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Central Asia

3.3
(53 votes)
10 questions
English
Hard
1

What was the name of the ancient trade route that passed through central Asia?

Silk Road

Amber Road

Incense Route

Spice Routes

66% got this right

The Silk Road was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century.
2

What's the name of this dangerous sport, played with a goat carcass for a ball?

Buzkhashi

Kabaddi

Kurash

Polo

Hard  29% got this right

Buzkashi is the national sport of Afghanistan.
3

What do you call this traditional Uzbek rice dish?

Plov

Kabob

Laghman

Manti

Hard  27% got this right

Plov is the Uzbek version of pilaf.
4

What formerly the fourth largest lake in the world has now almost completely dried up?

Aral Sea

Caspian Sea

Lake Baikal

Lake Balkhash

Hard  22% got this right

The Aral Sea began shrinking in the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects.
5

What central Asian city has given name to a style of oriental carpets?

Bukhara

Khiva

Shakhrisabz

Tashkent

Hard  34% got this right

People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time
6

Who was the famous 15th century ruler, astronomer and mathematician based in Samarkand?

Ulugh Beg

Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi

Omar Khayyam

Thābit ibn Qurra

Hard  10% got this right

Ulugh Beg was notable for his work in astronomy-related mathematics, such as trigonometry and spherical geometry.
7

What ethnic group constitutes roughly half the population of Chinese central Asia?

Uyghurs

Kazakhs

Kyrgyz

Tajiks

38% got this right

Scholars estimate that at least one million Uyghurs have been arbitrarily detained in the Xinjiang internment camps.
8

In what Kazakh city lies the Cosmodrome from which all crewed Russian spaceflights are launched?

Baikonur

Almaty

Nur-Sultan

Pavlodar

Hard  29% got this right

The spaceport is in the desert steppe of Baikonur, about 200 km east of the Aral Sea and north of the river Syr Darya.
9

Different places in central Asia claim to be the birthplace of this popular 13th century satirist. Who is he?

Nasreddin Hodja

Abu Abdulrh Rudaki

Alisher Navoi

Omar Khayyám

Hard  30% got this right

He appears in thousands of stories, sometimes witty, sometimes wise, but often, too, a fool or the butt of a joke.
10

What's the historical Latin/Greek name of the Amu Darya river?

Oxus

Erymandrus

Indus

Jaxartes

Hard  27% got this right

Alexander the Great crossed the river three times between 329 and 327 BC.