Consider the following pairs: Region -- Country. I. Mallorca -- Italy. II. Normandy -- Spain. III. Sardinia -- France. In how many of the above rows is the given information correctly matched? [UPSC CSP 2025]

None. None of the three pairs is correct. Mallorca is part of Spain's Balearic Islands, not Italy. Normandy is a region of northern France, not Spain. Sardinia is an autonomous region of Italy, not France. All three pairs swap the true country.

Mallorca is the largest island of which Spanish archipelago?

Balearic Islands. Mallorca is the largest island in Spain's Balearic Islands archipelago, in the Mediterranean Sea. Read more: WorldGeo0038 — European Regions and Their Countries.

Normandy, on France's English Channel coast, is best known historically as the site of which 1944 event?

The D-Day landings. Normandy is best known as the site of the D-Day landings in June 1944. Read more: WorldGeo0038 — European Regions and Their Countries.

Which Mediterranean island, just north of Sardinia, is the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte?

Corsica. Corsica, a French island just north of Sardinia, is Napoleon Bonaparte's birthplace. Read more: WorldGeo0038 — European Regions and Their Countries.

Consider the following pairs (Region often mentioned in the news — Country): 1. Anatolia — Turkey, 2. Amhara — Ethiopia, 3. Cabo Delgado — Spain, 4. Catalonia — Italy. How many pairs given above are correctly matched?

Only two pairs. Anatolia-Turkey and Amhara-Ethiopia are correct. Cabo Delgado is actually a province of Mozambique, not Spain. Catalonia is actually an autonomous region of Spain, not Italy. Read more: WorldGeo0047 — European Regions and Their Countries.

European Regions and Their Countries: Mallorca, Normandy, Sardinia

Say “Mallorca” and most people picture a Spanish beach holiday. Say “Sardinia” and Italy comes to mind. Yet a 2025 UPSC question swapped all three of these regions to a different country each, testing whether candidates would catch it.

The beach at Palma de Mallorca, Spain — Mallorca belongs to Spain’s Balearic Islands, not Italy. Photo by Otto Domes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Normandy (France), Mallorca (Spain), and Sardinia (Italy) — three regions the 2025 PYQ swapped between countries. Base map: Alexrk2 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; markers added by mcqquestion.com.

European Regions, at a glance

Famous enough to sound familiar, easy to mismatch under exam pressure

Mallorca

Largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands.

Normandy

French region, site of the 1944 D-Day landings.

Sardinia

Autonomous Italian region, Mediterranean’s second-largest island.

2025 PYQ answer

“None” — every pair was swapped.

Balearic IslandsA Spanish archipelago in the Mediterranean, including Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza.

Autonomous regionA territory within a country, such as Sardinia or Catalonia, with its own devolved powers.

D-DayThe 1944 Allied landings on Normandy’s beaches, a turning point of the Second World War.

CorsicaA French Mediterranean island just north of Sardinia, birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Contents

Which Country Does Each Region Really Belong To?
Why Do These Regions Keep Getting Mixed Up?
What Other Regions Should You Know?

Which Country Does Each Region Really Belong To?

Must Know

The three true pairings behind the 2025 PYQ

Mallorca is the largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands, in the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital, Palma, is a major tourist destination.
Normandy is a region of northern France, on the English Channel coast. It is best known as the site of the D-Day landings in 1944.
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean, after Sicily. It is an autonomous region of Italy.
Every pair in the 2025 PYQ swapped the region to a different, wrong country. The correct answer was “None.”

Q1. True or False: Mallorca is the largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands.

Q2. True or False: Sardinia is an autonomous region of Spain.

Why Do These Regions Keep Getting Mixed Up?

Good to Know

Colonial history, local language, and country grouping

Mallorca, Sardinia, and Corsica have all seen rule by multiple Mediterranean powers over the centuries, including Aragon, Genoa, and Savoy, which blurs their modern national identity in casual memory.
Sardinia has its own language, Sardinian, distinct from standard Italian. Mallorca speaks Catalan alongside Spanish, distinct from Castilian Spanish.
Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands, Menorca and Ibiza, are Spanish. Sardinia and Sicily are Italian. Normandy and Brittany are French, a grouping worth fixing alongside the broader pattern of contested and confused regions in Ukraine.
Normandy, on France’s English Channel coast, is best known historically as the site of the 1944 D-Day landings, a region whose coastline sits close to the waters covered in The North Sea.

Q3. True or False: Sardinia has its own language, Sardinian, distinct from standard Italian.

Q4. True or False: Normandy is best known as the site of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

Think it through, before reading on. Mallorca and Sardinia are both large Mediterranean islands with their own local languages, yet one is Spanish and the other is Italian. Why do exam-setters keep testing exactly this kind of pairing?

Show the explanation

These regions sit at the overlap of two things test-takers half-remember: a region’s name sounds internationally famous, from tourism or history, but its modern national ownership gets fuzzy precisely because of centuries of shifting Mediterranean rule. A region that sounds Italian because of its old Genoese or Aragonese past can still belong to a completely different country today. Exam-setters exploit that exact gap between “sounds familiar” and “belongs to,” which is why region-to-country matching keeps reappearing, almost always with the countries deliberately swapped.

Remember the trap. Sounding Italian or Spanish is not the same as being Italian or Spanish. Mallorca is Spain; Sardinia is Italy; Normandy is France.

What Other Regions Should You Know?

Great to Know

Beyond the 2025 PYQ: more region-to-country pairs worth fixing

Sicily, Italy’s largest island, off its southern tip, is often confused with Sardinia despite being a separate island entirely.
Corsica is a French island in the Mediterranean, just north of Sardinia, and the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Catalonia is a distinct autonomous region of mainland Spain, not to be confused with the Balearic Islands, though both share the Catalan language.
UPSC regularly tests region-to-country matching for exactly this reason: these regions are famous enough to sound familiar, but easy to mismatch under time pressure, much like the precise border-fixing tested in World’s Longest International Borders.

Quick Q&A

Which country does Mallorca actually belong to?

Spain, as the largest of the Balearic Islands.

Which country does Sardinia actually belong to?

Italy, as an autonomous region.

What event is Normandy best known for?

The 1944 D-Day landings.

Which island, just north of Sardinia, is Napoleon’s birthplace?

Corsica, a French island.

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Previous Year Questions

PYQ

How has UPSC tested region-to-country matching before?

UPSC CSP 2025, GS Paper I — “Consider the following pairs: Region — Country. I. Mallorca — Italy. II. Normandy — Spain. III. Sardinia — France. In how many of the above rows is the given information correctly matched?” (Correct answer: None.)
UPSC CSP 2022, GS Paper I — A similar question: “1. Anatolia-Turkey, 2. Amhara-Ethiopia, 3. Cabo Delgado-Spain, 4. Catalonia-Italy. How many pairs are correctly matched?” Only two were correct, Anatolia-Turkey and Amhara-Ethiopia, since Cabo Delgado is in Mozambique and Catalonia is in Spain.

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