Cool quiz, though I checked the original database the Wikipedia entry was created from, and it's missing about 30 countries, especially several low-lying ones.
I was actually a little skeptical as well, and looked up Liechtenstein and Lebanon. I couldn't find any evidence to overturn what was in the Wikipedia data.
A big part of Liechtenstein is in the Rhine Valley which is only about 450 metres. A big part is in the alps aswell but it isn't enough to bring the average up that high.
As far as I can see on Google Maps, one part is a road, and the other is half a mountain (buttom to the summit, and then the other half is in Austria).
Not just that. Huge areas of central and south western China are pretty high up in the mountains. Even a few 100km inland from the extremely populous coastline in South Eastern provinces like Fujian are really mountainous.
Lebanon is correct - the country is almost completely mountainous - check it on a topo map. Don't know what the correct value for Liechtenstein is, however. I'd be happy to add it into the quiz if anyone can verify that it deserves to be there! That's about the only missing country from the list that I think could potentially be in there.
I've been to Lebanon and there is no reason to be skeptical. It's a very tiny country, and though of course it has a coastline on the Mediterranean, you don't have to go far inland to reach the mountains that rise up steeply.
I live in Beirut, and going to my mountain village that is over 1000 meters in altitude takes only 15 minutes from the city center! In Lebanon, the coast basically touches the mountains, as I am less that 500 meters away from the coast but I am 100 meters in altitude. We also have the highest point in the Levant and Mount Lebanon (Original Lebanon) is almost purely mountains.
I didn't, remembering that Lesotho is called the 'kingdom of the sky' - also it's by far the country with the highest lowest point - see http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/63858/countries-with-highest-lowest-points
Aside from knowing that it's a tiny country surrounded by South Africa with one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence in the world where the indigenous language is "Sotho" (pronounced soo-too), and occasionally being able to remember the capital city on the world capitals quiz, I must admit to being completely ignorant about Lesotho.
According to my data, which I took from https://www.pdx.edu/econ/country-geography-data (which is the same data Wikipedia refers to!), Ecuador shouldn't be on the list being at 1117m and should be replaced by Uganda at 1200m
Good find ... I will go through that list later and see if there are any other discrepancies. Unfortunately, it seems that Liechtenstein is still not accounted for there (I still think it might make it into the list, but can't find any data).
the only other difference I found is that Andorra is not present in the data, however a Wikipedia page specific on Andorra gives the height used in this quiz
The problem is that so many low-lying countries are missing from the Wikipedia data (eg Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu would easily make the list, but all are missing), and some of the other data is clearly rubbish - for instance, Cyprus is claimed to have an average elevation of just 30 - thirty - feet despite having mountain ranges and a highest peak of over 6000 feet.
Even if you only considered the Greek part of Cyprus, it is obviously wrong. The terrain is quite rugged and clearly higher than Denmark. Jamaica is similarly wrong. I wonder if there is some issue with island countries getting calculated incorrectly?
It doesn't build a lot of confidence for the dataset as a whole, but most of the rest of the countries' values make reasonable sense.
I think it was just a mistake on the wikipedia page since the original data says 91m instead of 9m. I have edited the wikipedia page. I have also edited the Ecuador data to see if it helps correct this quiz...
I couldn't think of my last one, and I was considering Lebanon or somewhere in the Levantine, but dismissed it because I remembered its southern neighbor Israel is home to the lowest point on earth's surface. Surprising to see Lebanon on the list.
The quiz sites a source, and Denmark is tied for 5th lowest average elevation of 34 meters. Greenland is listed separately and is right behind Armenia with an average elevation of 1,790 meters. The Wikipedia source article mentions that the data is disputed, and there's a link to a discussion about it. But if you want to make a case for Denmark in this quiz, you'll actually have to make the case for Denmark in the Wikipedia article from where this quiz draws its data. Also note 2 things about ice caps: (1) they aren't a smooth coating over the underlying terrain - they fill in the valleys, etc., so where they are thickest, they are covering a valley, and (2) elevation is a measure of the land, not the ice covering it.
I was interested to see the whole list but was really impressed by just how high Antarctica is. I knew it had mountains but I still would not have guessed it was over 2km high on average.
It doesn't build a lot of confidence for the dataset as a whole, but most of the rest of the countries' values make reasonable sense.