The semi-final competition was held on May 21, 2019. After seven rounds with a mix of individual and common questions, with each question being worth one point, and one lighting round, with three rapid-fire questions being asked, each being worth one point, the four students with the lowest scores were eliminated. Aarush Tutiki of
Michigan and Kaylan Patel of
Florida were both eliminated and tied for 9th place, along with Omkar Gadewar of
Illinois, who finished in 8th place. However, there was a tie that existed between Jishnu Nayak of
California, Lakshay Sood of
New Mexico, and Dylan Rem of
New York, with only two of them being able to advance to the next round. After applying the results of a tiebreaker test that the students took previously, Dylan Rem of
New York was eliminated and finished in 7th place. After that, a GeoChallenge Impact round took place. The remaining six contestants were given two photos of the same place, one of the pictures was taken in the past, and one was taken in the last couple of years. Contestants were asked to describe the changes that took place and why they mattered. After this, the three students with the lowest scores were eliminated. Lakshay Sood of
New Mexico was eliminated and finished in 6th place, along with Vaibhav Hariram of
North Carolina, who finished in 5th place, and Jishnu Nayak of
California, who finished in 4th place. After this, Rishi Kumar of
Maryland, Atreya Mallanna of
Massachusetts, and Nihar Janga of
Texas remained and competed in the final rounds the next day. The Final Rounds were held the next day on May 22, 2019. The three contestants began with a series of five common questions, with each correct answer being awarded one point. After this, it was revealed that the top three contestants were interviewed by the judges for an Impact Challenge round. The videos of these interviews were then displayed. The contestants were first asked why it is important to protect wild places on earth. Afterwards, the contestants were given five choices of places that they believed
National Geographic should protect. The choices were
Amur(Heilong) River Basin in
China, the
Carpathian Mountains in
Romania, the
Congo Basin Tropical Forest in the
Republic of the Congo, the
Kazakh Steppe in
Kazakhstan, and the
Murray-Darling River Basin in
Australia. All three contestants chose the Congo Basin Tropical Forest. Then, Finalists were asked to explain one step they could take to help protect their chosen location. After this, a Mapmaker round was held. Contestants were asked to draw on a map of the
Arctic Region. They were first asked to circle one city on the map that would experience significant economic and population changes, and were then asked to explain why they chose that city. They were then asked to choose two cities that lied beyond the map that would benefit from a new shipping route through the Arctic, and were asked to explain their reasoning. Lastly, they were asked to highlight an area on the map that they believed would need protection as a result of human activity, and were asked to explain their reasoning. After this round, Rishi Kumar of
Maryland had the lowest score and was eliminated, finishing in 3rd place. The championship round between Atreya Mallanna of
Massachusetts and Nihar Janga of
Texas followed. After a series of eight questions, Nihar Janga of Texas correctly answered the question "One-third of
Norway’s northernmost county is in what
plateau?", putting "
Finnmark Plateau" as his answer, becoming the 2019 National Geographic Bee Champion. == References ==