République Gabonaise Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nigeria

Gabon is surrounded on two sides by the Republic of Congo, to the south and east. The border between the two countries stretches 1,190 miles. To the north are Equatorial Guinea (a 219-mile border) and Cameroon (a 181-mile border). To the west is the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The odd one out is Nigeria, which is to the north and northwest of Cameroon and does not share a land border with Gabon.

Answer: Green, Yellow, Blue

Adopted when Gabon became independent in 1960, the flag consists of three horizontal hands of, from top to bottom, green, yellow and blue. The green represents the country's forests, yellow represents the nation's position on the equator, and blue is for the sea.

Answer: On the coast in the north of the country

Libreville had a population of more than 550,000 at the 2005 census. Its strategic position at the mouth of the Komo River, where it empties into the Gulf of Guinea, made it an important port for the timber produced by the surrounding region.

Answer: Ogooué-Ivindo Province

Ogooué-Ivindo Province in the extreme east of Gabon gets its name from the two main rivers that flow through it. With an area of 17,500 square miles (about 20% of the entire country), it is slightly larger than Estonia. It has a population of less than 50,000, though, about one third of whom live in the provincial capital, Makokou.

With an area of 7,100 square miles (the size of Fiji), Moyen-Ogooué is one of Gabon's smaller provinces. It is the only Gabonese province that has neither a coastline nor an international border. The capital, Lambaréné, is home to 24,000 in the heart of the Central African Rainforest on the banks of the Ogooué River. Woleu-Ntem is in the extreme northeast of the country and is the only province to border all three of Gabon's neighbors. The provincial capital, Oyem, lies on the banks of the Ntem River at 3,000 feet above sea level. Nyanga is the country's southernmost province. The capital, Tchibanga, has a population of around 25,000, almost half of whom are refugees from the Republic of Congo.

Answer: Oil

Revenues from oil represent almost half of the government's budget and account for more than 80% of Gabon's exports. At the high-point in 1997, Gabon was exporting some 370,000 barrels per day. With oil exports having decreased gradually since that high-point, logging and manganese mining are slowly becoming major sources of national income, and explorations have now also uncovered the largest unexploited iron ore deposits in the world.

Answer: Lions

The last lion in Gabon was killed in the eastern savannahs in 1996, although there are plenty of predators -- leopards, jackals and civets are common here. Indeed, there is plenty of wildlife for tourists to enjoy: around one quarter of all of Africa's 140,000 gorillas live in Gabon.

The country is also home to more than 60,000 common chimpanzees and some 50,000 forest elephants. Almost the whole of the world's wild population of mandrills, sun-tailed monkeys and white-collared managebeys also live in Gabon.

Answer: New Zealand

New Zealand is of a very similar size to Gabon. With an area of 96,000 square miles, United Kingdom is more than 10% smaller. With an area of only 43,400 sq miles, Cuba would fit comfortably twice inside Gabon. Japan, on the other hand, at 146,000 sq miles, would hold both Cuba and the United Kingdom.

Answer: Mont Iboundji

It seems clear to me that with an elevation of 5,168 feet, Mont Iboundji, which is in the south of the country, is Gabon's highest point. However, there are some claims that Mont Bengoué in the northeast, which apparently measures 3,150 feet, is the country's highest point, although I cannot tell you why.

The alternatives are all the highest peaks in an African country: the 5,748 foot high Mont Nimba is the highest point in the Ivory Coast; the volcanic Emi Koussi, which rises 11,302 feet in the Saharan Tibesti Mountains, is Chad's highest point; and Mount Toubkal, which is about 50 miles south of Marrakesh, has an elevation of 13,671 feet, which makes it the highest point in Morocco, in the Atlas Mountains, and in the whole of North Africa.

Answer: Always hot and humid

Located on the equator, it is no surprise that Gabon is hot year round. January is the hottest month, with an average temperature in the capital of 88 F (23 C). Even in the cooler months, average temperatures range from 68-82 F. It is also humid most of the time, even though there is little rain from June to September. For the rest of the year, it rains heavily and often. Average annual rainfall is 100 inches in the south and more than 150 inches in the northern parts of the country.

Answer: ga

The Internet TLD for Gabon is "ga".
Of the alternatives: "gb" is assigned to Great Britain even though most users in that country use the "uk" code of the United Kingdom. "gn" is used by Guinea and "go" is an unassigned code.