Slow down on the tricky ones; speed comes with reps.
Rules & what counts
Countries of Africa Quiz — Rules & the Count of 54
Fifty-four countries — more than any other continent — make Africa the ultimate stamina test among our continent quizzes. Naming a dozen is easy; the last ten are where champions are made.
The classic stumbling blocks are West Africa's tight cluster of small states, the two Congos, and the pairs everyone mixes up: Niger and Nigeria, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The count of 54 covers every African UN member, including all six island nations off the coast. What it doesn't include — Western Sahara chief among them — is explained below.
How to play
Type away in any order — each correct country is revealed and colored on the map of Africa.
Forgiving matching and alternate names: Swaziland still finds Eswatini, and each Congo can be pinned down by its full name or by Congo-Kinshasa versus Congo-Brazzaville.
Island nations like Seychelles and Comoros show up as circles offshore so they aren't lost at map scale.
The timer counts up; give up to see the map completed.
What counts in this quiz
All 54 African UN member states.
The six island countries count — Madagascar plus five smaller island states in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Egypt is counted in Africa (not Asia), the Sinai Peninsula notwithstanding.
What's not included — and why
Western Sahara — a disputed territory largely administered by Morocco with an unresolved UN process; it isn't a broadly recognized sovereign state, so it's not an answer.
Somaliland — self-declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but recognized by no UN member, so it's counted as part of Somalia here.
European possessions — Réunion and Mayotte are French overseas departments, and the Canary Islands belong to Spain, so none of them count.
Good to know
Africa gained the world's newest country in 2011, when South Sudan split from Sudan after decades of civil war.
That same split handed Algeria the title of Africa's largest country by area.
Roughly one in six Africans lives in Nigeria — the continent's most populous country.
The Gambia, mainland Africa's smallest country, is essentially a river with borders — wrapped entirely by Senegal except for its short coastline.