Christ the Redeemer Trivia
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60 free Christ the Redeemer trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Christ the Redeemer trivia quiz covers the open-armed statue above Rio de Janeiro from a priest's proposal in the 1850s to the restorations of the 21st century. The easy questions are ones any traveller can attempt: which city and country it watches over, which mountain it stands on, what it is made of, how tall it is and which famous list of seven it joined in 2007. From there it moves into how it was built: the Catholic Circle's Monument Week, the rejected globe-and-cross design, the French sculptor, the Brazilian engineer, the Romanian who carved the face and the Frenchman who made the concrete work. The harder end is for Rio regulars and engineering buffs: the concrete shipped from Sweden, the cost in 1931 dollars, Marconi's radio switch, the rack railway that Dom Pedro II opened in 1884, the 223 steps, the chapel under the statue, the 2008 and 2014 lightning strikes, the 60,000 replacement stones, the paint-sprayed arm, the Ronaldo tyre advert and the family of Christ statues from Cochabamba to Almada and the Ozarks that it inspired. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the statue, its makers and its setting before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Brazil, world landmarks and Seven Wonders quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Christ the Redeemer overlooks which city?
Rio de Janeiro
Christ the Redeemer stands atop Corcovado above Rio de Janeiro, visible from much of the city; it has become an icon of Rio and of Brazil.
Q 02What does Corcovado, the name of the statue's mountain, mean in Portuguese?
Hunchback
Corcovado means 'hunchback' in Portuguese, from the peak's humped granite profile as seen from the city below.
Q 03In which artistic style is Christ the Redeemer built?
Art Deco
Christ the Redeemer is Art Deco, its robe and features reduced to the smooth, stylised planes fashionable when the design was settled in the 1920s.
Q 04How tall is the statue, excluding its pedestal?
30 metres
The statue itself is 30 metres tall, roughly a ten-storey building, and stands on a pedestal that lifts it higher still above Corcovado's summit.
Q 05How wide is the statue's outstretched armspan?
28 metres
The arms span 28 metres, almost the statue's own height; the open-armed pose was chosen as a gesture of peace embracing the city.
Q 06What two materials is the statue made of?
Reinforced concrete and soapstone
A reinforced concrete core is clad in thousands of small triangular soapstone tiles, chosen for durability and easy carving; Rio society women glued the tiles onto cloth, sometimes writing messages on the back.
Q 07Which direction does the statue face?
East
The statue faces east, looking across the city toward Guanabara Bay and the rising sun.
Q 08How much does the statue weigh?
635 tonnes
The statue weighs 635 tonnes, roughly 700 short tons, and was assembled on site from pieces hauled up the mountain by the rack railway.
Q 09Between which years was the statue constructed?
1922 and 1931
Construction took nine years.
Q 10On what date did the monument open?
12 October 1931
The monument was inaugurated on 12 October 1931, with Cardinal Sebastião Leme presiding and bad weather spoiling the planned remote switch-on of the floodlights.
Q 11Which French-Polish sculptor created the statue?
Paul Landowski
Paul Landowski, born in Paris in 1875 to a Polish doctor who had fled the January Uprising, modelled the statue in clay in France; the pieces were shipped to Brazil and recreated at full size.
Q 12Which Brazilian engineer designed and built the monument after winning the design competition?
Heitor da Silva Costa
Heitor da Silva Costa, a Rio engineer, won the competition and then oversaw the nine-year build, travelling to Paris to work up the final figure with the sculptor.
Q 13A sculptor from which country carved the statue's face?
Romania
The face was carved by a Romanian sculptor trained at the Bucharest conservatory and in Italy, who was working in the French sculptor's Paris studio when the commission came.
Q 21Roughly how far from Rio was the inventor who was to light the statue by radio?
9,200 km
Marconi was in Rome, roughly 9,200 kilometres from Rio, when the radio signal was to be sent to light the statue.
Q 22What was consecrated beneath the statue on its 75th anniversary in 2006?
A chapel
A small chapel at the base of the statue was consecrated in October 2006 by the Archbishop of Rio, allowing baptisms and weddings to be held there.
Q 23What natural hazard damaged the statue's fingers, head and eyebrows in February 2008?
Lightning
Lightning struck during a violent electrical storm in February 2008, scorching the head and eyebrows and damaging fingers; the lightning rods were later upgraded.
Q 14Which French engineer designed the statue's internal structure?
Albert Caquot
Albert Caquot, one of France's leading civil engineers, designed the internal frame; he also engineered the 1928 Pont de la Caille in Haute-Savoie.
Q 15Which Vincentian priest first proposed a Christian monument on Corcovado in the 1850s?
Pedro Maria Boss
Pedro Maria Boss, a Vincentian (Lazarist) priest, proposed a monument on Corcovado in the 1850s to honour a princess of the imperial family, but it was never approved.
Q 16Why was the 1850s statue proposal finally dropped after 1889?
The new republic separated church and state
The idea was revived by the Catholic Circle of Rio in 1920.
Q 17What was the name of the 1920 event organised to collect donations and signatures for the statue?
Semana do Monumento
Semana do Monumento, or Monument Week, gathered signatures and donations across the city; Brazilian Catholics gave most of the money for the monument.
Q 18What did the original design show Christ holding?
A globe in one hand and a cross in the other
The first design showed Christ holding a globe in one hand and a cross in the other, but the open-armed figure, read as a symbol of peace, was chosen instead.
Q 19From which country was the concrete for the base supplied?
Sweden
The concrete for the base was shipped from Limhamn, the cement-making district of Malmö in southern Sweden.
Q 20Which inventor was meant to switch on the statue's floodlights by radio from Rome at the 1931 opening?
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was to trigger the floodlights by a radio signal sent from Italy, but bad weather interfered and the lights were switched on at the site.
Q 24What did vandals do to the statue during its 2010 renovation?
Sprayed paint along the arm
The mayor called it a crime against the nation; the culprits later apologised.
Q 25How many replacement stones were used in the 2010 restoration?
60,000
The four-month 2010 restoration replaced some 60,000 stone tiles, cut from the same quarry as the originals, with about a hundred people working on it.
Q 26Why are replacement stones on the statue getting darker over time?
The original pale stone is running out
The original pale stone is running out, no longer quarried in quantity, so the tiles fitted during repairs after weather damage are progressively darker.
Q 27In what colours was the restored statue lit in 2010, and why?
Green and yellow for Brazil at the World Cup
Brazil were playing in the 2010 FIFA World Cup at the time.
Q 28Which footballer replaced the statue in a controversial 1998 Pirelli tyre commercial?
Ronaldo
Ronaldo, then at Inter Milan, posed with arms outstretched in place of the statue for Pirelli's 'Power is nothing without control' campaign; the Catholic Church objected.
Q 29Where were the New 7 Wonders of the World winners announced on 7 July 2007?
Lisbon
The winners were announced at Lisbon's Estádio da Luz on 7 July 2007, in a ceremony run by Bernard Weber's Swiss-based New7Wonders Foundation.
Q 30The statue stands within which national park?
Tijuca
Tijuca National Park surrounds the peak; its forest is largely a 19th-century replanting begun in 1861 after coffee plantations had stripped the hills.