Skylines of Great Cities Around the World (2) Quiz

Answer: Pittsburgh PA

Standing at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, which meet here to form the mighty Ohio River, Pittsburgh PA was founded in 1758 and named in honour of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham.

Granted city status in 1816, Pittsburgh became widely known for its steel industry and is still known today as "Steel Town", a history reflected in the naming of its most-successful sporting franchise, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL.

Answer: Hong Kong

Home to 7.2 million people (2014 estimate), the city of Hong Kong has a land area of just 427 square miles. The whole island covers only 1,026 square miles, about the same as Luxembourg (which has less than one person for every 14 in Hong Kong).

Whilst sedan chairs once carried people up and down the steep Hong Kong hills, since 1886 the Peak Tram has provided vertical transport from the city centre to Victoria Peak. The city is now also home to the world's longest outdoor covered escalator system.

With the average distance from the harbour to the steep hills of Hong Kong Island barely 0.8 miles, there is little space into which the ever-expanding city can sprawl, so the only way to go is up. Hong Kong comfortably tops the list of cities with the most skyscrapers (defined as 150m of 492 feet tall), with 315 in January 2014 (ahead of New York City's 242, Dubai's 168 and Shanghai's 145). Of those 315 in Hong Kong, 36 made it into the list of the 100 tallest buildings in the world.

Answer: Perth, Australia

Fearing that the French would claim the territory, the British established the Swan River Colony as the first major settlement in the western third of the Australian continent. The fledgling city was named by the British MP and Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir George Murray, who had been born in the Scottish city of Perth.

Perth was dubbed the "City of Light" when John Glenn passed over it in his historic orbit of the Earth in Friendship 7 in 1962. When the same astronaut again flew over the city on the Space Shuttle in 1998, residents again lit up their city in his honour.

Completed in 1992, the tallest building in the city (dominating the centre of the skyline in the photograph) is 51-story 'Central Park', which rises 741 feet.

Answer: Calgary AB, Canada

Originally the home of tribes belonging to the Blackfoot Confederacy, Europeans arrived in what is now southern Alberta in western Canada in 1873. First called Fort Brisebois (after the commanding officer), the North-West Mounted Police established a post here in 1875 to protect the fur trade. The Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in 1883 and Calgary became an important centre for both agriculture and commerce.

3,428 feet above sea level, Calgary stands in the transition zone between the Canadian Plains and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Nicknamed "Cowtown" or "Stampede City", the best-known annual event held in the city is the "Calgary Stampede", staged every July since 1912.

Answer: Tokyo, Japan

Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters in 1603, but the city then known as Edo did not become the official capital of Japan until Emperor Meiji moved his seat here from Kyoto in 1868, renaming the city Tokyo.

Chichibu Tama Kai, Fuji-Hakone-Izu and Ogasawara National Parks all lie within Tokyo's boundaries. Established in 1972 and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, Ogasawara National Park is situated in the Ogasawara Islands, some 650 miles south of downtown Tokyo but still officially within the city limits.

Major earthquakes, most notably one of 7.9 magnitude in 1923 that killed more than 140,000, combined with massive destruction caused by bombing during WWII means that old buildings are rare in Tokyo. Standing 1,624 feet (and 2,080 feet to the top of the antenna spire), the Tokyo Skytree, which opened in 2012, became the world's second-tallest building after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai).

Answer: San Francisco CA

Although there are records of human habitation on the San Francisco Peninsula dating back more than 5000 years, recorded history of the region began with the arrival of the Spanish in 1769. Having established the 'Mission San Francisco de Asís', the Spanish relinquished control and the region became part of Mexico in 1821. The U.S. claimed the territory of California in 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and the city known as Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco the following year.

Although the former New York Giants (MLB) moved to San Francisco in the 1950s, the city's most successful sporting franchise dominated the NFL for much of the 1980s: the San Francisco 49ers were named to honour those pioneers who headed west in response to the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Answer: Glasgow, Scotland

Situated in the West Central Lowlands region of Scotland, Glasgow stands on the banks of the River Clyde at what was historically the most easterly crossing point of the river. At the height of the British Empire, it was the largest seaport in Britain and the heart of the country's shipbuilding industry, with numerous famous vessels built here.

In a city divided so much along religious lines, it should not be surprising that there are four Christian cathedrals: Glasgow Cathedral of the Church of Scotland, St Andrew's Roman Catholic Cathedral, St Mary's Cathedral of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and St Luke's Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The famously fierce footballing rivalry between the two "Old Firm' teams of Rangers and Celtic are similarly divided, with Rangers historically supported by Protestants and Celtic by Catholics.

Answer: Cape Town, South Africa

Located on the shore of Table Bay, with Table Mountain (from where this picture was taken) dominating the landward side of the city's skyline, Cape Town is home to two-thirds of the population of South Africa's Western Cape region. Bartolomeu Dias in 1486 and Vasco da Gama in 1497 were the first Europeans to record rounding the Cape of Good Hope, some 60 miles south of where Cape Town now stands. The Dutch East India Company founded the first European settlement, 'Fort de Goede Hoop', here in 1652. The 1814 Anglo-Dutch Treaty permanently ceded the territory to Britain, and the renamed Cape Town became capital of the newly-founded Cape Colony. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886 began a flood of immigrants that has never really stopped.

At the time of the 2011 Census, the population of Cape Town was 3.7 million, which was broken down into 42.4% "Coloured" (self-described), 15.7% "White", 38.6% "Black African" and 1.4% as "Indian or Asian". 35.7% spoke Afrikaans as their first language, 29.8% Xhosa and 28.4% English: hardly surprising that Cape Town is considered the world's most multicultural city.

Answer: Caracas, Venezuela

Officially 'Santiago de León de Caracas', the Venezuelan capital is situated in the north of the country in the 'Cordillera de la Costa' (The Venezuelan Coastal Mountain Range). Although close to the Caribbean coast, the Cerro El Ávila, a 7,200-foot high mountain range, stands between Caracas and the sea, whilst other mountains and hills lie to the south of the city.

With an average of 116 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, most of them unsolved, Caracas (and, for that matter Venezuela) has one of the world's highest murder rates. Visitors to the city are advised never to venture into the poor neighbourhoods that cover the hills surrounding the city. By contrast, 'Parque Generalísimo Francisco de Miranda', one of numerous parks in the city, provides a green paradise in the centre of downtown Caracas: it even has a small zoological garden.

Answer: Vienna, Austria

The locals call their capital city Wien: in Hungarian it is named Bécs, Slovenians and other Slavs call it Dunaj (after the river on which it stands), whilst the English-speaking world knows it as Vienna. Some 1.8 million (2016 estimate) live in the city itself, whilst its metropolitan area is home to 2.6 million, more than one-third of the entire Austrian population.

Vienna is the home of the Strauss family of composers, who gave the world waltzes, polkas and quadrilles as well as numerous ballets and operas. The most famous of all is "The Blue Danube", written by Johann Strauss II in 1866. Arnold Schoenberg and Franz Schubert were also born in the city, whilst the likes of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler all lived and worked here at some point in their lives. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Vienna should have numerous world-class concert venues: opera houses here include the 'Theater an der Wien', the 'Staatsoper' and the 'Volksoper', whilst the renowned Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is housed at the 'Wiener Musikverein' and the Vienna Symphony at the 'Wiener Konzerthaus'.