Can you name the driest countries in the world? by quizace

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Driest Countries Quiz

by quizace

Created Jul 17, 2010 in Geography
Game Plays 6,536

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	paulvc:	Jul 17th, 2010 at 20:25 GMT	10 points
	Greece?! Really?

	jonnyr12:	Jul 17th, 2010 at 22:39 GMT	13 points
	This list seems way off in some places. No Bahrain, Oman, or Jordan? But yes on South Africa? The rain I saw during the Portugal/North Korea game at the World Cup is more rain than those three countries get in a year combined, by my super-scientific calculation.

	quizace:	Jul 18th, 2010 at 00:13 GMT	8 points
	yea i got a better source and you were right

	scoripyo:	Jul 18th, 2010 at 00:38 GMT	-2 points
	That explains why angola is so low on the list..

	quizace:	Jul 18th, 2010 at 03:31 GMT	2 points
	what?

	France:	Aug 9th, 2010 at 22:46 GMT	2 points
	Cool quiz.

	BSF5775:	Aug 10th, 2010 at 00:06 GMT	8 points
	I believe it's a hot quiz.

	France:	Aug 10th, 2010 at 01:07 GMT	4 points
	Touche

	Morbo:	Aug 10th, 2010 at 02:16 GMT	5 points
	Cape Verde surprises me. Since there's an entire hurricane season named after the place, I'd have figured they get their share of storms coming off the coast.

	nhrafan:	Aug 10th, 2010 at 04:39 GMT	7 points
	I would love to know what makes Saudi Arabia so special that they can give average rainfall precise to .5 mm

	peterpan55:	Aug 10th, 2010 at 05:33 GMT	1 point
	the reason the numbers seem "off" is because the size of the country is going to effect to the results, right? If even one acre of Kyrgyzstan gets 500mm a year, that's going to count for the whole country even the rest of it is dry as a bone. The bigger the country the higher the chance of having areas where it rains. I think this quiz would be better if you found a source that measured precipitation on a mm/acre ratio. Don't know if there is one though...

	puckett86:	Aug 10th, 2010 at 13:14 GMT	9 points
	I think "Driest Countries" is really not an accurate title. The source seems to be only taking into consideration the amount of rainfall in the capital city. It's hard to measure how dry an entire country is because there can be enormous differences in the amount of precipitation throughout the country. Also, "dry" geographical places are places with low overall precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, etc), not just rain. A country like Afghanistan, for instance, gets lots of snow in its mountainous regions.

	cgilmo20:	Aug 10th, 2010 at 20:05 GMT	2 points
	I completely agree with puckett86. For example: Niger is 80% covered by the Sahara. The capital of Niamey gets more rain than the rest of the country, but is only representative of a small section of climate. I suggest changing the quiz to driest cities or capitals.

	quizace:	Aug 10th, 2010 at 21:00 GMT	4 points
	Just to clarify: this is not a measure of the average rainfall in just the capital city, but rather an average for the entire country. This is what my source did. However, for some countries in my source it only provided the capital's average. In those cases I used addition sources. And to respond to peterpan55: I was able to find no such data, sorry. In response to puckett86: I understand what you are saying about precipitation, but I just thought driest was the simplest way of saying it because most people associate the word with little or no water. If you have a better suggestion for the name I will gladly take it into consideration.

	gowhere:	Oct 3rd, 2010 at 18:38 GMT	-1 points
	Unless the source is clearer that it is actually covering the entire country in all cases, the results aren't comparable and therefore shouldn't be published in a quiz at all. Sometimes,it is better not to create a quiz than to create one with faulty data and say that it's the best available. Now I can't judge whether this source is good or not based on my cursory review, but it is something to take into account.

	quizace:	Oct 3rd, 2010 at 20:00 GMT	4 points
	@gowhere: I don't understand how it can be any clearer - it says the country's climate receives an average of __ mm of rainfall per year, or __ mm per month. Because it does this for all of them, they are absolutely comparable and therefore should be published in a quiz (but keep in mind your use of the word published - this quiz is only created, not published). I agree with your point that quiz's with fault data should not be created; however, this is not applicable for this quiz.

	gowhere:	Oct 3rd, 2010 at 22:09 GMT	0 points
	@quizace: Unfortunately, what the source says it is providing, and what it is actually calculating are not the same. After looking at the data more closely, it is clear that the data for the average given for Niger is the average given for the capital - exactly. It is a total of the monthly averages for Niamey, and doesn't even take into account the averages in the other cities it provides data for - Agades and Bilma, let alone anywhere else in the country. I assume if it is doing this for one country, it is probably doing it for many countries. It seems that the source is not accurate for the average rainfall in the country, and is useless at that level. I am afraid that you will have to drop this to a city level for the quiz to be accurate, or find another source. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

	quizace:	Oct 13th, 2010 at 01:26 GMT	4 points
	As I stated before (4 comments above this), in the case of countries that said it was only for the capital city, such as Niger, I used other sources. Otherwise, the source says that it applies for the entire country, so that's what I used.

	sraveau:	Oct 4th, 2011 at 05:10 GMT	4 points
	I'm Chilean and I can assure you that the data is wrong (or at least gathered differently among countries). There's no way Chile is one of the 30's most dry countries in the worlds, and much less the only South American on the list.

	Razorblade:	Feb 4th, 2012 at 12:58 GMT	9 points
	Bahrain should change their name.

	jkoper:	Mar 4th, 2012 at 23:12 GMT	10 points
	Maybe instead, "Rain? Bah!"?

	Razorblade:	Mar 27th, 2012 at 09:55 GMT	2 points
	jkoper: Hahaha! :)

	StupidBunny:	May 25th, 2012 at 00:13 GMT	1 point
	@sraveau: The Atacama must be so absurdly dry that it skews Chile's entire rainfall statistic

	Geografist837:	May 26th, 2012 at 18:49 GMT	1 point
	Wow. Really surprised that Cape Verde was on there.