NewsTracker Answers for week of June 17, 2019

Q: Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Hong Kong last week to oppose a proposed extradition law which critics said could silence political dissent in the territory. Hong Kong is in which nation on this map?

Circle the area on this map

Q: In the face of the massive protests, Hong Kong’s chief executive indefinitely suspended consideration of the extradition bill which would allow suspected criminals to be sent to mainland China for trial. The chief executive was installed in 2017 by the mainland government in China’s capital . . .

A. Beijing

B. Chongqing

C. Shanghai

D. Tianjin

A. Beijing is China’s capital and third largest city behind Chongqing and Shanghai. Tianjin is the fourth largest municipality. Hong Kong’s protest leaders said suspending the controversial extradition bill is not enough, and they want it completely withdrawn.

Q: Most Hong Kong residents are ethnic Chinese, but they identify themselves as “Hong Kongers” because of cultural differences based on the semi-autonomous territory’s history. The city was a colony of which nation for 150 years?

A. Britain

B. France

C. Japan

D. Portugal

A. Hong Kong became a colony in 1842 when the Chinese Empire ceded Hong Kong Island to the British Empire after the First Opium War. China lost more land to the colony in the Second Opium War. In the Opium Wars, Britain forced China to let it sell the highly profitable but devastatingly addictive drug to the Chinese.

Q: Hong Kong and the former Portuguese colony of Macau are “special administrative regions” located on opposite sides of the Pearl River as it drains into which sea?

A. Bohai

B. East China

C. South China

D. Yellow

C. The Pearl River is the third longest river in China and drains the southern province of Guangdong, also called Canton, into the South China Sea. As special administrative regions, Macau and Hong Kong have the highest degree of autonomy from the central government. But, Beijing is trying to take greater control of the regions.

Q: Macau is the world’s most densely populated region in the world, with 52,540 people per square mile. Hong Kong ranks fourth with 17,521 people per square mile. What is the world’s least densely populated nation?

A. Australia

B. Bolivia

C. Canada

D. Russia

A. Australia averages 9 people per square mile, compared with 10 in Canada, 23 in Russia and 26 in Bolivia. All of China averages 376 people per square mile compared with 87 per square mile in the United States which is roughly the same geographic size.