Highest, Longest and Largest in the World: Static GK

The correct answer is C, Pacific Ocean. The Pacific covers a greater area than all the land on earth put together and is also the deepest ocean, holding the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest known point on the planet. Its rim is ringed by volcanoes and earthquake zones, which is why it is called the Ring of Fire.

Option A, the Atlantic, is the second largest ocean and is famous for the mid-Atlantic ridge along which the sea floor is spreading. Option B, the Indian Ocean, is the third largest, the only major ocean named after a country, and the one whose monsoon winds shaped the trade of the region. Option D, the Arctic, is the smallest and shallowest of the oceans and is largely covered by ice. A candidate should remember the order by size, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic, because the paper asks for the smallest as often as for the largest.

The correct answer is A, Mariana Trench. The Mariana Trench lies in the western Pacific, east of the Mariana Islands, and its deepest part, the Challenger Deep, is close to eleven kilometres below sea level. Trenches of this kind form where one oceanic plate is pushed under another, a process called subduction, which is why they lie along the edges of the Pacific.

Option B, the Puerto Rico Trench, is the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean, but it is far shallower than the Mariana. Option C, the Java or Sunda Trench, is the deepest part of the Indian Ocean and lies along the Indonesian arc. Option D, the Peru-Chile or Atacama Trench, runs along the western coast of South America, where the Nazca plate slides beneath the South American plate and raises the Andes. Each option is a real trench, so the answer rests on knowing which one holds the record.

The correct answer is B, Nile. The Nile flows north through north-eastern Africa for about 6,650 kilometres to the Mediterranean and is the river taken as the longest in the world in almost every textbook and examination. Its two great branches, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, meet at Khartoum in Sudan.

Option A, the Amazon, is the largest river in the world by the volume of water it discharges and by the area of its basin, which holds the largest rainforest; some surveys that measure it from a different headstream in the Andes also claim it as the longest, but that reading is not the one papers expect. Option C, the Yangtze, is the longest river of Asia and flows entirely within China. Option D, the Mississippi with the Missouri, is the longest river system of North America. Read the wording carefully, since longest and largest give different answers here.

The correct answer is C, Sahara. The Sahara stretches across northern Africa from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and is the largest hot desert in the world. Note the qualifier in the question: the largest desert of any kind is Antarctica, because a desert is defined by how little precipitation it receives rather than by heat, and Antarctica is therefore a cold desert.

Option A, the Gobi, lies in Mongolia and northern China and is a cold desert of the mid latitudes, not a hot one. Option B, the Kalahari, in southern Africa, is much smaller than the Sahara. Option D, the Atacama in Chile, holds a different record: it is the driest desert on earth, with places that have gone for years without measurable rain. Papers set this question in both forms, so learn the pair together: Antarctica is the largest desert and the Sahara the largest hot desert.

The correct answer is B, Venezuela. Angel Falls drops 979 metres from the edge of a flat-topped table mountain called Auyan Tepui in the Guiana highlands of Venezuela, and is the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world. The water falls so far that much of it turns to mist before reaching the bottom.

Option A, Brazil, shares the Iguazu Falls with Argentina, which are famous for their width and their many separate cascades rather than their height. Option C, Zambia, shares the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi with Zimbabwe, a fall known for the sheet of water it carries over a single wide ledge. Option D, Canada, shares Niagara Falls with the United States, the most visited of all waterfalls but far lower than any of the others named. The question is testing height, not fame or volume.

The correct answer is A, Greenland. Greenland lies between the Arctic and the Atlantic, is covered almost entirely by an ice sheet and is an autonomous territory of Denmark. It is the largest island in the world. Australia is larger still but is counted as a continent rather than an island, which is the distinction the question rests on.

Option B, New Guinea, is the second largest island and is divided between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Option C, Borneo, is the third largest and is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Option D, Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa, is the fourth largest and is known for species found nowhere else. Related superlatives worth learning together are Indonesia as the largest archipelago and the Arabian peninsula as the largest peninsula.

The correct answer is C, Lake Baikal. Baikal lies in southern Siberia in Russia, fills a deep rift in the earth's crust and is the deepest lake in the world. It also holds a larger volume of fresh water than any other lake, roughly a fifth of all the unfrozen fresh surface water on earth, and is a World Heritage Site.

Option A, the Caspian Sea, is the largest lake in the world by area, but its water is salty and it is far shallower than Baikal. Option B, Lake Superior, one of the Great Lakes of North America, is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, which is a different record. Option D, Lake Victoria in east Africa, is the largest lake of Africa and the chief reservoir of the White Nile. Each option holds some record of its own, so the qualifier deepest is what decides the answer.

The correct answer is C, Andes. The Andes run down the whole western edge of South America, through seven countries from Venezuela to the southern tip of Chile and Argentina, and form the longest mountain range above sea level. They were raised where the Nazca plate is pushed beneath the South American plate, and they hold Ojos del Salado, the highest volcano in the world.

Option A, the Himalaya, holds the highest peaks in the world, including Everest, K2 in the neighbouring Karakoram and Kangchenjunga, but it is much shorter than the Andes. Option B, the Rockies, run through western North America and are long but not the longest. Option D, the Alps, are the great range of central Europe and are shorter still. Note one further distinction: the mid-ocean ridge system is longer than any of these, but it lies under the sea, which is why the question says on land.

The correct answer is B, Bay of Bengal. The Bay of Bengal is the north-eastern arm of the Indian Ocean, bounded by India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and it is the largest bay in the world. The Ganga, the Brahmaputra, the Mahanadi, the Godavari and the Krishna all drain into it, which is why it receives such a heavy load of silt and builds large deltas along its coast.

Option A, Hudson Bay in northern Canada, is a very large body of water and is sometimes offered as the answer, but it is smaller than the Bay of Bengal. Option C, the Bay of Biscay, lies between France and Spain and is known for rough seas, not for size. Option D, the Gulf of Mexico, is the largest gulf in the world, which is a separate record; the paper sometimes places bay and gulf in the same set of options to see whether the candidate keeps the two apart.

The correct answer is C, Vatican City. Vatican City is an independent state of well under half a square kilometre lying entirely inside the city of Rome, and it is the smallest country in the world by both area and population. It is the seat of the Pope and holds St Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. At the other end of the scale, Russia is the largest country in the world by area.

Option A, Monaco, on the Mediterranean coast beside France, is the second smallest country. Option B, Nauru, an island in the Pacific, is the smallest island country and the third smallest state. Option D, San Marino, another enclave within Italy, is among the smallest and also among the oldest surviving republics. All four are genuinely tiny states, so the ranking has to be learnt rather than guessed from familiarity.