Despite being in the news more or less constantly, the Middle East is an area that most outsiders — even those of us who travel frequently — don’t know very well.
Need proof?
Check out this Middle Eastern geography quiz. It extends beyond the Gulf into North Africa and Central Asia, and synching up the country names with their spots on the map may prove trickier than you think!
The quiz landed in my inbox as a forward. Scrolling through the email chain, I saw words like “educational”, “humbling” and “makes me feel dumb” used to describe it.
Give it a shot, and let us know how you do!
To learn more about the region, check out Matador’s recent article, What Every American Should Know about the Middle East.
Photo by HORIZON (Creative Commons)
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9 Comments... join the discussion!
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Ooh, Tim, you know your 'Stans!
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Ah! I knew the most of them but I had to get my fiance and roomate to help me with the 'stans and smaller countries
(both are millitary men who have been been deployed to those areas and our roomate is an Armenian 
) So I guess I had to cheat a little.
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Hey, only one wrong! Woo-hoo! Tim put me to shame though. If I had my druthers, the Mid-East would be my next region to explore long-term.
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Geez, guys, I'm starting to get embarassed!
I made a mess of the 'Stans, mixed up Oman/Yemen and Niger/Mali, and definitely did not know that Bahrain and Qatar were islands! (This, despite having had friends who've lived in both.) Sigh.
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Actually, Qatar is not an island. Its a peninsula off Saudi.
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Well then, no wonder I was confused! Anyone else think it looks distinctly like an island on that map??
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I didn't realize that Bahrain and Qatar were islands either! And I definitely had trouble with the 'stans.
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So true, geography is not a strong suit these days, especially about the Middle East. I suspect knowledge of Africa is even lower.
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