Carnival Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
162 free Carnival trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
73 free Carnival trivia questions with answers. Carnival is the world's biggest party season, and this quiz travels the whole map of it. The questions cover Rio's samba schools and the Sambadrome, the masks and bans of Venice, Trinidad's J'ouvert and steelpan, Notting Hill's sound systems, Cologne's Kölle Alaaf and Nubbel burning, Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Mobile, king cake, the orange-throwing Gilles of Binche and the Battle of Ivrea, Basel's 72-hour Fasnacht, Bonhomme's Quebec winter carnival, Barranquilla, Oruro, Nice, Tenerife and Goa, plus Shrove Tuesday pancakes and the traveling midway born at the 1893 Chicago fair. Easy questions ask which city hosts the largest carnival and what hides inside a king cake; the hard ones want the year Venice's mask-makers got their guild, the first samba school and who brought the first sound system to Notting Hill. It suits a pre-Lent party, a travel-themed pub quiz round or a classroom unit on world festivals. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the individual carnivals, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 162 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'carnival' is usually traced to a Late Latin phrase meaning what?
Remove meat
Carne levare means 'remove meat': Lent's fasting rules banned meat, so the days before Ash Wednesday were the last chance to eat it up.
Q 02According to Guinness World Records, which city's carnival is the largest in the world?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro holds the Guinness record: its street carnival puts around two million people a day on the streets, on top of the Sambadrome parades.
Q 03Which pope decided that the Lenten fast would begin on Ash Wednesday?
Gregory the Great
Gregory reigned from 590 to 604, so the pre-Lent blowout has had a fixed finish line for over 1,400 years.
Q 04In the Rhineland, the first modern carnival parade was held in Cologne in which year?
1823
The first Rosenmontag parade rolled through Cologne in 1823, the year the Festkomitee Kölner Karneval was founded to put the festivities in order.
Q 05Which Belgian town's carnival is famous for its Gilles, performers in wax masks and wooden clogs?
Binche
The Gilles of Binche parade on Shrove Tuesday; UNESCO proclaimed the Carnival of Binche a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2003.
Q 06Recife's Galo da Madrugada is described as the world's largest what?
Carnival bloco
A bloco is a street parade group; this one draws well over a million revellers to central Recife on Carnival Saturday.
Q 07What is the frenetic UNESCO-listed carnival music-and-dance style of Recife and Olinda called?
Frevo
Frevo, inscribed by UNESCO in 2012, pairs fast brass-band music with acrobatic steps danced while holding tiny colourful umbrellas.
Q 08Which South American country's Diablada carnival became a UNESCO Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage in 2001?
Bolivia
It is the Carnival of Oruro in Bolivia, whose festival centres on the Diablada devil dance and draws more than 28,000 dancers.
Q 09Which city's famous carnival was outlawed entirely in 1797, with the wearing of masks strictly forbidden?
Venice
Venice's carnival was banned in 1797 after the fall of the Venetian Republic; masks were forbidden and the festival lay dormant for nearly two centuries.
Q 10After a long absence, in which year did the Venetian carnival return?
1979
The carnival was revived in 1979, backed by the Italian government and Venetian civic groups to restore the city's traditions; it soon drew millions of visitors each year.
Q 11Legend dates the Venetian carnival to a military victory in 1162 over the patriarch of which city?
Aquileia
The victory was over Ulrich II, Patriarch of Aquileia; Venetians supposedly danced in St Mark's Square, and the Republic later marked it by slaughtering a bull and twelve pigs each year.
Q 12Which Venetian mask was a small strapless black velvet oval, worn by patrician women?
Moretta
The moretta was held in place by a button gripped between the teeth, so it had no mouth opening and left the wearer mute as well as anonymous.
Q 13The long-beaked Venetian plague-doctor mask originates from a 17th-century French physician named what?
Charles de Lorme
Charles de Lorme, physician to Louis XIII, devised the beaked costume around 1619; the beak was stuffed with herbs and perfumes thought to filter out bad air.
Q 21Which samba school took its record 22nd Rio championship in 2017, ending a 33-year drought?
Portela
Portela's 2017 win was its 22nd title, the most of any school; its symbol is an eagle and its colours are blue and white.
Q 22Rio's Sambadrome, the parade stadium for the samba schools, was designed by which architect?
Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Niemeyer designed the Sambadrome, which runs along a 700-metre stretch of Marquês de Sapucaí street and was completed in 1984.
Q 23At the 2016 Olympics, Rio's Sambadrome hosted the marathon finish and which other sport?
Archery
Archery used the Sambadrome: the long straight parade avenue made a ready-made shooting range with grandstands in place, and the marathon started and finished there too.
Q 14Venetian mask-makers, the mascherari, had their own guild with a statute dated 10 April of which year?
1436
The mascherari's guild statute is dated 10 April 1436; Venetians could wear masks from St Stephen's Day, 26 December, through to midnight on Shrove Tuesday.
Q 15Cologne's 'fifth season' is declared open on 11 November at precisely what time?
11 minutes past 11
The 11.11 on 11/11 tradition is shared across the Rhineland, then everything goes quiet until the street carnival before Lent.
Q 16What greeting is traditionally shouted throughout Cologne's carnival?
Kölle Alaaf!
'Kölle Alaaf' is Cologne's cry; shout Düsseldorf's 'Helau' there and you will be marked as a visitor from the rival city.
Q 17In Cologne's ruling trio, the Dreigestirn, who traditionally portrays the Jungfrau (maiden)?
A man dressed as a woman
The trio of Prinz, Bauer and Jungfrau is granted its titles anew every year.
Q 18Cologne's carnival ends on Shrove Tuesday night with the burning of what?
The Nubbel
The Nubbel is a straw effigy that takes the blame for all the sins committed during the crazy days.
Q 19Roughly how many tons of candy are thrown to spectators at Cologne's Rose Monday parade each year?
330
Around 330 tons of Kamelle are flung from the floats, along with some 700,000 chocolate bars, 220,000 boxes of pralines and hundreds of thousands of flower bouquets.
Q 20The first Carnival festival in Rio occurred in which year?
1723
In 1723 Portuguese immigrants brought the entrudo to Rio, a rowdy custom of throwing water, flour and mud at passers-by.
Q 24Founded in 1928, what was the name of Rio's first samba school?
Deixa Falar
Deixa Falar ('Let Me Speak') was founded in the Estácio district in 1928; the 'school' label supposedly came from the schoolyard where the group first rehearsed.
Q 25Which Bahian duo invented the trio elétrico at Salvador's 1950 carnival?
Dodô and Osmar
Dodô and Osmar drove through Salvador's 1950 carnival playing amplified guitars from an old Ford nicknamed the Fobica, the first trio elétrico.
Q 26Salvador's carnival officially lasts how many days, ending at noon on Ash Wednesday?
Six
Salvador's carnival runs six days, from the Thursday before Lent to Ash Wednesday noon, drawing around two million revellers along its circuits.
Q 27J'ouvert, the pre-dawn start of Trinidad's two carnival days, is French for what?
Break of day
J'ouvert is 'jour ouvert', break of day; revellers cover themselves in mud, oil and paint before the prettier daytime bands take over.
Q 28Trinidad's carnival dates back to the 1780s and an influx of immigrants from where?
French West Indies
The planters brought masquerade balls; the enslaved population answered with the Canboulay celebrations that shaped the modern festival.
Q 29Which torch-lit festival, recalling the fighting of plantation fires, fed into Trinidad's carnival?
Canboulay
Canboulay, from the French cannes brûlées (burnt cane), recalled enslaved gangs sent to fight cane fires; its torch-lit processions were a root of Trinidad carnival and the 1881 riots.
Q 30Which traditional Trinidad carnival character is a stilt dancer of African origin?
Moko jumbie
The Moko jumbie, a towering stilt walker of West African origin, was believed to protect villages by seeing evil coming from far away.