the nineteenth century. Option D, Workshop of Europe, is wrong; industrial epithets of this kind are used for Britain and Belgium rather than for Switzerland. Learning these four together is useful because question setters often place them in one set of options.

The correct answer is B. A cockpit was a pit where cockfights were staged, and Belgium received the name because its plains were the chosen battleground of European powers for centuries, Waterloo and the battles of the First World War among them. Option A is wrong; the epithet for a trading centre would be something like a mart or an entrepot, and Belgium's commercial fame rests on Antwerp's port rather than on this nickname. Option C is wrong because the phrase has nothing to do with aviation, even though it sounds modern to a reader who thinks of an aircraft cockpit. Option D is wrong since the geographical centre of Europe is placed in eastern Europe by most calculations, and in any case the epithet is historical rather than locational.

The correct answer is A, Emerald Isle. Ireland is called the Emerald Isle because its heavy rainfall and mild Atlantic climate keep the countryside green all year, emerald being the green gemstone. Option B, Island of Cloves, is wrong; that is Zanzibar off the East African coast, long the world's leading clove producer. Option C, Pearl of the Antilles, is wrong because it refers to Cuba in the Caribbean, which is also called the Sugar Bowl of the World. Option D, Land of Cakes, is wrong but is the nearest neighbour geographically, since it refers to Scotland and its oatcakes. All four options are island epithets, which is exactly how a paper setter builds a difficult-looking but answerable question on this topic. Learn the four together: Ireland is green, Zanzibar grows cloves, Cuba grows sugar and Scotland bakes oatcakes.

The correct answer is B, Manchester of South India. Coimbatore grew into a centre of cotton spinning and textile machinery on the strength of the black cotton soil of the region and its hydroelectric power, so it took the southern version of the Manchester epithet. Option A, Manchester of India, is wrong; that title belongs to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, where the first large cotton mills of western India were founded. Option C, Detroit of India, is wrong because it is used for Chennai, the hub of the automobile industry, after the American motor city. Option D, Pittsburgh of India, is wrong since it refers to Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, the steel city. These four Indian epithets appear together so often that they should be learnt as one block.

The correct answer is B, Kochi. Kochi in Kerala, with its natural harbour and its long history as a spice port trading with the Arabs, the Chinese, the Portuguese and the Dutch, is called the Queen of the Arabian Sea. Option A, Mumbai, is wrong; it is the Gateway of India and also the city of seven islands, and no queen epithet attaches to it. Option C, Panaji, is wrong because the capital of Goa is not given this title, although Goa itself is sometimes called the Pearl of the Orient. Option D, Mangaluru, is wrong even though it is also a port on the same coast with a flourishing trade. Pair this with Queen of the Deccan for Pune and Queen of the Hills for Darjeeling to avoid mixing the three.

The correct answer is B, Kosi. The Kosi descends from Nepal carrying a very heavy silt load, builds up its own bed and shifts its channel across the north Bihar plain, flooding fresh stretches of farmland, which is why it is called the Sorrow of Bihar. Option A, Gandak, is wrong; it is another north Bihar tributary of the Ganga and does flood, but the epithet is not used for it. Option C, Son, is wrong because it joins the Ganga from the south and is not known for shifting its course in this way. Option D, Damodar, is the strongest distractor; it was called the Sorrow of Bengal until the dams and barrages of the Damodar Valley Corporation, built on the model of the Tennessee Valley Authority, brought its floods under control.

The correct answer is A, Roof of the World. The Pamir plateau, where the Himalaya, the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, the Kunlun and the Tian Shan meet, carries an average elevation of several thousand metres and is therefore called the Roof of the World, a name sometimes extended to the Tibetan plateau. Option B, Dark Continent, is wrong; this nineteenth-century European phrase was used for Africa, whose interior was then unmapped by European travellers. Option C, Forbidden City, is wrong because it is used for Lhasa in Tibet, closed for long periods to outsiders, and also for the palace complex at Beijing. Option D, Bread Basket of the World, is wrong since it refers to the wheat-growing prairies of North America, and a similar phrase is used for Ukraine in Europe.