50 free Berlin trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Berlin has been the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany and reunified Germany, and it wears all of that history in its streets. This quiz starts with the twin towns of Berlin and Colln in 1237, the Huguenots who made up a third of the population by 1700, Frederick the Great, Napoleon's theft of the Quadriga and the 1920 act that turned the city into a metropolis of four million. The Cold War gets its due: the Airlift's raisin bombers, the Wall's 13 August 1961 start and 9 November 1989 fall, Checkpoint Charlie's tank standoff, ghost stations, Kennedy's speech and the doughnut myth, and the Fernsehturm cross the Pope supposedly took revenge with. Then the city as it is now: Museum Island and Nefertiti, Norman Foster's Reichstag dome, the East Side Gallery, Tempelhof's runways as a park, the Berlinale, the marathon that keeps producing world records, currywurst and doner, Berghain and Knut the polar bear. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Berlin and its landmarks and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Germany quiz covers the rest of the country.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Berlin's name probably comes from a West Slavic word meaning what?
Swamp
The bear on the coat of arms is a pun that came later; five of the twelve boroughs still carry Slavic names.
Q 02What year is considered the founding date of Berlin?
1237
German merchants had founded the twin settlements of Berlin and Colln, the latter on today's Museum Island.
Q 03Which river was Berlin built along?
The Spree
It flows into the Havel in the western borough of Spandau, and 979 bridges cross the inner-city waterways.
Q 04Berlin's three UNESCO World Heritage Sites are Museum Island, the Potsdam palaces and parks, and what?
The Modernism Housing Estates
Six 1920s social-housing estates by Bruno Taut and others made the list in 2008.
Q 05Which dynasty ruled Berlin from the 15th century until 1918, ending as German emperors?
The Hohenzollerns
They began as electors of Brandenburg and became kings of Prussia in 1701, when Berlin replaced Konigsberg as capital.
Q 06The Great Elector's Edict of Potsdam in 1685 offered asylum to which persecuted group?
French Huguenots
By 1700 about 30 percent of Berliners were French; the Franzosischer Dom on Gendarmenmarkt is their legacy.
Q 07Which conqueror marched into Berlin in 1806 and carried the Brandenburg Gate's Quadriga off to Paris?
Napoleon Bonaparte
The chariot came home in 1814 and its goddess was rebranded from Peace to Victory, with an Iron Cross added.
Q 08The Brandenburg Gate's design was based on which ancient monument?
The Propylaea of the Acropolis
Carl Gotthard Langhans built it between 1788 and 1791 for Frederick William II, with six Doric columns like the Athenian gateway.
Q 09Berlin became capital of the newly founded German Empire in which year?
1871
It had already been the Prussian capital since 1701 and became a city district separate from Brandenburg in 1881.
Q 10The Greater Berlin Act of 1920 expanded the city's area from 66 km2 to how much?
883 km2
The population nearly doubled to around four million, making 1920s Berlin the third-largest city in the world.
Q 11Who proclaimed the Weimar Republic from the Reichstag building on 9 November 1918?
Philipp Scheidemann
Liebknecht proclaimed a rival socialist republic the same day; 9 November would recur in 1938 and 1989.
Q 12Hitler and Albert Speer planned to rebuild Berlin as a 'World Capital' under what name?
Germania
The plans were never implemented, though Tempelhof's vast terminal was meant to be its gateway.
Q 13The 1936 Berlin Olympics introduced which ceremony that became a permanent Olympic tradition?
The torch relay from Olympia
They were also the first Games to be televised; Jesse Owens won four golds, but Germany topped the table with 101 medals.
Q 21Kennedy delivered his 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech in June 1963 from the steps of which building?
Rathaus Schoneberg
He spoke to 120,000 people; the story that he called himself a jelly doughnut is an urban legend from two decades later.
Q 22Why is the 'jelly doughnut' reading of Kennedy's speech wrong, according to Wikipedia?
Berliners call that pastry a Pfannkuchen
The legend surfaced about twenty years after the speech; nobody in the crowd laughed.
Q 23The Berlin Fernsehturm, completed in 1969, is how tall?
368 m
Q 14During the Berlin Airlift, how much did Allied aircraft deliver to the city each day?
13,000 tons
At its peak a plane landed every 30 seconds; nearly two-thirds of the 2.3 million tons was coal.
Q 15What did the airlift's 'raisin bombers' drop for German children?
Candy
Operation Little Vittles, started by pilot Gail Halvorsen, floated sweets down on tiny parachutes.
Q 16On what date did East Germany begin building the Berlin Wall?
13 August 1961
GDR leaders spent the previous evening at a garden party while troops tore up border streets overnight.
Q 17Which West Berlin mayor coined the term 'Wall of Shame'?
Willy Brandt
The East called it the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart'; researchers have confirmed at least 140 deaths at the Wall.
Q 18On which date did the Berlin Wall fall?
9 November 1989
Spokesman Gunter Schabowski botched a press conference and implied the borders were open 'immediately'.
Q 19What were the Cold War Geisterbahnhofe, or 'ghost stations', on the Berlin metro?
Eastern platforms Western trains passed without halting
Three Western lines dipped briefly under the East, guarded by armed police on dimly lit platforms.
Q 20Soviet and American tanks faced off in October 1961 at which crossing point?
Checkpoint Charlie
'Charlie' was simply the third letter of the NATO alphabet, after Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo on the autobahn.
It is Germany's tallest structure; the GDR built it as a symbol of communist power, but sunlight forms a cross on its dome.
Q 24Berliners nicknamed the cross of light reflected on the TV tower's dome what?
The Pope's Revenge
They saw divine payback for the government's removal of crosses from East Berlin's churches.
Q 25Which architect gave the Reichstag its walk-in glass dome in the 1990s?
Norman Foster
Just before the rebuild, Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the whole building in fabric in 1995.
Q 26What inscription was placed above the Reichstag's facade in 1916, to Kaiser Wilhelm II's displeasure?
Dem deutschen Volke
'To the German People' offended the Kaiser for its democratic overtones.
Q 27On 20 June 1991 the Bundestag voted to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin; when was the move completed?
1999
Some ministries stayed behind in Bonn, which kept the title 'federal city'.
Q 28Museum Island became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?
1999
Its five museums were built between 1830 and 1930 on the island where the twin town of Colln once stood.
Q 29Which building on Museum Island displays the bust of Queen Nefertiti?
The Neues
All four sit on the island alongside the Alte Nationalgalerie.
Q 30The Berlin Zoological Garden, opened in 1844, holds what distinction?
Oldest surviving zoo in Germany
With about 1,380 species it is Europe's most visited zoo, and was home to the celebrity polar bear Knut.