East Timor Trivia
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49 free East Timor trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
East Timor, officially Timor-Leste, was the first new sovereign state of the 21st century, and this quiz covers how it got there: the sandalwood trade that drew the Portuguese, the founding of Dili in 1769, the Battle of Timor in World War II, the Carnation Revolution, nine days of independence in 1975 before Indonesia invaded, a 24-year occupation and genocide, the Santa Cruz massacre, two Nobel Peace Prizes, the referendum of 1999 and the flag-raising of 20 May 2002. Easy questions ask for the capital, the neighbours, the religion and the currency; the harder ones want the tautology hidden in the country's name, the meaning of 'Lorosa'e', the exclave surrounded by Indonesia, the highest mountain, the year Portugal founded Dili, the guerrilla leader captured in a tunnel and the crop that makes up 90% of non-oil exports. There is also Portuguese and Tetum, the tais weavers, the sacred houses, the Cristo Rei statue, the crocodile on the football shirts and the petroleum fund the country lives on. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its people and its history, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of East Timor?
Dili
The Portuguese founded it in 1769 after being pushed out of Kupang by the Dutch. Baucau in the east is the second city.
Q 02East Timor shares the island of Timor with which country?
Indonesia
The border was fixed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1914, dividing the old Dutch and Portuguese halves.
Q 03Which country lies to the south of East Timor across the Timor Sea?
Australia
Australian-led INTERFET troops restored order in 1999, and the two countries long wrangled over the oil and gas of the Timor Sea.
Q 04East Timor's independence on 20 May 2002 gave it what distinction?
First new nation of the 21st century
Xanana Gusmão was sworn in as its first president that day; UN membership followed on 27 September 2002.
Q 05Which European country ruled East Timor as a colony until 1975?
Portugal
Portugal held the eastern half of Timor from the 16th century, and Portuguese Timor remained a neglected outpost until Lisbon began decolonising after 1974.
Q 06East Timor's two official languages are Tetum and which European language?
Portuguese
It is the only sovereign Asian country where Portuguese is official. English and Indonesian are 'working languages' under the constitution.
Q 07The name 'Timor' comes from a Malay word meaning what?
East
So the country's name means 'East East'. In Tetum it is Timor Lorosa'e, 'where the sun rises'.
Q 08Which movement declared East Timor's independence on 28 November 1975 and led the guerrilla resistance?
Fretilin
The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor held territory as an army until 1978, then fought on from the mountains.
Q 09By what name is the 1991 massacre of pro-independence demonstrators in a Dili cemetery known?
Santa Cruz
The Santa Cruz massacre of 12 November 1991 was filmed by British cameraman Max Stahl; his smuggled footage turned world opinion against the occupation.
Q 10Which two East Timorese shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize?
José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Belo
Ramos-Horta spent the occupation lobbying abroad and later became president twice; Belo was the Catholic bishop of Dili.
Q 11In November 1992 Indonesian troops finally captured the leader of the armed resistance hiding where?
In a tunnel under a house near Dili
Xanana Gusmão was sentenced to life, then 20 years; he ran the resistance from Jakarta's Cipinang prison and later became the country's first president.
Q 12In which year did East Timorese vote for independence in a UN-supervised referendum?
1999
In the UN-run ballot of 30 August 1999, 78.5% voted to reject autonomy within Indonesia; President Habibie had offered the vote after a letter from Australia's John Howard.
Q 13Which UN diplomat ran the UNTAET transitional administration of East Timor from 1999 to 2002?
Sérgio Vieira de Mello
Q 21What is the WWII guerrilla campaign by Timorese volunteers and Allied troops against Japan known as?
The Battle of Timor
The Battle of Timor saw Australian commandos and Timorese helpers harass the Japanese from 1942 until the last Australians were withdrawn in February 1943; 40,000 to 70,000 Timorese civilians died.
Q 22Which 1974 upheaval in the colonial power set East Timor's decolonisation in motion?
The Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 toppled Portugal's Estado Novo; parties formed in the colony, civil war broke out in August 1975 and the Portuguese governor withdrew offshore.
Q 23What minimum did a truth commission put on conflict deaths under Indonesian occupation from 1974 to 1999?
Sérgio Vieira de Mello served as UN Transitional Administrator of East Timor from December 1999 until independence in May 2002; he was killed in the 2003 Baghdad bombing.
Q 14What currency does East Timor use?
The US dollar
East Timor adopted the US dollar as its legal tender in 2000 under UN administration and mints only its own centavo coins for small change.
Q 15About what proportion of East Timorese are Roman Catholic?
Nearly 98%
Only 20% were Catholic at the 1975 invasion; Indonesia's requirement that citizens follow a monotheistic faith drove mass conversions.
Q 16Along with which other nation is East Timor one of only two predominantly Catholic countries in Asia?
The Philippines
The Philippines, colonised by Spain, and East Timor, colonised by Portugal, are Asia's only two majority-Catholic nations; about four in five Filipinos are Catholic.
Q 17Which coastal exclave of East Timor is entirely surrounded by Indonesian territory?
Oecusse
Oecusse, on the north coast of Indonesian West Timor, is cut off from the rest of East Timor; the Portuguese first settled Timor at Lifau there, and it was later made a Special Administrative Region.
Q 18What is East Timor's highest mountain?
Mount Tatamailau
Mount Tatamailau, also called Ramelau, rises 2,963 metres and is topped by a statue of the Virgin Mary; pilgrims climb it for sunrise.
Q 19Which fragrant wood was Timor's great export from the 13th century, drawing European traders?
Sandalwood
Sandalwood, prized for incense and carving, drew Chinese and later Portuguese traders to Timor; the 14th-century Majapahit chronicle Nagarakretagama lists the island among the empire's tributaries.
Q 20In which year did the colonial power found Dili, beginning effective occupation of the island's east?
1769
Governor António Teles de Meneses moved the Portuguese seat from Lifau to Dili in 1769, after the Dutch had earlier taken Solor and Kupang from Portugal.
103,000
The CAVR truth commission's 2005 Chega! report put the minimum at about 103,000 deaths: 18,600 killings or disappearances and 84,200 excess deaths from hunger and illness, with an upper estimate of 183,000.
Q 24East Timor's flag has a red field and a yellow triangle overlaid by a black triangle bearing what?
A white star
A five-pointed white star, symbolising peace, sits on the black triangle; the design first flew at the 1975 declaration and was raised again at midnight on 20 May 2002.
Q 25The 27-metre Cristo Rei statue overlooking Dili was unveiled in 1996 as a gift from whom?
Indonesia's President Suharto
President Suharto presented the statue in 1996 to mark 20 years since Indonesia's annexation; modelled on Rio's Christ the Redeemer, it is one of the country's main tourist sights.
Q 26East Timor's national football team is nicknamed 'Lafaek' after which animal, sacred in local legend?
The crocodile
Legend says the island itself is a crocodile that carried a boy across the sea and turned into land. The team joined FIFA in 2005.
Q 27Which crop made up about 90% of East Timor's non-fossil-fuel exports from 2013 to 2019?
Coffee
Coffee, mostly arabica grown around Ermera, made up around 90% of non-oil exports, yet all such exports totalled only about US$20 million a year, dwarfed by oil and gas revenue.
Q 28In the early 2020s, the Timor-Leste Petroleum Fund provided roughly what share of government spending?
80%
The Petroleum Fund financed roughly 80% of state spending in the early 2020s; it held about US$19 billion in 2021, and withdrawals above its estimated sustainable income were routine after 2009.
Q 29How many municipalities is East Timor divided into?
Fourteen
East Timor has fourteen municipalities, the newest carved out of an offshore island in 2022; below them sit 442 sucos, or villages, that reflect traditional community identities.
Q 30What are the 'uma lulik' at the centre of East Timorese community life?
Sacred houses
Uma lulik are sacred houses, ancestral clan shrines built on stilts with high thatched roofs; many were destroyed under Indonesian occupation and later rebuilt.