Ballpark

Puzzle #28 · 17 October 2026

The five questions from that day's Ballpark, each with its answer, the fact behind it and a link to the source. Rather play it first? It is in the archive.

1. What was the average size of a US farm in the USDA's 2022 Census of Agriculture?

463 acres

463 acres, up 5% on 2017. The 1.9 million farms and ranches covered 880 million acres, which is 39% of all US land. Source

Image: Carl Wycoff · CC BY 2.0, cropped

2. How much did Facebook agree to pay for WhatsApp in 2014, including restricted stock for staff?

19B US dollars

$19 billion: $16 billion in cash and shares plus $3 billion in restricted stock, for an app with 450 million users. Source

Image: Dan Taylor / Tech.eu · CC BY 2.0, cropped

3. How much water does it take to produce 1 kg of beef (Water Footprint Network global average)?

15,415 liters

15,415 L on global average, but over 90% of it is 'green' water: rain falling on pasture and feed crops. Source

Image: Lance Cheung / USDA · Public domain

4. How much rock was excavated to build Switzerland's Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world's longest rail tunnel?

28.2M metric tons

28.2 million tonnes. The 57 km tunnel lies under as much as 2,300 m of rock and took 17 years to build. Source

Image: Roy Egloff · CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

5. How many Boeing 747 jumbo jets were built in total before production ended in 2023?

1,574 airplanes

1,574, over more than half a century of production. The last one, a 747-8 Freighter, was delivered to Atlas Air in January 2023. Source

Image: Iberia Airlines · CC BY 2.0, cropped