Arunachal Pradesh
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50 free Arunachal Pradesh trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Arunachal Pradesh sits at India's far north-eastern corner, a state of steep Himalayan valleys, dense forest and dozens of distinct tribal cultures. It is the first part of the country to see daylight each morning, and its northern border has been argued over for more than a century. This quiz covers the ground a curious traveller or exam candidate would expect: the peaks, passes and rivers, the story of the frontier and how the state came to be, the festivals and faiths of its peoples, and the wildlife of its parks and sanctuaries. The questions suit general knowledge fans, students preparing for competitive exams in India, and anyone planning a trip to the north-east. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you guess wrong.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sangetsar Tso, a lake in Arunachal Pradesh, is nicknamed after which Bollywood actress who danced there in Koyla?
Madhuri Dixit
Madhuri Dixit filmed a dance sequence for Koyla beside the lake, which was itself created when an earthquake dammed a river with fallen rocks, boulders and trees.
Q 02Which city, named after a medieval fort built of bricks, is the capital of Arunachal Pradesh?
Itanagar
Itanagar takes its name from Ita Fort, the 'fort of bricks' raised in the 14th or 15th century; 'ita' is the Assamese word for brick.
Q 03Which tiny village in Arunachal Pradesh's Anjaw district is famed for catching India's first rays of sunrise?
Dong
Dong was found in 1999 to see the country's earliest sunrise, and visitors now climb to a lookout above the village at about 3 am to watch it.
Q 04Anshu Jamsenpa of Arunachal Pradesh made history in 2017 by climbing which mountain twice within five days?
Everest
Everest fell to her on 16 May and again on 21 May 2017, the fastest double ascent by a woman; she comes from Bomdila and later received the Padma Shri.
Q 05Which language is the only official language of Arunachal Pradesh, a state with dozens of tribal tongues?
English
English is the sole official language, though a locally flavoured Hindi, spread by migrant schoolteachers, serves as the everyday lingua franca between the tribes.
Q 06Which town in western Arunachal Pradesh is home to the largest Buddhist monastery in India, founded in 1680–81?
Tawang
Tawang, whose name means 'the location selected by horse', grew around a three-storey monastery ringed by a 925-foot compound wall.
Q 07What does the Sanskrit name Arunachal Pradesh, coined when the territory was renamed in 1972, literally mean?
Land of dawn-lit mountains
Land of dawn-lit mountains suits a state on India's far eastern edge: old Indian texts called its ranges the Aruna Mountains, the place where the sun rises.
Q 08Which semi-domesticated bovine, kept by hill tribes as a sign of wealth, is the state animal of Arunachal Pradesh?
Mithun
Mithun, also called the gayal, is so prized that among the Adi a marriage is not fixed until the groom's family gives at least one to the bride's household.
Q 09Which country claims most of Arunachal Pradesh as its own and briefly occupied parts of it in 1962?
China
China pulled its troops back after the 1962 war, but it has since issued lists that rename mountains, rivers and villages in the state.
Q 10Which religion had the most followers in Arunachal Pradesh at the 2011 census, at about 30 per cent?
Christianity
Christianity was the faith of under 1 per cent of the state in 1971, yet by 2011 it had edged past Hinduism to become the largest religion.
Q 11Which boundary, named after a British administrator of 1914, marks Arunachal Pradesh's disputed northern border?
McMahon Line
McMahon Line maps were slow to appear: an official found in 1935 that the boundary was missing from official maps, and the Survey of India first showed it in 1937.
Q 12By what name was Arunachal Pradesh known from 1954 until 1972, when it became a union territory?
North-East Frontier Agency
North-East Frontier Agency, or NEFA, was run by the central government through the Governor of Assam; before 1954 the same hills were the North-East Frontier Tracts.
Q 13Which large bird, hunted for the casque and tail feathers worn as tribal adornments, is Arunachal Pradesh's state bird?
Q 21Which national park in Arunachal Pradesh shelters four big cats: tiger, leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard?
Namdapha
Namdapha climbs from about 200 m to over 4,500 m, which is why lowland rainforest cats and the high-altitude snow leopard can share a single park.
Q 22Under which prime minister's government did Arunachal Pradesh gain full statehood in February 1987?
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi's government granted statehood fifteen years after his mother Indira Gandhi's had turned the region into a union territory.
Q 23Arunachal Pradesh belongs to which nicknamed group of contiguous northeastern Indian states, a label coined in 1972?
Seven Sisters
Great hornbill
Great hornbill females seal themselves inside a tree hollow to nest and are fed by their mate through a slit until the chicks are half grown.
Q 14By what name is the Brahmaputra known where it enters Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet, before reaching the plains?
Siang
Siang is the name the Yarlung Tsangpo takes as it drops into India; lower down it becomes the Dihang, and only in the Assam valley is it called the Brahmaputra.
Q 15Which Arunachal Pradesh town, set among pine-clad hills and rice fields, hosts a music festival founded in 2012?
Ziro
Ziro is on UNESCO's tentative World Heritage list for its cultural landscape, and its four-day festival favours emerging acts from Northeast India.
Q 16Which distinction does Arunachal Pradesh, with about 1.4 million people at the 2011 census, hold among Indian states?
Lowest population density
Lowest population density of any Indian state: just 17 people per square kilometre, in a land where forest covers roughly three-quarters of the ground.
Q 17Which travel document must Indian citizens from other states obtain to pass Arunachal Pradesh's border checkgates?
Inner Line Permit
Inner Line Permit rules grew out of a British-era system designed to keep outsiders from provoking the frontier tribes, and visitors' papers are still checked on the way in.
Q 18Which snowbound crossing in Arunachal Pradesh, above 4,000 metres, was bypassed by an all-weather road tunnel in 2024?
Sela Pass
Sela Pass stands at about 4,170 m beside a lake held sacred in Tibetan Buddhism; the tunnel runs 400 m beneath it and keeps the highway open through winter.
Q 19Which people, called Dafla in old Ahom and British records, are the most populous tribe of Arunachal Pradesh?
Nyishi
Nyishi means 'human being' in the tribe's own Tani language, and its roughly 300,000 members trace their descent through the male line in several clans.
Q 20Tsangyang Gyatso, born in 1683 in what is now western Arunachal Pradesh, held which high office in Tibetan Buddhism?
Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso, sixth of the line, grew his hair long and wrote poems and songs that are still popular; Mongol forces kidnapped and deposed him.
Seven Sisters was coined by journalist Jyoti Prasad Saikia during a radio talk as the new states were inaugurated, and a book he later compiled made the nickname stick.
Q 24What kind of farming is known as jhum among the hill tribes of Arunachal Pradesh?
Shifting cultivation
Shifting cultivation means farming a cleared hill plot for a short time and then leaving it fallow for years to regrow; the practice is fading as other incomes grow.
Q 25Which Tibetan New Year festival do the Monpa people of western Arunachal Pradesh mark with prayers at their monasteries?
Losar
Losar falls on the first day of the lunisolar Tibetan calendar, in February or March; the Monpa also keep a harvest festival called Choskar.
Q 26Donyi-Polo, the indigenous faith of Arunachal Pradesh's Tani peoples, takes its name from which pair?
Sun and Moon
Sun and Moon are addressed by believers as a mother and a father, and followers describe themselves as the children of the two.
Q 27Which peak on the border with Tibet, rising above 7,000 metres, is the highest point in Arunachal Pradesh?
Kangto
Kangto is so remote that every attempt to reach the foot of the peak failed until a joint expedition set up a base camp near it in 2016.
Q 28Which people of Arunachal Pradesh grow wet rice without farm animals or machines, a system praised by UNESCO?
Apatani
Apatani farmers also run traditional village councils called bulyañ and pray for a bumper harvest at the Dree festival each July.
Q 29Which small ape of Arunachal Pradesh's forests had a new subspecies described and named after the Mishmi Hills?
Hoolock gibbon
Hoolock gibbon males are black with striking white brows while females are grey-brown; hoolocks are the second-largest gibbons, after the siamang.
Q 30Which city outside Arunachal Pradesh served as its administrative headquarters until the capital shifted in 1974?
Shillong
Shillong, now Meghalaya's capital, ran the remote hills from a distance because the territory had long been governed through the Governor of Assam.