WASHINGTON — He didn’t even break a sweat.

Akshay Rajagopal, an 11-year old from Lincoln, Neb., dominated the two-day National Geographic Bee this week, jotting down answers almost before host Alex Trebek had asked the questions. Wednesday, with only the final 10 still standing,  Akshay beat clarinetist and history buff Hunter Bledsoe from Alabama for first place and  a $25,000 college scholarship.

Not even four feet tall, Akshay answered every question correctly during the competition. The geography bee, now in its 20th year, still hasn’t reached the level of the National Spelling Bee. It’s also a much more boy-dominated contest. Of the 55 kids that made it to Washington this week, only one was a girl. The 2008 Spelling Bee, by contrast, is 53 percent female.

The geography bee is as stressful for kids and parents as the spelling bee, but it’s a little less of a circus. Rather than having 200 kids in a cavernous room, the preliminary round had 55 kids (one from each U.S. state and its territories) broken up into 11-kid groups in smaller rooms. Both the semi-finals and the finals took less than two hours to complete.

Terry Mack, a teacher from Merigold, Miss., who accompanied one of the contestants, was at the first geography bee in 1989. Since then, she said, the competition had come a long way.

 “I think the children today are smarter,” she added.

The bee, sponsored by National Geographic magazine, was created to improve Americans’ dismal knowledge of geography. It remains a painfully relevant issue: A 2006 poll showed that one-third of those asked could not locate Louisiana on a map, and four of 10 couldn’t find Iraq in a map of the Middle East.

From millions of contestants nationwide, the geography champs, all between the ages of 11 to 14, came to D.C. for Wednesday’s contest at the National Geographic Building.

Judy Troske, from Michigan City, Ind.,  wished her 14-year old son, Erik, good luck before the competition started, but worried that he was going into the contest tired.

 “He didn’t get any coffee this morning.”

Minutes later, the 10 finalists gathered on a studio set that resembled a game show, with TV cameras ready to capture the drama for later airing on the National Geograhic Channel. Green lights glowed in front of each contestant and would black out after an incorrect answer. Two wrong answers, and the student was eliminated.

The questions were far tougher than state capitals.

Name the westernmost national capital in Asia.

Answer: Ankara.

What country in Western Africa is the world’s largest producer of yams?

Answer: Nigeria.

The group was exceptional by any standard – it included first-chair clarinetists, part-time Wikipedia editors, four-time geography bee state winners and a student from Missouri who described himself as his “mother’s global positioning system.”

The contestants answered questions as individuals and as a group. On a few occasions, ancient artifacts and rare animals were brought onstage as visual aids, including an Australian bird called a Kookaburra whose call sounded remarkably like a person laughing.

The questions kept coming, and one by one the students walked off the stage after missing an obscure term for a body of water or the demographic makeup of a foreign country.

Soon enough, Akshay was the last kid standing. He was presented with a giant fake check about as large as he was. He also won a lifetime subscription to National Geographic. Akshay was mobbed by reporters immediately. He answered their questions with the frankness and confidence of someone at least twice his age.

“He wasn’t nervous, but his mother was from day one,” joked Akshay’s father.

His mother, Suchitra, said her son likes science and math and would like to be a cartographer when he grows up.

Afterward, many of the students traded e-mail addresses and tried to get Trebek’s autograph. Others looked at the large foam backdrop of the world’s continents.

They weren’t admiring it – they were looking for imperfections.

Jason Leehaw, of Brooklyn, pointed to a wedge-like shape that most kids his age probably weren’t aware even existed.

“The Sinai Peninsula looks all wrong,” he said with a grin.