Czech Republic
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57 free Czech Republic trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Czech Republic trivia quiz covers Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia from Great Moravia and Good King Wenceslas to the Hussites, the defenestrations, Charles IV's Prague, the Velvet Revolution and the Velvet Divorce. It also gets into what Czechs gave the world: the pilsner, the word robot, the sugar cube, soft contact lenses, Semtex, Škoda, Dvořák and Smetana, Kafka and Kundera, Navratilova and Jágr. The first questions suit anyone who has crossed the Charles Bridge; the last ones test people who know which Olympic treble Zátopek pulled off and how many bones hang in the Sedlec chandelier. 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.
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Q 01The landlocked Czech Republic borders Germany, Slovakia and which two other countries?
Austria and Poland
Austria and Poland. Czechoslovakia also bordered Hungary until 1993, when Slovakia became independent and took that border with it.
Q 02By what short name did the Czech foreign ministry recommend the country be called in English?
Czechia
Czechia was the ministry's choice as early as 1993, yet it took until 2016 for the government to approve it and register it with the United Nations as the country's official short name.
Q 03Silver coins known as thalers, struck in the Bohemian mining town of Jáchymov, gave their name to which currency?
The dollar
The dollar began as the Joachimsthaler, named for Joachimsthal, as Jáchymov was then known, and shortened to 'thaler'. American colonists used the word for Spanish silver coins, and the young United States kept the name.
Q 04The 1989 protests that ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia are known as what?
The Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution was a non-violent handover: after riot police broke up a student march in Prague on 17 November 1989, strikes and daily mass rallies made the Communist Party give up power within weeks.
Q 05Which playwright and dissident became the first president of the Czech Republic?
Václav Havel
Václav Havel served four years in a communist prison for his human-rights work. As Czechoslovakia's president he resigned in 1992 rather than preside over its breakup, then won the top office of the new Czech state.
Q 06As of 2023, the Czech Republic held which world record related to beer?
Highest consumption per person
Highest consumption per person: China drinks the most beer in total, but Czechs out-drink everyone per head, and 2023 was their 31st straight year on top.
Q 07The world's first pale lager was brewed in 1842 in which Czech city?
Plzeň
Plzeň's citizens founded a shared brewery and hired a Bavarian brewer, Josef Groll, who made the first batch in October 1842. His golden lager gave its name to pilsner, a style now brewed around the world.
Q 08The Czech brewery Budweiser Budvar has fought a century-long trademark battle with which company?
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch, the American maker of Budweiser, has fought over the name since the early 1900s. The Czech beer is therefore sold as Czechvar in North America, while the American one goes by 'Bud' in most of Europe.
Q 09The Czech Republic covers three historical lands: Bohemia, Moravia and the southern tip of which other?
Silesia
Silesia was mostly lost in 1742, when Frederick the Great of Prussia took it from the Habsburgs. The sliver they held on to, around Opava and Ostrava, is today's Czech Silesia.
Q 10The word 'robot' was introduced to the world by which Czech writer's 1920 play R.U.R.?
Karel Čapek
Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. premiered in 1921; the word comes from robota, forced labour, and Čapek credited his brother Josef, a painter, with suggesting it.
Q 11The 1618 Defenestration of Prague, in which two royal governors were thrown from a window, sparked which war?
The Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War began with this Bohemian revolt against Habsburg rule; the Protestant rebels' defeat at White Mountain in 1620 followed, and the wider war ran until 1648.
Q 12In a later Protestant telling, the officials thrown from a Prague window in 1618 landed on what?
Dung heap
A dung heap was probably the Protestant answer to Catholics, who said angels or the Virgin Mary had saved the three men. One of them, the secretary Fabricius, was later granted the noble name 'von Hohenfall': of Highfall.
Q 13Which Czech university did a Bohemian king found in 1348?
Q 21Under the Treaty of Versailles, Czechoslovakia got a 99-year lease on docks in which port city?
Hamburg
Hamburg gave the landlocked country a foothold on the sea, where goods brought down river could be moved onto ocean-going ships. The lease began in 1929, passed to the Czech Republic in 1993 and was due to run until 2028.
Q 22Which organisation did the Czech Republic join in May 2004?
European Union
The European Union took in ten states at once, most of them from the old communist bloc. Border checks with the Czech Republic's neighbours ended in December 2007, when it joined the Schengen Area.
Q 23Which Moravian city is home to Palacký University, founded in 1573 and the second oldest in the Czech Republic?
Olomouc
Charles University
Charles University, founded by Charles IV, lost many of its foreign scholars in 1409, when a royal decree handed control to the Czech masters. The outvoted professors and students walked out and founded the University of Leipzig.
Q 14Charles Bridge in Prague crosses which river?
Vltava
Vltava floods badly damaged the earlier Judith Bridge in 1342, so a stone replacement was begun in 1357. It remained the only way across the river in Prague until 1841.
Q 15On Prague's astronomical clock, which figure rings a bell to start the hourly procession of Apostles?
Skeleton
A skeleton, standing for Death, pulls the bell rope and nods towards a Turk, who turns his head away in refusal. The oldest parts of the clock date from 1410.
Q 16Guinness World Records lists which Czech landmark as the largest ancient castle in the world?
Prague Castle
Prague Castle, begun in the 9th century, covers about seven hectares. Its cathedral guards the Bohemian crown jewels behind a door with seven locks, whose keys are held by seven officials, the president among them.
Q 17The 1968 Prague Spring was crushed by an invasion of forces from which alliance?
The Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact turned on one of its own members: overnight on 20–21 August 1968, Soviet-led armies occupied Czechoslovakia and ended Alexander Dubček's reforms, while fellow member Romania refused to take part.
Q 18Czechoslovakia added a blue triangle to its flag in 1920 because the white-over-red design matched which country's?
Poland
Poland's flag is the same white over red, so the blue wedge went on in 1920. The Czech Republic kept the design in 1993, despite an agreement that neither successor state would use Czechoslovakia's symbols.
Q 19What is the currency of the Czech Republic?
Koruna
Koruna, the Czech crown, replaced the Czechoslovak koruna in 1993. The country is legally bound to adopt the euro one day, but it has no target date for doing so.
Q 20Sněžka, the highest peak in the Czech Republic, stands in which mountain range?
Giant Mountains
The Giant Mountains, Krkonoše in Czech, top out at about 1,600 metres on Sněžka. The state border runs over the summit itself, so walkers can step from one country into another at the top.
Olomouc had a Jesuit college that won the right to award degrees in 1573, turning it into a university. The city's 35-metre Holy Trinity Column, a Baroque showpiece, is on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
Q 24Which composer wrote the 'New World' Symphony while directing a conservatory in New York?
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvořák directed the National Conservatory in New York from 1892 to 1895, writing the symphony in 1893 and his 'American' quartet that summer in Spillville, Iowa.
Q 25Bedřich Smetana finished Má vlast, his six tone poems about Bohemia, years after losing what?
His hearing
His hearing failed completely in late 1874, the year he gave up conducting Prague's opera. Smetana composed almost all of Má vlast, 'My Fatherland', without being able to hear a note of it.
Q 26Franz Kafka, born in Prague in 1883, wrote The Metamorphosis and The Trial in which language?
German
German was the language of Kafka's home and schooling in Prague. He asked for his unpublished manuscripts to be destroyed, but his friend Max Brod ignored the request and published them.
Q 27Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, went into exile in which country in 1975?
France
France became his home for good. Stripped of his Czechoslovak citizenship in 1979, Kundera took French nationality in 1981 and from the 1990s wrote his novels in French.
Q 28Which Czech-born tennis player won nine Wimbledon singles titles between 1978 and 1990?
Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova asked the United States for asylum at 18, during the 1975 US Open, and Czechoslovakia stripped her of citizenship. She won her first two Wimbledon titles before becoming an American in 1981.
Q 29Emil Zátopek won which events at the 1952 Olympics?
5,000 m, 10,000 m and marathon
5,000 m, 10,000 m and marathon: the marathon was the first he had ever run, and nobody has matched the treble since. His wife Dana won javelin gold at the same Games.
Q 30As of 2024, Věra Čáslavská is the only gymnast to have done what at the Olympics?
Won gold in every individual event
Won gold in every individual event: the all-around, vault and beam in 1964, then bars and floor in 1968. She capped her last gold by marrying the runner Josef Odložil in Mexico City before the Games were over.