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Countries with the Most Precipitation

Can you guess the countries that have the highest average yearly precipitation?
For the years 1991-2020. Source.
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: July 16, 2022
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First submittedNovember 21, 2015
Times taken47,786
Average score75.0%
Rating4.70
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Precipitation
Region
Country
371.6 cm
Oceania
F. S. Micronesia
332.0 cm
Asia
Brunei
331.0 cm
Oceania
Palau
315.2 cm
Oceania
Solomon Islands
312.9 cm
Oceania
Samoa
306.2 cm
Oceania
Papua New Guinea
300.6 cm
Oceania
Tuvalu
294.4 cm
Asia
Malaysia
286.3 cm
Central America
Costa Rica
281.8 cm
Oceania
Vanuatu
Precipitation
Region
Country
270.8 cm
Africa
Sierra Leone
268.3 cm
Asia
Singapore
265.7 cm
Asia
Indonesia
263.1 cm
Oceania
Marshall Islands
258.5 cm
Asia
Philippines
252.4 cm
South America
Colombia
251.0 cm
Central America
Panama
249.8 cm
Caribbean
St. Vincent and the
Grenadines
246.1 cm
Oceania
Nauru
245.2 cm
Caribbean
St. Lucia
50 Comments
+9
Level 28
Dec 19, 2015
I put Colombia as a joke... and got it!
+1
Level 35
Feb 3, 2016
me too!
+32
Level 92
Feb 3, 2016
I don't get it.
+7
Level 68
Feb 12, 2017
How did i manage to try every south American country but not Colombia?
+2
Level 80
Dec 28, 2020
For me I tried EVERY Oceanian country except Fiji! (forgot about it)
+1
Level 90
Feb 21, 2020
I'm not sure a LOL works here or not.
+7
Level 82
Jul 17, 2022
The wettest city of over 100,000 people in the world is Quibdó, Colombia. The Pacific side of the Andes is insanely wet... in the north. Then farther south its the eastern side, where you'll find the Amazon. You'll find the driest non-polar desert on Earth on the Pacific side of the Andes in the Atacama. But farther south still and the Patagonian Desert is on the eastern, Atlantic side of the Andes and far south Chile gets huge volumes of rain and snow. South America is weird.
+2
Level 68
Dec 22, 2015
nice quiz
+1
Level 45
Feb 3, 2016
Fun one!
+3
Level 74
Feb 3, 2016
At first I thought you were asking for countries with places that had the highest totals of precipitation, which is different from countries with the highest average rainfall. I couldn't figure out why the US wasn't appearing, since Kauai and Maui are a couple of the wettest places on earth.
+2
Level 74
Dec 29, 2020
I second this, I did really poorly as I didn't know what the quiz was asking, it should be made more clear that it is based on size.
+6
Level 59
Dec 12, 2022
"Can you guess the countries that have the highest average yearly precipitation?"

how could that be more clear

+1
Level 67
Feb 27, 2023
People only read the first and last words. I suggest putting average at the beginning.
+2
Level 57
Jun 28, 2023
Orrrrr... people could read the whole thing.
+2
Level 84
Feb 3, 2016
This is one of the tougher geography quizzes. Bravo!
+1
Level 69
Feb 3, 2016
Was really surprised Brazil wasn't number one, or even on the list. What happened to the Amazon rain forest? And what about India with the monsoons? Good quiz though.
+12
Level 82
Jul 1, 2020
Slightly less than 40% of Brazil is covered by the Amazon Rainforest - large portions are tropical or subtropical grasslands. India also has large deserts and semi-arid portions and the monsoon only takes up a part of the year. As a general rule large countries will have a harder time making it onto a list like this, because they tend to encompass a range of climates, both wet and dry. My home of Australia, for example is often thought of in terms of its vast, dry deserts, but it also has wet tropical rainforests (the Daintree, for example) and snowy alpine regions (literally, the Snowy Mountains), and tropical savannas (in Cape York, for example) as well as plenty of dry scherophyll forest (generically, 'the Bush'). Thus smaller nations typically dominate. I'm actually surprised Colombia makes it, because although much of it is in the Amazon basin and the Pacific side of the Andes gets plenty of rain (Quibdo is about the wettest city on Earth), it also has deserts like La Guajira.
+1
Level 71
Dec 11, 2022
Whenever asking for an outlier, it's easy for it to be something small. Very hard for big countries to so consistently exhibit a given trait, whereas for a small country it's much easier. There are also many more small countries of course. It's impressive to be that Indonesia, Colombia and PNG are on here at all.
+2
Level 62
Feb 4, 2016
It would be good to change the title to something that makes it clear this is precipitation per square kilometer (or whatever the unit is). Otherwise, it is very confusing how countries like Brazil do not appear here.
+10
Level 71
Mar 28, 2018
Or, just read the description.
+1
Level 90
Feb 21, 2020
The description leaves it wide open, could be total buckets of rain in the country, average coverage, etc.
+1
Level 76
Dec 12, 2022
I wonder how they've done this. Is it the annual precipitation taken as an average of all weather stations? A sample of weather stations? In most countries, either method would probably result in an over-representation of heavily-populated places. In many countries, those concentrations of settlement will be in well-watered areas. My amateur guess, then, is that in many countries these numbers will be higher than if you just placed weather stations in random locations equidistant from each other.
+1
Level 37
Feb 5, 2016
I got 9 countries
+5
Level 24
Feb 25, 2016
I think, living here that it is impossible Ireland is not on this list
+11
Level 75
Jan 7, 2018
A good example of perception versus reality. It is very often rainy and cloudy in places like Ireland, Uk and the Netherlands, but the quantity of acual rain is not that bad. Very often it's very light rain compared to the monsoons of the tropics. You'll definitely experience much more lcoudy, dreary and wet weather though, than someone getting 1 hour of downpour and sunshine after. :)
+1
Level 68
Feb 12, 2017
Very interesting quiz.
+1
Level 35
Jun 5, 2017
I am really surprised by Solomon Islands being third!
+1
Level 21
Mar 28, 2018
21/21 with 3:14 left!
+2
Level 69
Mar 28, 2018
Just for laughs, where is The UK ranked on this list?
+6
Level ∞
Jul 16, 2022
It ranks #74. Lots of drizzle but no monsoons.
+1
Level 49
Mar 28, 2018
I had no idea that most of these were the wettest countries
+4
Level 58
Sep 22, 2020
must've tried every country in west africa besides liberia and sierra leone
+2
Level 51
Dec 28, 2020
So you tried Mauritania, but not Liberia? Weird...
+1
Level 38
Dec 30, 2020
It was an exaggeration.
+1
Level 78
Dec 12, 2022
With one country left to go, I was going to write Sierra Leone, but with only 3 secs left I thought, nah, takes too long, I won't make it. So I wrote Gabon instead. Should have gone with my gut feeling after all.
+1
Level 27
Dec 28, 2020
There are no European countries?
+4
Level 83
Jul 17, 2022
It might rain very often but never in monsoon amounts.
+1
Level 47
Dec 1, 2022
Got Philippines with 3 seconds left!
+1
Level 26
Dec 11, 2022
Brazil? One third of the world’s RAINforests?
+1
Level 75
Dec 11, 2022
The Amazon rainforest has a reputation for being all jungly, but there's actually almost no rain and no plants or animals there at all.
+1
Level 81
Dec 11, 2022
kind of a big country though
+1
Level 81
Dec 11, 2022
The link in the caveats to the opposite quiz directs you back to this quiz.
+1
Level ∞
Dec 11, 2022
Fixed, thank you.
+2
Level 71
Dec 11, 2022
Interesting how much of an effect the monsoon has here. Bangladesh is #22, pretty damn close to being on this list. When I've visited in the winter and spring, everything is close to bone-dry--barely any rain. I've never been in the summer during monsoon season, but I've seen pictures and it's crazy. And this quiz just confirms that--those roughly 3 months of monsoon storms are able to make up for the other 9 months.
+1
Level 81
Dec 13, 2022
I've spent a lot of time in SE Asia during monsoon season and always felt like it was overblown by Westerners who hadn't seen it. It does rain a lot sometimes, but, it's not like Forrest Gump where he said it started raining and didn't stop for 3 or 4 months... if there isn't an ongoing typhoon, then, it's more like it will rain really hard for 10-20 minutes, then clear up and be nice for another hour or so, then rain hard again for another 15-45 minutes, then be clear for a few hours, repeat. Once a week there'll be a really rainy day and you spend it at the mall or spa or whatever. It gets pretty hot and humid sometimes so the rain is actually nice as it cools everything down and gives you an excuse to get out of the sun before going out again. But the reputation for intolerable heat and non-stop rain keeps most of the tourists away which is great... everything is less crowded and much cheaper... so I usually prefer being there during the rainy season overall.
+1
Level 43
Dec 13, 2022
19/20

Missed Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

+2
Level 24
Dec 18, 2022
Done, but I surprised with Sierra Leone
+1
Level 71
May 28, 2024
Me too - I would have thought somewhere like DRC with rainforest but Sierra Leone is N Africa which has lots of very dry countries like Egypt, Morocco etc
+1
Level 62
Apr 20, 2023
16/20 guessed most of it. LOL
+1
Level 73
May 28, 2023
How does Brunei have more than all of Malaysia?