China
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Dive into the rich history, vibrant culture, and fascinating geography of China with our comprehensive free 148-question trivia quiz with answers. Whether you're a China enthusiast or looking to expand your general knowledge, this quiz covers everything from ancient dynasties to modern innovations. Test your expertise and discover how much you really know about the world's most populous nation.
30 of 148 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Beijing's name literally means what?
Northern capital
Northern capital: bei means north and jing capital, the mirror of Nanjing, the 'southern capital'. When the Nationalists ruled from Nanjing after 1928, the city was demoted to Beiping, 'northern peace'.
Q 02Which river is recognized as the longest in China?
Yangtze
The Yangtze flows from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea; so much shipping, fishing and dam-building crowded it that its own river dolphin, the baiji, was declared functionally extinct in 2006.
Q 03Which large desert is partially located in northern China and southern Mongolia?
Gobi Desert
The Gobi Desert gave science its first recognised dinosaur eggs in the 1920s; a dinosaur found beside them was named Oviraptor, 'egg robber', but the eggs later proved to be its own.
Q 04Which mountain range forms the natural border between China and Nepal?
Himalayas
The Himalayas rose when the Indian plate rammed into Eurasia tens of millions of years ago; India is still pushing north, so the range keeps rising by more than a centimetre a year.
Q 05Which dynasty is credited with unifying China for the first time?
Qin
The Qin dynasty ended the Warring States period and unified China in 221 BCE, yet it fell apart within four years of its First Emperor's death in 210 BCE.
Q 06Which river winds past the karst peaks of Guilin in Guangxi?
Li River
The Li River winds between limestone karst towers from Guilin down to Yangshuo, a view so prized that it is printed on the back of one of China's banknotes.
Q 07The Terracotta Army was found in 1974 by farmers who were digging what?
A well
A well: the farmers struck the first clay figures near Lintong in March 1974. The warriors were once brightly painted, but the lacquer under the colour curls within seconds of meeting dry air.
Q 08Which food was mixed into the lime mortar of the Great Wall's Ming-era sections?
Sticky rice
Sticky rice: builders stirred a soup of it into slaked lime, and its starch made a mortar so tough and water-resistant that it also held together tombs, pagodas and city walls.
Q 09Where in Beijing was the People's Republic proclaimed in 1949?
Tiananmen Gate
Tiananmen Gate: the new government was proclaimed from the top of this old palace gateway to a vast crowd in the square below, and 1 October has been China's National Day ever since.
Q 10Who was the founding leader of the People's Republic of China?
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong was once a university library assistant; three decades later his forces won the civil war, drove the Nationalists to Taiwan and founded the People's Republic in 1949.
Q 11A 1971 visit by American players of which sport began a thaw in US–China relations?
Table tennis
Table tennis: the US team's April 1971 tour, dubbed 'ping-pong diplomacy', was the first official American delegation in China's capital since 1949 and cleared the way for a presidential visit within a year.
Q 12Which 1966 movement aimed to preserve Chinese communism by purging capitalist and traditional elements?
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, launched in May 1966, closed schools and universities and set student Red Guards loose on the 'Four Olds'; it ended only in 1976 with the arrest of the Gang of Four.
Q 13Which merchant's account of his years in Mongol-ruled China amazed medieval Europe?
Q 21Which emperor ordered the Forbidden City built from 1406 as the new seat of his dynasty?
Yongle
The Yongle Emperor, who had seized the throne from his nephew in a civil war, moved the court from Nanjing to his own power base and began the Forbidden City there in 1406; it was finished in 1420.
Q 22Which animal has China loaned to foreign zoos for decades as a gesture of diplomacy?
Giant Panda
Giant pandas were handed out as state gifts until 1984; since then they have only been leased, for up to $1 million a year, and any cubs born abroad remain China's property.
Q 23Which dam near Yichang in Hubei is the world's largest power station by installed capacity?
Three Gorges Dam
Marco Polo
Marco Polo set out along the Silk Road in 1271 and came home in 1295; captured in a war with Genoa, he dictated his travels to a cellmate, the romance writer Rustichello of Pisa.
Q 14Which ancient Chinese divination text is built around 64 six-line figures called hexagrams?
I Ching
The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is consulted by counting out yarrow stalks to pick a hexagram; Leibniz, the pioneer of binary arithmetic, later matched its broken and unbroken lines to his own binary numbers.
Q 15China's currency, the renminbi, is counted in which basic unit?
Yuan
The yuan is the unit of the renminbi, 'the people's currency', first issued in December 1948, almost a year before the People's Republic existed, while hyperinflation was wrecking the Nationalists' money.
Q 16Which traditional Chinese game, often played with tiles, translates to 'sparrow' in some dialects?
Mahjong
Mahjong is written with characters that mean 'sparrow' in Cantonese and other southern dialects; the clacking of tiles being shuffled is said to sound like chattering sparrows.
Q 17Which animal comes first in the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac?
Rat
Rat: in one telling of the Great Race folk tale, the rat hitched a ride across the river on the ox's back, then leapt off at the far bank to finish first, leaving the ox in second place.
Q 18What is the official language of mainland China?
Mandarin
Mandarin was named by Europeans after the imperial officials, or 'mandarins', who used it as their common tongue; China calls its standard form Putonghua, 'common speech'.
Q 19Which Chinese philosopher's sayings on ethics and social harmony were collected by his followers in the Analects?
Confucius
Confucius spent years travelling from state to state in search of a ruler who would act on his teaching and found none; his followers compiled the Analects only after his death in 479 BCE.
Q 20Which of these inventions is attributed to ancient China?
Block printing
Block printing began in China as a way of stamping patterns on cloth before 220 AD; under the Tang, Buddhists took it up to multiply sacred texts, since every copy was thought to earn merit.
The Three Gorges Dam can generate 22,500 MW; filling the reservoir behind it, which stretches some 600 km upstream, flooded towns and villages and forced over a million people to move.
Q 24Which classic Chinese novel follows the Monkey King on a monk's quest to fetch scriptures from India?
Journey to the West
Journey to the West sends the trickster Sun Wukong to guard the monk Xuanzang, a real pilgrim who went to India in the 7th century; the hero later became Son Goku of Dragon Ball.
Q 25What is the traditional Chinese New Year also known as?
Spring Festival
The Spring Festival is the mainland's usual name for Chinese New Year; in legend its firecrackers and red decorations began as a way to frighten off Nian, a beast that raided villages each New Year's Eve.
Q 26What is the highest mountain peak in China?
Mount Everest (Qomolangma)
Mount Everest (Qomolangma) has its summit on the China–Nepal border; the two countries long quoted different heights for it and only announced an agreed figure, 8,848.86 m, in December 2020.
Q 27Macau returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1999 after 442 years under which European power?
Portugal
Portugal settled Macau as a trading post in the 1550s; after its 1974 revolution it stopped treating the enclave as a province and called it a territory under Portuguese administration, long before handing it back in 1999.
Q 28Which art form was prized above all other visual arts in traditional China, even painting?
Calligraphy
Calligraphy came first because the scholars who ran the government lived by the written word; a character's form was meant to show the writer's moral worth, not only its meaning.
Q 29Which Chinese philosophical system is traditionally traced to the sage Laozi?
Daoism
Daoism traces itself to Laozi, who in the oldest account wrote down his teaching at a border pass, at the request of its keeper, before heading west and vanishing from the record.
Q 30What are the large circular communal dwellings of Fujian province called?
Tulou
Tulou are earthen strongholds built by Fujian clans: thick rammed-earth walls, a single gate and room for as many as 800 people let a whole lineage shut out bandits.