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Answers for 16 October 2026

Atlas Daily #45, Friday 16 October 2026: five places, each with clues from hardest to easiest. Try to name each place before you open the answers.

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The clues

Round 1

  1. Its highest summit is Mafadi, rising to 3,450 metres in the Drakensberg escarpment.
  2. It built six nuclear devices in secret and then became the first state to give them all up in 1991.
  3. Diamonds found in 1867 and gold in 1884 triggered the mineral rush that reshaped this land.
  4. Nelson Mandela walked free here after 27 years behind bars for sabotage and treason.
Hint: which continent?

Africa

Round 2

  1. A twelfth century volume from this land is the largest surviving medieval manuscript in the world.
  2. A play written here gave the world the word robot.
  3. After the Munich Agreement of 1938 Nazi Germany systematically took control of these lands.
  4. The pilsner style of beer began in its city of Plzen where the world's first blond lager is still brewed.
Hint: which continent?

Europe

Round 3

  1. In 1999 it traded a contested road for a 0.45 kilometre frontage on the Danube.
  2. A monastery carved into a cliff face at Old Orhei in the thirteenth century is still in use today.
  3. Mamaliga, a yellow maize flour porridge served with sheep's cheese, is a staple here.
  4. The band O-Zone came from here and topped charts in 2003 with Dragostea Din Tei.
Hint: which continent?

Europe

Round 4

  1. Geologists divide it into the Epigersin platform, Alpine shrinkage and Epiplatform orogenesis regions.
  2. Its highest summit is Ayrybaba in the Kugitangtau Range at 3,137 metres.
  3. It declared independence on 27 October 1991 as the Soviet Union came apart.
  4. Its president wrote a state religious text called the Ruhnama, meaning Book of the Soul.
Hint: which continent?

Asia

Round 5

  1. In August 1969 its soldiers found a survey camp and a half-built airstrip inside a disputed triangle.
  2. Its table-top mountains are said to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World.
  3. Its cricketers play international matches as part of the West Indies team.
  4. Since 2017 more than 11 billion barrels of oil reserves have been found off its coast.
Hint: which continent?

South America

Answers

Round 1 answer

South Africa · Africa

Clue 5: The location is South Africa.

South Africa occupies the southern tip of the continent, washed by the Atlantic and Indian oceans and wrapped entirely around Lesotho. It divides its capitals between Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein, recognises twelve official languages and holds enormous platinum reserves. Apartheid, imposed in 1948, ended with the universal elections of 1994.

Round 2 answer

Czechia · Europe

Clue 5: The location is Czechia.

The answer is Czechia, the landlocked Central European country also known as the Czech Republic, with its capital at Prague. It emerged as an independent state on 31 December 1992 when Czechoslovakia peacefully split with Slovakia. Famous for pilsner beer, Skoda cars, Franz Kafka and the Velvet Revolution of 1989, it is a member of the European Union and NATO.

Round 3 answer

Moldova · Europe

Clue 5: The location is Moldova.

Moldova is a landlocked Eastern European republic of about 33,843 square kilometres, bordered only by Romania and Ukraine. Its capital, Chisinau, stands on the river Bic, while the unrecognised breakaway region of Transnistria lies across the Dniester. Rich chernozem soil underpins a famous wine culture that includes the world's largest wine cellar at Milestii Mici.

Round 4 answer

Turkmenistan · Asia

Clue 5: The location is Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan is a landlocked Central Asian country where the Karakum Desert covers over 80 percent of the land. Independent since 1991, it has been ruled by the Niyazov and Berdimuhamedow personality cults and holds the world's fifth-largest natural gas reserves. Its white marble capital, Ashgabat, and the burning Darvaza crater are its best-known sights.

Round 5 answer

Guyana · South America

Clue 5: The location is Guyana.

Guyana sits on South America's northern coast and is the continent's only mainland country with English as its official language. Colonised by the Dutch and then the British, it became independent in 1966 and a republic in 1970. More than 80 percent forested, it hosts the CARICOM headquarters in Georgetown and has boomed since huge offshore oil finds began in 2015.

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