If you can't name the world's most densely populated country, then you wouldn't have made it too far past the first round in the National Geographic Bee.

The nationwide contest got a new champion, Virginia eighth grader Akhil Rekulapelli, on Wednesday, after a dramatic competition hosted by television journalist Soledad O'Brien that featured just such puzzlers.

Each representing their home state, ten students flew through that first-round population question, by the way, moving on to the next round with barely a smile. The answer: Monaco.

The annual event held at National Geographic's Washington, D.C., headquarters peppers students with questions about mountain peaks and obscure national borders, one at a time until only one remains. Rekulapelli bested more than four million students, who