Culture Trivia
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159 free Culture trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
99 free culture trivia questions with answers. Why is a kimono never worn right-over-left unless you are dead? Which number do East Asian buildings skip? Who chases a cheese down an English hill every spring? These culture trivia questions roam the world's customs: Diwali and Holi, Day of the Dead, Songkran and Loy Krathong, Oktoberfest, La Tomatina, Nowruz, Eid, Kwanzaa, Krampus and La Befana, along with dress (kimono, sari, kilt, hanbok), greetings (namaste, hongi, the samurai bow), art forms (flamenco, kabuki, capoeira, haka, throat singing) and everyday habits from chopsticks to hongbao envelopes. The set is built for pub quizzes, classrooms, and anyone who likes knowing why people do what they do. About a third of the questions are gentle, a third need some travel or reading, and the rest will stump most tables. Every answer is checked against a cited source shown under the question, so you can settle the argument with evidence rather than a listicle.
30 of 159 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Diwali is best known as the Hindu festival of what?
Lights
Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights; it falls between mid-October and mid-November and is also celebrated, in variations, by Jains and Sikhs.
Q 02Which Hindu spring festival celebrates the love of Radha and Krishna with thrown coloured powders?
Holi
Holi, the festival of colours, opens with the Holika bonfire and recalls Vishnu's victory as Narasimha over the demon king Hiranyakashipu.
Q 03On which dates is Mexico's Day of the Dead traditionally celebrated?
November 1 and 2
Día de Muertos is observed on November 1 and 2, coinciding with All Saints' and All Souls' Days; families gather to remember the departed, often with humorous anecdotes.
Q 04Thailand's Songkran new-year festival is celebrated on which date each year?
13 April
Songkran begins on 13 April and runs to 15 April, lining up with new-year festivals across South and Southeast Asia on the Theravada Buddhist calendar.
Q 05Chinese New Year celebrations end on the 15th day of the year with what?
The Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month, the first full moon of the year, and its celebration dates back to the Han dynasty.
Q 06Roughly how many visitors does Munich's Oktoberfest draw each year?
Seven million
Oktoberfest, the world's largest Volksfest, draws roughly seven million visitors (7.2 million in 2023) to Munich's Theresienwiese from mid-September to the first Sunday in October.
Q 07La Tomatina, said to be the world's biggest food fight, is held in which Spanish town?
Buñol
La Tomatina is held in Buñol, near Valencia, on the last Wednesday of August; it began as a food fight between friends in 1945.
Q 08A kimono is worn left side over right, unless the wearer is what?
Deceased
Right-over-left is reserved for dressing the dead, which is why tourists get corrected quickly.
Q 09A sari can be as long as how many yards of unstitched fabric?
9
Lengths run from 4.5 to 9 yards, worn as a dress in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan.
Q 10The modern small version of Scotland's national garment is essentially what?
The bottom half of the older great kilt
The small kilt (fèileadh beag) is essentially the bottom half of the older great kilt; the 16th-century great kilt was a full-length garment whose upper half doubled as a cloak.
Q 11What does the word 'hanbok' literally mean?
Korean clothing
Hanbok literally means 'Korean clothing' (han, Korea; bok, clothing); North Koreans call the same traditional attire Chosŏn-ot.
Q 12Flamenco developed within the gitano subculture of which Spanish region?
Andalusia
It also has historical presence in Extremadura and Murcia; the Romani gitanos drove its professionalisation.
Q 13Kabuki theatre is thought to have been founded by whom?
A female dancer, Izumo no Okuni
Izumo no Okuni, a female dancer, founded kabuki in Kyoto around 1603; her all-female troupe performed dances and light sketches, though the form is now performed by men.
Q 21A Latin American girl's coming-of-age celebration marks which birthday?
15th
The quinceañera marks a girl's 15th birthday; the Latin American rite mixes Spanish Catholic traditions with pre-Columbian ones, and the guest of honour usually wears a tiara.
Q 22Japan's hanami custom is the enjoyment of what?
Cherry blossoms
Cherry blossoms last only a week or two, so the Japan Meteorological Agency announces a bloom forecast; they open around the second week of January on Okinawa.
Q 23The Carnival of Venice was abolished in which year?
1797
The Carnival of Venice was abolished in 1797 after Napoleon ended the Republic and the city passed to Austria; it was revived in 1979 and ends on Shrove Tuesday.
Q 14Capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art, was first mentioned in an official document in 1789 as what?
A criminal activity
Capoeira's first official mention, in 1789, treated it as a criminal activity: a slave named Adam was arrested for practising it. Scholars trace its roots to engolo, a Bantu martial art from Angola.
Q 15What is the communal Māori meeting ground, fronted by a carved meeting house, called?
Marae
A marae is the communal meeting ground of a Māori iwi or hapū, fronted by the carved wharenui meeting house; visitors are welcomed onto it with a pōwhiri.
Q 16Which social class in Japan produced the first detailed manuals on how to bow?
The samurai
The rise of the warrior class in the Kamakura period brought disciplined etiquette texts on proper bowing.
Q 17The Māori hongi greeting involves doing what?
Pressing noses together
The hongi is done by pressing noses together, often with foreheads touching, to share the breath of life; it is exchanged at pōwhiri welcome ceremonies.
Q 18The Hindu greeting namaste is usually spoken with what gesture?
Palms pressed together, slight bow
Namaste is spoken with palms pressed together at the chest and a slight bow; it is used by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains at any time of day.
Q 19The word 'sauna' comes from which language?
Finnish
Finnish gave us sauna, an ancient word for both the traditional Finnish bath and the bathhouse itself.
Q 20Henna body art, or mehndi, uses a dye made from what?
Dried leaves of a shrub
Henna dye is made from the dried, powdered leaves of the shrub Lawsonia inermis; it has stained hair and skin since ancient Egypt, and the marks fade in one to three weeks.
Q 24What do runners chase down Cooper's Hill near Brockworth each spring?
A wheel of Double Gloucester
A wheel of Double Gloucester cheese is rolled down the hill and the runners tumble after it, with injuries routine; written records of the race go back to the 1820s.
Q 25Eid al-Fitr marks the end of what?
Ramadan's month of fasting
Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, and falls on the first day of Shawwal, the tenth month of the Islamic calendar.
Q 26Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is timed to what?
The spring equinox
It usually falls between 19 and 22 March and is celebrated by Persianate cultures well beyond Iran.
Q 27Cinco de Mayo commemorates a Mexican victory over which country's army in 1862?
France
General Ignacio Zaragoza won at Puebla; the French later won a second battle there and occupied Mexico City.
Q 28For roughly how long have chopsticks been used in the Sinosphere?
Over 3,000 years
Chopsticks have been used for over 3,000 years: bronze pairs from the Shang capital at Yinxu date to about 1200 BC. They began in China and spread to Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
Q 29What are the red envelopes of cash given at Chinese New Year called in Mandarin?
Hongbao
Hongbao is the Mandarin name; lai see is Cantonese and ang pau Hokkien. WeChat launched a digital hongbao in 2014.
Q 30Boxing Day, 26 December, originated where?
The United Kingdom
Boxing Day originated in the United Kingdom, where servants and tradespeople received 'Christmas boxes' the day after Christmas; it is now marked across the Commonwealth.