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Which City in the Middle East?

Can you name these Middle Eastern cities based on a clue and their starting letter?
Quiz by WolfCam
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Last updated: June 3, 2018
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First submittedFebruary 19, 2018
Times taken63,451
Average score75.0%
Rating4.48
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Hint
 
Answer
Where Muhammad was born
M
Mecca
Where Muhammad died
M
Medina
Holiest city in Judaism
J
Jerusalem
Named for Alexander the Great
A
Alexandria
Formerly known as Constantinople
I
Istanbul
Capital of the Umayyad Caliphate
D
Damascus
Home to the world's tallest building
D
Dubai
City on the Red Sea, home to a
building planned to be even taller
J
Jeddah
Many games in the 2022 World Cup
were played here
D
Doha
City whose "Green Zone" was
established in 2003
B
Baghdad
Hint
 
Answer
Capital of Turkey
A
Ankara
Iraqi port often visited by Sinbad
B
Basra
Ancient Egyptian capital, namesake
of a city in Tennessee
M
Memphis
Capital of Saudi Arabia
R
Riyadh
"The Paris of the Middle East", once
B
Beirut
Egyptian city once known as Thebes
L
Luxor
Most populous city in Israel
T
Tel Aviv
De-facto capital of Palestine
R
Ramallah
Yemeni port city situated on a gulf
with the same name
A
Aden
Capital city on the Persian Gulf
K
Kuwait City
51 Comments
+3
Level 90
Jun 4, 2018
Nice quiz :)
+5
Level 75
Jun 4, 2018
Nice quiz. Got them all with 1.35 remaining. Guess it helps to live in the neighborhood :-)
+3
Level 55
Jun 11, 2018
Jerusalem (~880k going from Wikipedia) is more populous than Tel Aviv (~430k, also from Wiki), so the clue for Tel Aviv should say "second most populous city".
+15
Level 85
Jun 13, 2018
If you're going by nominal city population, then you are correct. But Tel Aviv has a much greater metropolitan population (~3.85M) than Jerusalem (~1.25M).
+4
Level 81
Jul 5, 2018
Easy.

Alexandretta was also named for Alexander.

+4
Level 88
Sep 2, 2018
Plus it's a key landmark on the route to the holy grail.
+1
Level 63
Jan 26, 2023
TRUE
+10
Level 88
Sep 2, 2018
Better clue for Riyadh: "City that, like Pittsburg(h), may or may not have an 'h' at the end."
+11
Level 81
Sep 2, 2018
But that also applies to Jeddah, Ramallah, Makkah, and Madinah
+2
Level 88
Sep 2, 2018
True, but Riyadh messes me up on quizzes much more frequently than those ones :(
+3
Level 86
Apr 30, 2023
Strangely, in this quiz, Ramallah and Riyadh do require the h, but not Jeddah. Consistency would be useful.
+5
Level 65
Sep 2, 2018
Pittsburgh always is spelled with an h. No questions asked. If you don't spell it like this it is an incorrect spelling.
+13
Level 88
Sep 2, 2018
It's a JetPunk insider joke. Stay here long enough and you'll know what I mean ;)
+2
Level 91
Sep 2, 2018
City near Albany: Pittsburg.
+4
Level 75
Sep 3, 2018
City near Chattanooga: South Pittsburg. The town had an iron industry and was named for Pittsburgh, PA, but they dropped the h. (There's a Lodge outlet there that we often visit when in the area.)
+3
Level 65
Sep 5, 2018
Pittsburgh and East Pittsburgh get an h, West Pittsburg which is northwest of Pittsburgh by a county or so doesn't. Though honestly any Pittsburgh without an h looks wrong.
+1
Level 64
Jan 26, 2023
Any H with “an” preceding it looks weird. “An haitch”‽
+3
Level 58
May 30, 2025
H is pronounced ‘aitch’, not ‘haitch’, so you need to use ‘an’ as the indefinite article
+8
Level 36
Sep 2, 2018
WHY, WHY, WHY, do you cut off all words ending in "h" (i. e., Riyad i/s/o Riyadh; Ramalla i/s/o Ramallah). It is maddening!!!
+3
Level 81
Sep 5, 2018
To be more forgiving of incorrect spelling. The only way to remedy this without giving up this that I can think of would be to require users to press "enter" whenever they thought they had an answer, which would add on average 20-30 additional keystrokes per quiz, plus a few more if you type in several wrong answers.

I've thought about this before and I think it would be interesting because another thing that this would do is make it possible to collect data on most common wrong answers.

+1
Level 40
Jan 26, 2023
I also always miss those cities for the same reason, but in arabic, you have to
+1
Level 75
Nov 23, 2020
Manama fits for the last clue
+5
Level 59
Jan 7, 2021
But Manama doesn't begin with K
+1
Level 71
Jan 25, 2021
Also, Abu Dhabi & Doha. Perhaps a better clue is required?
+14
Level 73
Jan 25, 2021
But Abu Dhabi & Doha don't begin with a K. How did you get to the last clue without seeing the first letters given as a hint?!
+1
Level 75
Jan 25, 2021
Missed one.... why isn't Bazra spelled with a "Z"?
+5
Level 82
Jan 26, 2021
I don't know why it izn't but it izn't!
+1
Level 60
Jul 25, 2022
because it's pronounced basra and not bazra... in Arabic it's written with the letter Sad and not the letter Zay...
+10
Level 71
Jan 25, 2021
Should Istanbul really be considered a Middle Eastern city, considering that much of it lies in Europe? I know some definitions of "Middle East" include all of Turkey, but others only include Anatolia, so at the very least Istanbul's status would probably fall into a grey area.

(I personally consider only Anatolia to be in the Middle East, but that's beside the point)

+4
Level 70
Jan 25, 2021
I, too, was surprised to see it here.

I've always thought Anatolia was the Near East.

+3
Level 65
May 21, 2021
To the best of my knowledge, Near East and Middle East are interchangeable terms.
+2
Level 36
May 30, 2025
They were not actually. Near East used to include Eastern Europe (especially the Balkans). Think of it like this:

Near East - Middle East - Far East

These three terms refer to different geographies. Balkans & Turkey were near east. But Near & Far terms fell out of usage today.

+2
Level 66
Jan 26, 2023
From Wikipedia: The Middle East (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط: ash-Sharq al-Awsat) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (European part of Turkey), Egypt, Iran, the Levant (including Ash-Shām and Cyprus), Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), and the Socotra Archipelago (a part of Yemen). The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and has been viewed by some to be discriminatory or too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of Western Asia (including Iran), but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt (not just the Sinai Region) and all of Turkey (not just the part barring East Thrace). So, yes, all of Istanbul is in ME.
+2
Level 44
May 30, 2025
No its not. Middle East term is used to refer to a geographical location in Asia. If you look all the middle eastern countries they're fully asian (except egypt). And if we talk about Istanbul, the majority of the city is located in the european side. So its clearly not an middle eastern city, its a balkan city, east thracean city etc. The middle eastern part of turkey is just the southeastern region of the country, not all the anatolian peninsula is located in middle east. And lastly, wikipedia is not a reliable source, everyone can enter and change the words whatever s/he wants. So basically its not ME city.
+1
Level 50
Jan 25, 2021
For some reason I really thought the capital of Palestine was "Ramballah" haha
+2
Level 45
Feb 7, 2023
The capital of Palestine is Jerusalem
+2
Level 69
Jan 25, 2021
Perhaps Amman?
+1
Level 45
Jan 27, 2021
Egypt isnt the middle east...
+2
Level 64
Jun 5, 2021
Got Istanbul just in time. It's nobody's business but the Turks though.
+3
Level 76
Jan 26, 2023
Many games in the 2022 World Cup

were played here.

+1
Level 61
Jan 26, 2023
Adan should be accepted for Aden
+1
Level 40
Jan 26, 2023
More people guessed "Alexandria" than "Dubai" or "Makkah" or "Medina".
+1
Level 68
May 30, 2025
70% of it is given in the clue
+1
Level 69
Jan 26, 2023
fun fun fun
+2
Level 55
Jan 27, 2023
Please accept "Al Quds" for Jerusalem
+1
Level 74
Jan 27, 2023
Missed Jeddah, Aden, Ramallah, and Basra
+2
Level 61
Feb 2, 2023
Personally, I can't quite wrap my head around how a country that doesn't exist can possibly have a "de facto" capital.
+2
Level 63
Mar 2, 2023
must be why I've never heard of it
+2
Level 63
Mar 2, 2023
19/20 never heard of Ramallah.
+4
Level 56
Jul 25, 2024
İstanbul isnt in middle east its in Europe and Ankara isnt in middle east too . Ankara is in Anatolia . İn Türkiye , only kurdish cities are in the middle east . Rest of Türkiye is Anatolia and Europe.
+1
Level 55
May 30, 2025
It wasn’t really hard

Baghdad nearly got me though

Apparently I know Diyarbakir more than Damascus lmao