Which of the following cities is located along the side of river Seine ?

Question

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Correct — B, Paris. The Seine rises on the Langres plateau in Burgundy, runs about 777 kilometres north-westward across the Paris basin through Troyes, Paris and Rouen, and empties into the English Channel at Le Havre. Paris was founded on the Île de la Cité, an island in that river, and the city is still administratively divided by it into a Right Bank and a Left Bank; the banks of the Seine through central Paris were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1991, and the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games was staged along the river rather than in a stadium. The three wrong cities all stand on rivers, which is what makes the question a genuine test rather than a guess, and each is worth learning with its river attached. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, sits at the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, with the Kalemegdan fortress on the headland between them. Budapest, the capital of Hungary, straddles the Danube, with hilly Buda on the west bank and flat Pest on the east — the two were separate towns until 1873. Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, stands on the estuary of the Tagus, the longest river of the Iberian peninsula, where it opens to the Atlantic. Note the pattern hidden in the option list: two of the three decoys are Danube cities, which is not an accident. The Danube passes through more capital cities than any other river in the world — Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade — so if you know that group of four you can strike two options at once and finish the question in a single step.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The capital of Serbia, standing where the Sava joins the Danube — one of the four capital cities the Danube flows through. It is the least familiar of the four options to most candidates, which is exactly why it is placed first in the list.  (c) The capital of Hungary and the most photographed Danube city, formed in 1873 by uniting Buda on the hilly west bank with Pest on the flat east bank. Because it is so strongly associated with a river running through the middle of a great European capital, it is the easiest option to confuse with Paris on that image alone.  (d) The capital of Portugal, on the estuary of the Tagus, the longest river of the Iberian peninsula, where it widens towards the Atlantic. It has no connection to the Seine, and its river is one worth learning separately since the Tagus also flows past Toledo in Spain.

Concept: Great cities grew on rivers because rivers gave them water, defence, food and a transport route to the sea, and world geography questions exploit the resulting city-and-river pairs relentlessly. The set worth committing to memory is small. On the Danube: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade — four national capitals on one river, more than any other river in the world, and the Danube also passes through or touches ten countries, again a record. On the Seine: Paris and Rouen, with the port of Le Havre at its mouth. On the Thames: London. On the Spree: Berlin, which is the standard trap because candidates guess the Rhine. On the Tagus: Lisbon at the estuary and Toledo upstream in Spain. On the Tiber: Rome. On the Manzanares: Madrid. On the Potomac: Washington D.C. On the Hudson: New York. The Seine itself is a lowland river of the Paris basin — slow, navigable well inland, and heavily locked and embanked, which is why Paris could function as an inland port far from the coast.

State PCS 2024 Q56 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q56 — Geography PYQ with Answer