Alhambra Trivia
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57 free Alhambra trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 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 57 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which mountain range forms the backdrop to the Alhambra, rising to the south-east of Granada?
The Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada. Its highest summit, Mulhacén, is named after one of Granada's last sultans, who legend says was buried up there.
Q 02The name Alhambra comes from Arabic al-Hamra, meaning what?
The red one
The red one. The name is short for the Arabic for 'the red fortress', most likely after the reddish clay of its outer walls.
Q 03Which river carves the ravine on the Alhambra's north side, separating it from the Albaicín?
The Darro
The Darro. Small as it is, the river waters the whole palace: a canal taps it upstream and carries the flow to every pool and fountain on the hill.
Q 04Alhambra, California, named after a book about the Spanish palace, is a suburb of which city?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles. The developer's daughter was reading a popular book of tales about the palace, and at her urging the new tract took its name from it.
Q 05Which French composer wrote the piano prelude La Puerta del Vino, named after a gate of the Alhambra?
Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy. He evoked Granada at the piano more than once though he had spent at most a few hours in Spain, and Manuel de Falla admired how Spanish the result sounded.
Q 06Who began building the Alhambra in 1238 as founder of the Emirate of Granada?
Ibn al-Ahmar
Ibn al-Ahmar. He first moved into the old Zirid stronghold on the Albaicín hill, then looked across at the ruins on the hill opposite and began a new seat there that same year.
Q 07The Alhambra's founder helped which Christian kingdom capture Muslim Seville in 1248?
Castile
Castile. Two years earlier he had given up Jaén to Ferdinand III in return for a long truce, the breathing space in which his new emirate of Granada took shape.
Q 08What shape are many of the skylights that pierce the vaults of the Alhambra's Comares Baths?
Stars
Stars. The openings were once closed with coloured glass that lit the steam rooms from above, and bath attendants are said to have opened and shut them to regulate the heat.
Q 09Which sultan's reign (1354-1391) marked the apogee of Nasrid architecture and produced the Palace of the Lions?
Muhammad V
Muhammad V. A coup cut his first reign short after five years, but he won the throne back in 1362 and built the Palace of the Lions during the long second reign that followed.
Q 10The Alhambra's Tower of the Ladies lost its carved wooden ceiling to a museum in which German city?
Berlin
Berlin. Arthur von Gwinner, the tower's last private owner, handed the building to Spain in 1891 but had its cupola dismantled, and it ended up in the city's Museum of Islamic Art.
Q 11Which is the oldest Nasrid palace still standing in the Alhambra, a pavilion by a reflecting pool?
The Partal
The Partal. It spent centuries as a private house with its decoration hidden under later walls, and joined the monument only in 1891, when its owner handed it to the Spanish state.
Q 12The Alcazaba, the oldest surviving part of the Alhambra, is what kind of structure?
A citadel
A citadel. The first Nasrid rulers are thought to have lived inside it while their palaces were built; after that it was purely a garrison, housing the sultan's guard and their families.
Q 13The Catholic Monarchs' flag was first raised on 2 January 1492 above which Alcazaba tower in Granada?
Torre de la Vela
Q 21The Alhambra's Hall of the Two Sisters is named for a matching pair of what, set in its floor?
Marble slabs
Marble slabs. The two great white flagstones flank a small fountain whose water runs out along a channel to the Court of the Lions; no legend about sisters lies behind the name.
Q 22The mountain pass where the sultan who surrendered Granada is said to have looked back at the Alhambra is called what?
The Moor's Last Sigh
The Moor's Last Sigh. In the legend his mother was unmoved, telling him he did well to weep like a woman for what he had failed to defend like a man.
Q 23The Hall of Kings' rare Nasrid-era ceiling paintings are executed on what surface?
Leather
Torre de la Vela. A bell was hung on it soon afterwards, and for centuries its night-time chimes told farmers on the plain below when it was their turn to water their fields.
Q 14Which two symbols are carved over the arches of the Alhambra's Puerta de la Justicia?
A hand and a key
A hand and a key. The hand is carved over the outer arch and the key over the inner one, where the Catholic Monarchs later had a Gothic Virgin and Child set just above it.
Q 15On the Generalife's most famous staircase, what takes the place of ordinary handrails?
Channels of running water
Channels of running water. The water is drawn off the Sultan's Canal and still spills down both parapets of the laurel-shaded climb, which is why it is called the Water Stairway.
Q 16The Comares Palace courtyard is named after which plants growing in hedges beside its 34-metre pool?
Myrtles
Myrtles. The still pool between the hedges was designed as a mirror: it doubles the Comares Tower in its surface and breaks up the long horizontal lines of the court.
Q 17Which room in the Comares Tower is the Alhambra's largest and was the sultan's throne room?
The Ambassadors
The Ambassadors. The sultan sat in the central alcove opposite the door, and the symbolic ceiling overhead was designed to legitimise the power of the ruler enthroned beneath it.
Q 18The Alhambra throne room's ceiling of thousands of interlinked wooden pieces is read as an abstract picture of what?
The seven heavens
The seven heavens. Scholars read the small cube at its summit as God's throne, and the holy texts carved round the hall stress divine power: a cosmic order framing the sultan seated below.
Q 19How many marble lions surround the basin of the famous fountain in the Court of the Lions?
Twelve
Twelve. Each spouts water from its mouth, and a hidden cylinder in the basin lets water in and out at the same rate, so the bowl stays brim-full without ever spilling over.
Q 20The Sala de los Abencerrajes is named for a legend that a sultan did what to the clan's chiefs?
Massacred them at a banquet
Massacred them at a banquet. Guides still point to rust-red stains in the hall's central fountain as the victims' blood, though the tale dates from the 16th century and tellers disagree on which sultan it was.
Leather. The best known shows ten richly dressed men seated in discussion, long taken for Nasrid sultans, which gave the Hall of Kings its name; who they really are is still debated.
Q 24What is the 'stalactite'-like three-dimensional stucco used for the Alhambra's vaulted ceilings called?
Muqarnas
Muqarnas. Thousands of small plaster cells, some 5,000 in the Hall of the Two Sisters alone, are stacked so that light from the little windows just beneath a dome plays across them.
Q 25The Nasrid motto repeated across the Alhambra's walls translates as what?
There is no victor but God
There is no victor but God. Tradition credits the phrase to the dynasty's founder, whose own title was al-Ghalib, 'the victor': hailed as a conqueror on his return from a campaign, he is said to have answered with it.
Q 26Which vizier-poet composed the verses on the Fountain of the Lions and other palace walls?
Ibn Zamrak
Ibn Zamrak. His poem round the fountain's rim praises the sultan and the lions and even describes how the water moves, and more of his verses line the Comares courtyard and the Hall of the Two Sisters.
Q 27In several poems carved on the Alhambra's walls, who is the 'I' that speaks?
The building itself
The building itself. A gateway declares 'I am a crown on the front of my door' and a fountain 'I am a water orb', so each door, niche or basin introduces itself to whoever stands reading it.
Q 28The Alhambra's white marble columns and fountains were quarried at Macael, in which south-eastern Spanish province?
Almería
Almería. Macael's quarries are still worked: they supplied the white flagstones laid across the Court of the Lions when its ten-year restoration ended in 2012.
Q 29What was originally the most prominent colour scheme of the Alhambra's now-monochrome stucco and ceilings?
Red, blue and gold
Red, blue and gold. Gold stood in for yellow to complete the three primaries; after 1492 much of the paint and gilding was whitewashed over or wore away, leaving the pale plaster seen today.
Q 30Which last sultan of Granada surrendered the Alhambra in January 1492 without it being attacked?
Boabdil
Boabdil. He had seized the throne from his own father, been captured and released by the Christians, and finally signed his kingdom away; histories number him Muhammad XI or XII.