60 free Alhambra trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Alhambra trivia quiz covers the red hilltop palace-city above Granada, the only well-preserved royal palace to survive from the medieval Islamic world. The early questions deal with the name, the hill, the river below, the Zirid and Jewish predecessors on the site, and the founder who marked out its walls in 1238, then move through the sultans of the fourteenth century whose courtyards, towers and gates give the Nasrid palaces their character. The heart of the quiz is the architecture: the Court of the Myrtles and its long pool, the Hall of the Ambassadors and its ceiling of the seven heavens, the twelve lions of the fountain, the muqarnas domes of the Two Sisters and the Abencerrajes, the poems carved into the walls, the hand and key over the Gate of Justice, and the tiles that so impressed a young M. C. Escher. Then comes 1492: the surrender, the flag on the watchtower, the decree signed inside, Columbus in the throne room, and the roofless Renaissance palace an emperor planted in the middle of it all. The last questions follow the Alhambra through neglect, squatters, French dynamite, an earthquake, the Romantic rediscovery led by Washington Irving, the Contreras family's fanciful restorations, Torres Balbás and UNESCO. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the Alhambra and its palaces.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Alhambra sits on Sabika hill, an outcrop of which mountain range?
The Sierra Nevada
The hill had held earlier fortresses and an 11th-century palace before the Alhambra was begun.
Q 02The name Alhambra comes from Arabic al-Hamra, meaning what?
The red one
The full form was al-Qal'a al-Hamra, 'the red fortress'; the walls are rammed earth coloured by iron oxide in the local clay.
Q 03Which river carves the ravine on the Alhambra's north side, separating it from the Albaicín?
The Darro
The Zirids once controlled its water with a sluice called the Gate of the Tambourines.
Q 04The Alhambra is the only well-preserved royal palace surviving from which civilization?
Medieval Islam
It is also one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and contains notable Spanish Renaissance work.
Q 05Which 11th-century Jewish administrator of the Zirids built a palace on the Sabika hill?
Samuel ibn Naghrillah
Known in Hebrew as Samuel ha-Nagid, his palace reportedly had gardens and water features; nothing of it survives.
Q 06Who began building the Alhambra in 1238 as founder of the Emirate of Granada?
Ibn al-Ahmar
According to a contemporary manuscript, he marked the foundations, and the ramparts and a water channel were finished within the year.
Q 07The Emirate of Granada, whose rulers built the Alhambra, was the last Muslim state of what region?
Al-Andalus
Castile had already taken Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248.
Q 08The Sultan's Canal, bringing mountain water, turned the Alhambra from a fortress into what?
A palace-city
Earlier fortresses on the hill had depended on rainwater cisterns and water carried up from the river.
Q 09Which sultan's reign (1354-1391) marked the apogee of Nasrid architecture and produced the Palace of the Lions?
Muhammad V
He also remodelled the Mexuar and created the ornate Comares Façade.
Q 10Which sultan began Nasrid architecture's 'classical' period, starting the Comares Palace around 1314?
Isma'il I
He also founded the Rawda, the Nasrid dynastic mausoleum.
Q 11Which is the oldest Nasrid palace still standing in the Alhambra, a pavilion by a reflecting pool?
The Partal
Muhammad III, who also built the Alhambra's main mosque, erected it in the early 1300s.
Q 12The Alcazaba, the oldest surviving part of the Alhambra, is what kind of structure?
A citadel
Its 26-metre Torre del Homenaje was the keep; a residential district inside housed the elite guards.
Q 13The Catholic Monarchs' flag was first raised on 2 January 1492 above which Alcazaba tower in Granada?
Torre de la Vela
A bell was added soon afterwards and rung daily for centuries.
Q 21What is unique in Islamic architecture about the portico of the Court of the Lions?
Single columns alternate with pairs and trios
The courtyard measures about 28.7 by 15.6 metres with pavilions at east and west.
Q 22The Sala de los Abencerrajes is named for a legend that a sultan did what to the clan's chiefs?
Massacred them at a banquet
The hall's muqarnas vault rises to a 16-sided lantern in the shape of an eight-pointed star.
Q 23The Sala de Dos Hermanas, or Hall of Two Sisters, is named after what?
Two marble slabs in the floor
Q 14Which two symbols are carved over the arches of the Puerta de la Justicia, the Alhambra's main gate?
A hand and a key
The hand's five fingers stand for the Five Pillars of Islam; the key is another symbol of faith. Yusuf I built the gate in 1348.
Q 15What is the Arabic name of the Puerta de la Justicia?
Bab al-Shari'a
It means Gate of Shari'a, or law; the passage bends twice at right angles for defence.
Q 16The Puerta del Vino, on the way to the Palace of Charles V, is named after what?
Wine
Its construction is attributed to the reign of Muhammad III.
Q 17The Comares Palace courtyard is named after which plants growing in hedges beside its 34-metre pool?
Myrtles
The Patio de los Arrayanes measures about 23 by 36.6 metres.
Q 18Which room in the Comares Tower is the Alhambra's largest and was the sultan's throne room?
The Ambassadors
It is a square of 11.3 metres per side rising 18.2 metres, with windows in three directions.
Q 19The Alhambra throne room's ceiling of 8,017 interlinked wooden pieces forms an abstract picture of what?
The seven heavens
The room is effectively an enlarged mirador, a lookout room.
Q 20How many marble lions surround the basin of the famous fountain in the Court of the Lions?
Twelve
A poem by Ibn Zamrak around the rim praises the lions and describes their hydraulics.
Its muqarnas dome has at least 5,000 prismatic pieces; the original Arabic name was 'the Great Dome'.
Q 24The name of the Mirador de Lindaraja is a corruption of an Arabic phrase meaning what?
Eye of the House of Aisha
Its ceiling is a wooden lattice filled with pieces of coloured glass.
Q 25The Hall of Kings' rare Nasrid-era paintings of sultans are executed on what surface?
Leather
The style shows the influence of Christian Gothic art.
Q 26What is the 'stalactite'-like three-dimensional stucco used for the Alhambra's vaulted ceilings called?
Muqarnas
In Spanish it is mocárabes; sebka is a lattice motif and zellij is mosaic tile.
Q 27The Nasrid motto repeated across the Alhambra's walls translates as what?
There is no victor but God
Inscriptions also include Qur'anic excerpts and poems by court poets.
Q 28Which vizier-poet composed the verses on the Fountain of the Lions and other palace walls?
Ibn Zamrak
He headed the chancery under Muhammad V and Muhammad VII, following Ibn al-Jayyab and Ibn al-Khatib.
Q 29The Alhambra's poems are unusual for being written in what voice, as if the room were speaking?
The first person
Words like 'blessing' and 'felicity' also appear as decorative Kufic calligrams.
Q 30The Alhambra's white marble columns and fountains were quarried at Macael in which province?
Almería
The stucco and capitals, colourless today, were once painted red, blue and gold.