Croatia
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59 free Croatia trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Croatia trivia quiz runs from Diocletian's retirement palace and the Republic of Ragusa to the Homeland War, EU accession and the Vatreni's three World Cup medals. Along the way it takes in the Adriatic islands, Plitvice's lakes, the Pula arena, the Baška tablet, the necktie and the Dalmatian, Tesla and Penkala, paški sir and štrukli, and why the flag has a checkerboard on it. The first questions are for anyone who has been on a Dalmatian beach; the last ones test people who know which king Pope John X wrote to in 925 and where Zlatni Rat is. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Croatia?
Zagreb
Zagreb: it grew from two rival hilltop towns, the clergy's Kaptol and the merchants' Gradec, which feuded for centuries before merging into one city in the 19th century.
Q 02Croatia's coastline lies on which sea?
Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea: Venice, at its northern end, ruled much of Croatia's coast from 1420 until 1797, when Napoleon handed both the city and its shore to Austria.
Q 03Croatia declared independence from which country in 1991?
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia: Croatia and Slovenia both declared independence on 25 June 1991, and the fighting that followed in Croatia did not end until 1995.
Q 04Which menswear item derives from a garment worn by Croatian soldiers in the 17th century?
The necktie
The necktie: French fashion copied the knotted scarves of Croat cavalrymen in the 1600s, and 'cravate', from the French word for a Croat, became the garment's name.
Q 05Which explorer does the Croatian island of Korčula claim as its native son?
Marco Polo
Marco Polo: Croatia's tourist board bills Korčula as 'the island of Marco Polo', though most historians say the great traveller was born in Venice.
Q 06Which dog breed is named after a historical region on Croatia's coast?
Dalmatian
Dalmatian: named after Dalmatia, the breed won fame abroad as a coach dog, trotting beside horse-drawn carriages and fire engines as escort and guard.
Q 07Which currency replaced the Croatian kuna on 1 January 2023?
The euro
The euro: Croatia switched at a fixed 7.5345 kuna to one euro, and for the first two weeks of 2023 shoppers could still pay in either currency.
Q 08The kuna, Croatia's currency from 1994 to 2023, was named after which animal?
Marten
Marten: a medieval tax here was paid in marten fur, and local silver coins carried the animal from the 13th century, long before the modern currency took its name.
Q 09On 1 July 2013 Croatia became the 28th member of which organisation?
The European Union
The European Union: Croatia applied in 2003 and joined ten years later, after neighbouring Slovenia spent ten months blocking the talks over a disputed sea border.
Q 10Roughly how many islands, islets and reefs lie along Croatia's coast?
About 1,200
About 1,200: surveys run from 1,185 to 1,246 depending on what counts as a rock or a reef, which is why Croatia calls itself the land of a thousand islands.
Q 11Which two islands, each around 405 square kilometres, are Croatia's largest?
Cres and Krk
Cres and Krk: equal in size, the neighbours could hardly differ more, since Krk has a bridge to the mainland and Rijeka's airport while Cres is reached only by ferry.
Q 12Which delicacy set a world record in 1999 when a 1.31 kg specimen was found in Croatia's Istria region?
White truffle
White truffle: Giancarlo Zigante found the giant near Buje and, instead of selling it, had it cooked for a celebration feast, keeping only a replica.
Q 13Croatia's territory around Dubrovnik is cut off from the rest of Croatia by whose coast?
Bosnia
Bosnia: its short strip of coast at Neum splits Croatia in two, so in 2022 Croatia opened a 2.4 km bridge that carries traffic around the gap without leaving the country.
Q 21Croatia lost its first FIFA World Cup final, in 2018, to which country?
France
France: Croatia had survived two penalty shoot-outs to get there, only to lose 4-2 to the same nation that had knocked it out of the 1998 semi-final.
Q 22Which Croatian striker won the Golden Shoe at the 1998 World Cup with six goals?
Davor Šuker
Davor Šuker: he scored in every match in which Croatia found the net, and his winner against the Netherlands secured third place at the country's first World Cup.
Q 23Who in 2018 became the first player other than Messi or Ronaldo to win the Ballon d'Or since 2007?
Luka Modrić
Luka Modrić: he spent years of his childhood as a war refugee in hotels in Zadar, learning the game in their car parks, and in 2018 he captained Croatia to the World Cup final.
Q 14Which Roman emperor built the seaside retirement palace around which the city of Split grew?
Diocletian
Diocletian: he gave up the throne in 305 and retired to his palace to garden, and when urged to rule again he is said to have replied that his cabbages mattered more.
Q 15Which Croatian city's Roman amphitheatre, built for 23,000 spectators, now hosts a summer film festival?
Pula
Pula: finished around AD 80 for gladiator fights, its arena has swapped combat for cinema as the open-air home of a summer film festival launched in 1954.
Q 16By what historical name was Dubrovnik known as capital of an independent maritime republic?
Ragusa
Ragusa: the little republic kept its independence for 450 years under a flag reading Libertas, until one of Napoleon's marshals abolished it in 1808.
Q 17The walls of Dubrovnik and Fort Lovrijenac stood in for which fictional city in Game of Thrones?
King's Landing
King's Landing: the first season shot the capital in Malta, but from season two the crew switched to Dubrovnik, whose sea walls gave them a ready-made medieval city.
Q 18Which national park, Croatia's oldest, is famed for a chain of terraced lakes linked by waterfalls?
Plitvice
Plitvice: its sixteen lakes spill into one another over tufa barriers that the lime-rich water itself keeps building, so the natural dams are still growing.
Q 19The Croatian flag's shield shows what pattern?
A red and white checkerboard
A red and white checkerboard: its 25 squares took the place of the communist red star on the flag in 1990, a year before Croatia declared independence.
Q 20In which team sport did Croatia's men win Olympic gold in both 1996 and 2004?
Handball
Handball: the national team has competed only since 1991, yet five years later it was Olympic champion in Atlanta, and it added the 2003 world title before winning again in Athens.
Q 24In 2001 Goran Ivanišević became the first man to win the Wimbledon singles title as what?
A wild card
A wild card: ranked 125th after a shoulder injury and beaten in three earlier finals, he needed the organisers' invitation just to play, then won the final 9-7 in the fifth set.
Q 25Croatian basketball star Dražen Petrović had his number 3 shirt retired by which NBA team?
New Jersey Nets
New Jersey Nets: Petrović had just become the team's top scorer when he was killed in a car crash in Germany in 1993, aged 28, and the club retired his shirt that same year.
Q 26Which Croatian athlete won three gold medals at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City?
Janica Kostelić
Janica Kostelić: Croatia had never won a Winter Olympic medal before her combined gold, and within days the skier had added the slalom, the giant slalom and a super-G silver.
Q 27Which famous inventor was born in Smiljan, a village in present-day Croatia?
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla: born to Serbian parents, he left for America in 1884 and built the alternating-current system that powers the world; his birthplace is now a memorial centre.
Q 28Croatian engineer Slavoljub Penkala registered a 1906 patent for what?
A mechanical pencil
A mechanical pencil: he called it the automatic pencil, patented a fountain pen a year later, and his factory was soon shipping both to some 70 countries.
Q 29Croatian-born Ivan Vučetić, who emigrated to Argentina, pioneered which police technique?
Fingerprint identification
Fingerprint identification: in 1892 his method exposed Francisca Rojas, who had killed her two children and blamed an intruder, the first murderer caught by a fingerprint.
Q 30Faust Vrančić's book Machinae Novae included Homo Volans, an early design for what?
A parachute
A parachute: his engraving shows a man drifting down under a cloth sail on a square wooden frame, though the tale that the ageing bishop tested it himself from a Venetian tower is unproven.