Answers for 9 September 2026
Atlas Daily #8, Wednesday 9 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 most populous Central American country, where more than 20 Mayan languages are still spoken.
- A 36-year civil war ended in 1996 after about 200,000 deaths.
- Its former capital was abandoned after earthquakes in 1773 and is now a colonial showpiece.
- A jungle city of pyramids called Tikal flourished here before AD 900.
Hint: which continent?
North America
Round 2
- A desert town that grew rich trading salt for gold and held hundreds of thousands of manuscripts.
- Its university and mosques made it a centre of Islamic learning in the 15th and 16th centuries.
- A Scottish explorer reached it in 1826 and was killed on the way out.
- Its name became a byword in English for somewhere impossibly remote.
Hint: which continent?
Africa
Round 3
- A waterway where ships are lifted 26 metres by locks fed from an artificial lake.
- A French company began digging it in 1881 and gave up after malaria and yellow fever killed thousands.
- The United States finished it in 1914 and handed it over on the last day of 1999.
- About 14,000 ships a year cross between the Atlantic and the Pacific here.
Hint: which continent?
North America
Round 4
- Its Atlantic coast was known to European traders for centuries by the metal they came to buy.
- In 1957 it became the first sub-Saharan colony to gain independence from Britain.
- One of the world's largest artificial lakes by surface area sits behind a dam on the Volta River.
- It is the world's second-largest cocoa producer, behind its western neighbour.
Hint: which continent?
Africa
Round 5
- Its highlands hide more languages than any other country, over 800 in all.
- It shares its main island with Indonesia along a mostly straight border.
- Australia administered it until independence in 1975.
- A jungle track fought over in 1942 is a place of pilgrimage for Australians.
Hint: which continent?
Oceania
Answers
Round 1 answer
Guatemala · North America
Clue 5: The location is Guatemala.
Around 18 million people live here, more than in any other country between Mexico and Colombia. Antigua served as capital until the Santa Marta earthquakes of 1773. Tikal’s Temple IV rises 70 metres above the Petén forest.
Round 2 answer
Timbuktu, Mali · Africa
Clue 5: The location is Timbuktu, Mali.
Camel caravans carried Saharan salt south and West African gold north through the town from the 12th century. The Sankoré mosque and private libraries held manuscripts on law, astronomy and medicine; many were smuggled to safety in 2012. Gordon Laing arrived in 1826 and died within weeks; René Caillié got in and out two years later.
Round 3 answer
Panama Canal, Panama · North America
Clue 5: The location is Panama Canal, Panama.
Gatún Lake, created by damming the Chagres River, supplies the water that fills the locks. Ferdinand de Lesseps's company collapsed in 1889 after some 20,000 deaths. The 2016 expansion added a third lane for larger neo-Panamax ships.
Round 4 answer
Ghana · Africa
Clue 5: The location is Ghana.
Portuguese traders named this stretch of coast for the gold they bought there in the 1470s, and the name outlived three centuries of forts and the British colony that followed. Independence in 1957 under Kwame Nkrumah made it the first sub-Saharan colony to leave the British Empire. The Akosombo Dam, finished in 1965, flooded a valley into Lake Volta, which now covers about 3.6% of the country.
Round 5 answer
Papua New Guinea · Oceania
Clue 5: The location is Papua New Guinea.
About 840 living languages are spoken by roughly 10 million people. The border with Indonesian Papua follows the 141st meridian for most of its length. Australian and Japanese troops fought along the Kokoda Track from July to November 1942.
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