Australia
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7correct to beat the crowd
This Australian trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and runs from the obvious to the obscure. The easy end covers the things everyone half-knows — the capital, the reef, the marsupials, Federation. Past that it gets specific: the Dutch ship that made landfall in 1606, the governor who pushed the modern name of the country, the fence that runs 5,614 kilometres to the Great Australian Bight, and the 1932 military operation that lost to a flock of emus. There is a full section on food and culture too, because that is where the country's trivia is at its strangest: why a lamington carries a governor's name, which racehorse gave the Tim Tam its name, what a jumbuck is, and how a barbecue outside a polling booth became the democracy sausage. Every question here was written against a primary or encyclopaedic source and carries the sentence it came from, so the answers hold up when someone at the table argues. Use it for a pub round, an Australia Day quiz, or a classroom.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital city of Australia?
Canberra
Canberra was chosen in 1908 as a compromise site between rival Sydney and Melbourne; the planned city in the Australian Capital Territory became the seat of Parliament in 1927.
Q 02Which of these animals is a marsupial native to Australia?
Koala
Koalas are arboreal herbivorous marsupials native to Australia, known for their diet primarily consisting of eucalyptus leaves. Platypuses and echidnas are monotremes (egg-laying mammals), and dingoes are wild dogs, not marsupials.
Q 03Which explorer made the first recorded European navigation of the strait between Australia and New Guinea?
Luís Vaz de Torres
Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through the strait between New Guinea and Australia in 1606, the first recorded European passage; it was later named the Torres Strait after him.
Q 04What large sandstone monolith in Australia's Northern Territory is sacred to the Anangu people?
Uluru
Uluru rises 348 metres above the surrounding plain in the Northern Territory; the Anangu are its traditional owners, and its red colour comes from iron oxide in the arkose sandstone.
Q 05In the Australian system of government, who is the head of the federal government?
The Prime Minister
The Prime Minister serves as the head of the Australian federal government, leading the executive branch and chairing the Cabinet. The Monarch is the Head of State, represented by the Governor-General.
Q 06The Great Barrier Reef stretches more than 2,300 kilometres through the Coral Sea off which Australian state?
Queensland
Queensland's coast is separated from the reef by a channel up to 160 kilometres wide; the reef is made up of more than 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands.
Q 07Sydney Opera House architect Jorn Utzon came from which country?
Denmark
Utzon's shell design was completed by an Australian team led by Peter Hall, and the building was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973.
Q 08Which is the largest Australian state by land area, covering more than 2.5 million square kilometres?
Western Australia
Western Australia covers about 2.53 million square kilometres, roughly a third of the continent; only Russia's Sakha Republic is a larger country subdivision.
Q 09What is the highest mountain on the Australian mainland, rising to 2,228 metres?
Mount Kosciuszko
Mount Kosciuszko in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales is the mainland's highest peak at 2,228 metres; Paweł Strzelecki named it in 1840 after Polish patriot Tadeusz Kościuszko.
Q 10Which island state is separated from the Australian mainland by the Bass Strait?
Tasmania
Tasmania lies about 240 kilometres south of Victoria across Bass Strait; the strait flooded as sea levels rose after the last ice age, roughly 12,000 years ago.
Q 11Which Dutch ship's crew made the first documented European landing on the continent, in 1606?
Duyfken
The Duyfken, captained by Willem Janszoon, reached Cape York Peninsula in early 1606; Janszoon charted part of the coast believing it was an extension of New Guinea.
Q 12Which name did 17th-century Dutch charts give the continent?
New Holland
Abel Tasman's 1644 voyage gave the continent the name New Holland (Nova Hollandia), which Dutch charts used; the Dutch mapped the northern and western coasts but never settled.
Q 13Which navigator popularised the modern name of the country after sailing right around it in 1803?
Matthew Flinders
Q 21Which large rainforest bird of north Queensland has a horn-like casque and a dagger-like claw?
Southern cassowary
Far North Queensland's rainforests are home to the Southern cassowary, which carries a horny casque on its head and a 12-centimetre inner-toe claw that can inflict serious wounds.
Q 22What shape are the droppings a wombat leaves to mark its territory?
Cubes
Cubes stack and do not roll off the rocks and logs a wombat perches them on, which is thought to give the shape a biological advantage.
Q 23Which island off Perth is famous for its quokkas?
Rottnest Island
Rottnest Island's quokkas were mistaken for large rats by Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh, who named it 'rat's nest' (Rottnest) in 1696.
Matthew Flinders completed the first circumnavigation of the continent in 1803 and championed the name Australia; his 1814 account was nonetheless titled A Voyage to Terra Australis.
Q 14Which governor of New South Wales formally recommended the country's present name in December 1817?
Lachlan Macquarie
Governor Lachlan Macquarie recommended the name Australia in a December 1817 dispatch to London, preferring it to New Holland; the Admiralty adopted the name in 1824.
Q 15On 26 January 1788 the First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove under which commander?
Arthur Phillip
Captain Arthur Phillip commanded the First Fleet of 11 ships and raised the flag at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, founding the penal colony of New South Wales.
Q 16In which year did the six self-governing colonies federate into a single Commonwealth?
1901
The Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed on 1 January 1901, uniting six colonies; full legal independence came later via the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 and the Australia Act 1986.
Q 17How many states does the Commonwealth of Australia have?
Six
Six states plus ten territories make up the federation, though only two of the territories are self-governing on the mainland.
Q 18Roughly how long ago did the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians begin arriving from Southeast Asia?
Between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago
Sites such as Madjedbebe in Arnhem Land date first arrival to between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, making Aboriginal culture among the oldest continuous cultures on Earth.
Q 19Which Aboriginal language gave English the word 'kangaroo'?
Guugu Yimithirr
Guugu Yimithirr, spoken around the Endeavour River in north Queensland, gave English the word kangaroo (gangurru), recorded by James Cook's crew during their 1770 stopover.
Q 20Which venomous, duck-billed mammal lays eggs instead of bearing live young?
Platypus
The platypus has a duck-like bill, lays eggs, and the male carries venom in ankle spurs; when a specimen reached London in 1799, naturalist George Shaw suspected a hoax.
Q 24The last thylacine died on 7 September 1936; since 1996 that date has been marked as what?
National Threatened Species Day
National Threatened Species Day has been held on 7 September since 1996, the anniversary of the last thylacine's death at Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo in 1936.
Q 25In 1932 the army was sent into the Western Australian wheatbelt to cull rampaging emus with which weapon?
Lewis machine guns
Major G.P.W. Meredith's soldiers used Lewis machine guns in the 1932 'Emu War'; the emus scattered into small groups and the cull was abandoned as an embarrassment.
Q 26The Dingo Fence finishes on cliffs above which body of water?
The Great Australian Bight
The Dingo Fence runs 5,614 kilometres from Jimbour on Queensland's Darling Downs to the Nullarbor cliffs above the Great Australian Bight, changing its name at each state border.
Q 27In which South Australian mining town do many residents live in underground homes called dugouts?
Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy, about 850 kilometres north of Adelaide, calls itself the opal capital of the world; summer heat drove residents to cut homes and even churches into the rock.
Q 28What nickname does the Sydney Harbour Bridge owe to its arch?
The Coathanger
Sydneysiders call the Harbour Bridge 'the Coathanger' for its steel through-arch; it opened in 1932 carrying rail, road, bicycles and pedestrians.
Q 29Which New York crossing was roughly copied for Sydney's harbour arch?
Hell Gate Bridge
Sydney Harbour Bridge's design was modelled on New York's Hell Gate Bridge (1916); contractor Dorman Long of Middlesbrough also drew on its own Tyne Bridge.
Q 30On which day of the year is the Melbourne Cup run?
First Tuesday of November
The Melbourne Cup is run at Flemington Racecourse on the first Tuesday of November; first held in 1861, it is a 3,200-metre handicap and Cup Day is a Melbourne public holiday.