Answers for 5 September 2026
Atlas Daily #4, Saturday 5 September 2026: five places, each with clues from hardest to easiest. Try to name each place before you open the answers.
The clues
Round 1
- The largest island in its sea, lying less than 150 kilometres from a superpower's coast.
- A 1959 revolution installed a single-party government that still rules.
- In 1962 the world came close to nuclear war over missiles based here.
- It is known for cigars rolled from tobacco grown in its western valleys.
Hint: which continent?
North America
Round 2
- The largest landlocked country on Earth, whose spaceport launched the first human into orbit.
- Its capital was moved north in 1997 to a planned city on the steppe.
- Apples are thought to have originated in the mountains near its largest city.
- Most of the Aral Sea's northern half lies within its borders.
Hint: which continent?
Asia
Round 3
- An island's larger part, whose population is still lower than it was in 1841.
- A potato blight in the 1840s killed a million and drove another million to emigrate.
- Its constitution names Irish as the first official language, though English is more widely spoken.
- It joined the European Economic Community in 1973 and adopted the euro in 1999.
Hint: which continent?
Europe
Round 4
- A teardrop-shaped island whose highlands produce a tea that carries its former colonial name.
- A 26-year civil war between the government and Tamil separatists ended in 2009.
- It elected the world's first female prime minister in 1960.
- Its ancient capitals include Anuradhapura, with a fig tree said to be over 2,200 years old.
Hint: which continent?
Asia
Round 5
- A narrow peninsula whose capture was meant to open a sea route to an ally's Black Sea ports.
- Landings here in 1915 gave two southern-hemisphere nations their day of remembrance.
- The strait it guards was bridged with boats by a Persian king's army in 480 BC.
- The officer who held its ridges went on to found a republic and take the name Atatürk.
Hint: which continent?
Asia
Answers
Round 1 answer
Cuba · North America
Clue 5: The location is Cuba.
Key West is about 145 kilometres from the northern coast. Fidel Castro's revolution took Havana on 1 January 1959, and the American embargo has been in force since 1960. The Vuelta Abajo region of Pinar del Río grows the tobacco for the island's most famous cigars.
Round 2 answer
Kazakhstan · Asia
Clue 5: The location is Kazakhstan.
Yuri Gagarin lifted off from Baikonur in 1961, and Russia still leases the site. The capital moved from Almaty to Astana in 1997; the city was renamed Nur-Sultan for a few years before reverting. Almaty takes its name from the word for apple, and wild Malus sieversii still grows in the Tian Shan foothills.
Round 3 answer
Ireland · Europe
Clue 5: The location is Ireland.
The island held about 8.2 million people before the Great Famine; the Republic and Northern Ireland together have roughly 7 million today. The blight of 1845 to 1852 destroyed the crop that most rural families depended on. Four Nobel laureates in literature, from Yeats to Heaney, wrote here in English.
Round 4 answer
Sri Lanka · Asia
Clue 5: The location is Sri Lanka.
Ceylon tea took its name from the island's colonial-era name, which was dropped in 1972. Sirimavo Bandaranaike became prime minister in 1960. The Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura is said to have grown from a cutting of the tree under which the Buddha reached enlightenment.
Round 5 answer
Gallipoli, Türkiye · Asia
Clue 5: The location is Gallipoli, Türkiye.
The Allied plan of 1915 was to force the Dardanelles, take Constantinople and reopen a supply line to Russia. Nine months of trench fighting on the peninsula ended in evacuation and roughly half a million casualties across both sides. Anzac Day on 25 April marks the first landings; the Ottoman colonel who held the high ground, Mustafa Kemal, became Atatürk.
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