World Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls: The Longest, the Deepest, the Highest and the City on the Bank

Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls: Superlatives Need Qualifiers

World-geography questions love the word 'largest'. The difficulty is that 'largest' can mean longest, widest, deepest, greatest in volume, or biggest in area, and each gives a different answer. The Nile is the longest river, but the Amazon carries the most water. Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake by area, but Lake Baikal holds the most freshwater by volume, and the Caspian Sea is the largest lake of all, though it is salty. This short fixes each superlative to its qualifier, then adds the famous waterfalls and a short list of cities on riverbanks that exams like to pair with their rivers. Learn the qualifier along with the name. When a question uses 'longest', 'deepest', 'highest', 'by area' or 'by volume', the qualifier is what picks the correct option, and the wrong options are usually right for a different qualifier.

1. Which is the longest river in the world?

2. Which is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area?

3. Which lake is the deepest in the world?

4. The River Danube finally empties into which sea?

5. The city of Baghdad is located on the banks of which river?

6. Which is the highest navigable lake in the world, at about 3,800 m above sea level?

7. Angel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall, is in which country?

8. The shore of which water body is the lowest land surface on Earth, about 430 m below sea level?