Answers for 19 September 2026
Atlas Daily #18, Saturday 19 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 least densely populated sovereign country, with more horses than people on its steppe.
- Its empire in the 13th century became the largest contiguous land empire in history.
- Its two neighbours are the two largest countries in Asia by area.
- Its capital is the coldest national capital on Earth.
Hint: which continent?
Asia
Round 2
- A Baltic nation whose language is closer to Finnish than to those of its two southern neighbours.
- Its 1991 independence movement is remembered for mass gatherings of song.
- It has offered residency to foreigners online since 2014 and holds elections over the internet.
- More than 2,000 islands lie off its coast, the largest being Saaremaa.
Hint: which continent?
Europe
Round 3
- An archipelago of more than 300 islands with the antimeridian passing through its territory.
- Descendants of indentured sugar workers from India make up over a third of its people.
- It has had four coups since 1987, the most recent in 2006.
- Its rugby sevens team won the country's first Olympic gold in 2016.
Hint: which continent?
Oceania
Round 4
- 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
Round 5
- Copper mined in its northern belt has paid for most of its imports since colonial times.
- Its independence leader ruled for 27 years and kept the economy tied to a single metal.
- It shares a river and a vast waterfall with its southern neighbour.
- It was known as Northern Rhodesia until independence in 1964.
Hint: which continent?
Africa
Answers
Round 1 answer
Mongolia · Asia
Clue 5: The location is Mongolia.
About 3.4 million people live in an area larger than Western Europe, and roughly a quarter still herd livestock on the steppe. Genghis Khan united the tribes in 1206; within decades his successors ruled from Korea to Hungary. Ulaanbaatar has a January average of around −25°C.
Round 2 answer
Estonia · Europe
Clue 5: The location is Estonia.
Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic family, unrelated to Latvian and Lithuanian to the south. The Singing Revolution of 1987 to 1991 brought hundreds of thousands to the Tallinn song festival grounds. Today most public services run online, and in 2005 it became the first country to use binding internet voting nationwide, reaching parliamentary elections in 2007.
Round 3 answer
Fiji · Oceania
Clue 5: The location is Fiji.
Around 330 islands sit across the 180th meridian; Taveuni once had a marker where you could stand in two days at once. Britain brought some 60,000 indentured labourers from India between 1879 and 1916 for the sugar plantations. The sevens gold in Rio in 2016 prompted a national holiday.
Round 4 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.
Round 5 answer
Zambia · Africa
Clue 5: The location is Zambia.
The Copperbelt straddles the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and copper still makes up around 70% of export earnings. Kenneth Kaunda led the country from independence in 1964 until 1991. The Zambezi forms the border with Zimbabwe and drops 108 metres at Victoria Falls, called Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders'.
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