Budapest Trivia
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58 free Budapest trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Budapest trivia quiz covers the Hungarian capital from Roman Aquincum to today's spa-and-ruin-bar city on the Danube. The easy questions are ones any visitor could answer: the river, the three towns that merged in 1873, the huge neo-Gothic parliament, the bridge guarded by stone lions, the seven-towered bastion above the river, and the giant yellow bath in City Park. The harder end is for travellers and history readers: which emperor opened the continent's first underground in 1896, why the basilica and the parliament are exactly the same height, the saint who was thrown off a hill in a barrel, the Holy Right hand, the largest synagogue in Europe, the shoes cast in iron on the embankment, the 1956 uprising and the Soviet tanks that crushed it, the professor who built a cube of 27 wooden blocks, and the striker who scored 84 goals in 85 games. Matthias Church, Vajdahunyad Castle, Margaret Island, Szimpla Kert and Café Gerbeaud get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the city and its landmarks before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Hungary, Vienna and Prague quizzes next.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Budapest shoppers pay in which currency, launched in 1946 to end the worst hyperinflation ever recorded?
Forint
Forint. It replaced the pengő on 1 August 1946, when prices were doubling about every 15 hours, the fastest inflation ever measured.
Q 02Which entertainer, born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874, became a star after emigrating to America as a child?
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini. His family left Budapest in 1878 to join his rabbi father in Appleton, Wisconsin, and he later named himself after the French magician Robert-Houdin.
Q 03The Danube flows through Budapest on its way to which sea?
Black Sea
Black Sea. The river was the Roman Empire's frontier for centuries on its way there, which is why a legionary fortress once stood where Budapest is now.
Q 04After its 1873 merger, Budapest shared the role of imperial capital with which other city?
Vienna
Vienna. The 1867 Compromise turned the Austrian Empire into the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, and the three towns merged six years later to form its second capital.
Q 05Which side of the Danube is Pest on?
East
East. Pest lies on the flat edge of the Great Plain, facing hilly Buda across the river, and its name may come from a Slavic word for an oven or a cave.
Q 06What was the Roman town on the site of Budapest called?
Aquincum
Aquincum. The town grew up around a legionary fortress that guarded Rome's Danube frontier, and the remains of two amphitheatres still stand in the city.
Q 07How do Hungarians pronounce the letter s in the name Budapest?
Like the sh in wash
Like the sh in wash. In Hungarian spelling a plain s stands for the "sh" sound, so locals say BOO-dah-pesht.
Q 08Under which Renaissance king did Buda become a European cultural centre in the 15th century?
Matthias Corvinus
Matthias Corvinus. His library in Buda was rivalled in Europe only by the Vatican's, yet just 216 of its volumes are known today and only 53 of them are in Hungary.
Q 09Which Ottoman sultan seized Buda in 1541 through a trick rather than an assault?
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent. While he received Hungary's infant king and nobles in his tent, his janissaries strolled into Buda Castle posing as sightseers and then disarmed the guards.
Q 10Which dynasty gained Buda when the Holy League's army drove out the Ottomans in 1686?
Habsburgs
Habsburgs. A year after the siege, Hungary's Diet gave up its right to elect kings and recognised the Habsburgs as hereditary rulers.
Q 11According to medieval legend, Buda was named for the brother of which ruler?
Attila
Attila. In the chronicle's telling he killed his brother Buda, the Bleda of history, and threw the body into the Danube; one theory instead traces the name to an old word for water.
Q 12What was the Chain Bridge, opened in 1849, the first of?
Permanent crossing of the Danube in Hungary
Permanent crossing of the Danube in Hungary. For centuries only a pontoon bridge joined the two banks, and in a hard winter it went out of use, leaving the towns cut off by drifting ice.
Q 13Which statues have guarded both ends of Budapest's Chain Bridge since 1852?
Stone lions
Q 21Never meant for defence, what was the Fisherman's Bastion on Castle Hill built to be?
A scenic lookout terrace
A scenic lookout terrace. Architect Frigyes Schulek added the mock-medieval turrets purely for the view, and the name may recall a fishermen's guild or a fish market that once stood nearby.
Q 22Regulars at the grand City Park spa in Budapest are famous for playing which game while soaking in the outdoor pool?
Chess
Chess. Locals play for hours at boards set in the outdoor thermal pool, which stays at 36 to 38 °C even on the coldest winter days.
Q 23In 1934 Budapest was officially awarded which title?
City of Spas
Stone lions. Legend says sculptor János Marschalkó forgot to carve their tongues and was mocked at the unveiling, but the lions do have tongues, which are just hard to see.
Q 14Which count gives his name to the Chain Bridge?
Széchenyi
Széchenyi. In the winter of 1820 ice on the river stopped him crossing as he hurried to his father, and he vowed to help pay for a bridge.
Q 15Hungary's Parliament echoes the design of which building?
Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster. Hungary's leaders wanted a Gothic Revival home for their assembly on the river, like London's, but architect Imre Steindl died in 1902 before his building was complete.
Q 16Which national treasure sits beneath the dome of Hungary's Parliament?
Holy Crown
Holy Crown. Handed to American troops in 1945, it sat in the vault at Fort Knox for much of the Cold War until the United States returned it in January 1978.
Q 17St. Stephen's Basilica stands exactly as tall as which other Budapest landmark, at 96 metres?
The Hungarian Parliament
The Hungarian Parliament. Both reach exactly 96 metres, and the Basilica took three architects and more than fifty years to build, partly because its dome collapsed during construction.
Q 18Which relic of King Stephen I is kept in St. Stephen's Basilica?
The king's mummified right hand
The king's mummified right hand. Known as the Holy Right, it is carried in procession every 20 August, the feast of Saint Stephen and a national holiday.
Q 19What did Budapest do with its Lenin and Marx statues when communism fell?
Moved them to an open-air park
Moved them to an open-air park. The city council refused calls to melt the statues down, and Memento Park opened on the outskirts in 1993 with Lenin, Marx and Engels among its exhibits.
Q 20What do the seven towers of the Fisherman's Bastion symbolise?
The seven Magyar chieftains
The seven Magyar chieftains. Tradition holds that they sealed their alliance under Árpád with a blood oath before leading their tribes into the Carpathian Basin.
City of Spas. Hot springs under the city deliver some 70 million litres of thermal water a day, and a few of the bathhouses they fill have been in use since the 1500s.
Q 24In what architectural style were the Gellért Baths built between 1912 and 1918?
Art Nouveau
They form part of the famous Hotel Gellért at the foot of the hill.
Q 25According to tradition, how did Saint Gerard, namesake of a Buda landmark, die in 1046?
Thrown to his death from a cliff
Thrown to his death from a cliff. Accounts differ on whether the pagan rebels used a cart or a barrel, but each sends the bishop down the Buda hill that now bears his name, Gellért.
Q 26The Liberty Statue on Gellért Hill went up in 1947 to honour which army?
The Soviet Red Army
The Soviet Red Army. After communism fell the city kept the palm-bearing figure but took away the Soviet soldier at her feet and the dedication to Soviet heroes.
Q 27Which emperor opened mainland Europe's first electric underground railway in Budapest in 1896?
Franz Joseph
Franz Joseph. After he rode the new line that May, its operating company was allowed to take his name, and only London had an electric underground before it.
Q 28Which anniversary, celebrated in 1896, does Budapest's Heroes' Square commemorate?
1,000 years since the Magyar conquest
1,000 years since the Magyar conquest. The 1896 festivities also gave the city its underground line and the fairy-tale castle in City Park, and work on the square's monument began that year.
Q 29Budapest's Vajdahunyad Castle began in 1896 as a temporary structure built for what?
A national exhibition
A national exhibition. The mock castle, a collage of famous buildings from across the old kingdom, proved so popular that it was rebuilt in stone and brick and finished in 1908.
Q 30The main wing of Vajdahunyad Castle in City Park copies a fortress in which historic region?
Transylvania
Transylvania. The model is Hunyad Castle at Hunedoara in today's Romania, seat of the Hunyadi family, and the Budapest copy was rebuilt to hold an agriculture museum.