Egypt Trivia
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98 free Egypt trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Most Egypt quizzes stop at the pharaohs. This one is about the country as it exists today and the two centuries that shaped it: a transcontinental state of more than 100 million people, the most populous in the Arab world, squeezed into the Nile Valley and Delta with the Sahara on either side. The questions cover geography (the canal, the Sinai, the highest mountain, the borders), the modern political story from Muhammad Ali and the British occupation through Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak and the 2011 revolution, and the culture that made Cairo the Hollywood of the East: its Nobel laureate, its first talkie, its UNESCO-listed street food and its national drink. There is football too, because the Pharaohs hold the Africa Cup of Nations record and Mohamed Salah is the country's most famous export. Fifty questions, four options each, with a one-line explanation after every answer. Expect the easy ones to be familiar from the news and the expert ones to test whether you have actually been there.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which queen was the last active ruler of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty?
Cleopatra
Cleopatra: Octavian beat her and Mark Antony at Actium in 31 BC, and after her death Egypt became a province of Rome.
Q 02Which river runs the length of Egypt into the Mediterranean?
Nile
Nile: its yearly flood left fertile silt along its banks, turning dry land into farmland.
Q 03Which animal, sacred to the goddess Bastet, did ancient Egyptians mummify in huge numbers?
Cat
Cat: Herodotus wrote that when a household cat died, everyone living in the house shaved off their eyebrows in mourning.
Q 04Which scholar used the Rosetta Stone to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs?
Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion: he worked out that many of the signs stood for sounds, not only for ideas.
Q 05Which religion is Egypt's official state religion?
Islam
Islam: Egypt came under Muslim rule when Amr ibn al-As's Arab army took it from the Byzantine Empire between 639 and 642.
Q 06What is the currency of Egypt?
Pound
Pound: in 2016 Egypt let it float, as part of reforms backed by a $12 billion IMF loan.
Q 07Which Egyptian site is the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World?
Giza Necropolis
Giza Necropolis: its Great Pyramid was once cased in smooth white limestone, but nearly all of that casing has since been stripped away.
Q 08What is Egypt's second-largest city?
Alexandria
Alexandria: after Alexander the Great died, his general Ptolemy seized his body, and it was eventually entombed in the city Alexander had founded.
Q 09Egypt borders which country to the west?
Libya
Libya: a line of Libyan chieftains who had settled in Egypt later took its throne, founding the 22nd Dynasty.
Q 10Which Egyptian scored twice against Congo in 2017 to send Egypt to the World Cup?
Mohamed Salah
Mohamed Salah: Congo had equalised with three minutes left, before his late penalty won the game 2–1.
Q 11Which sea along Egypt's east coast is famed for its coral reefs?
Red Sea
Red Sea: it fills a rift where the African and Arabian plates are slowly pulling apart.
Q 12Which goddess was the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus?
Isis
Isis: her cult spread far beyond Egypt, and devotees across the Roman Empire worshipped her.
Q 13Which president was forced out by the 2011 Egyptian revolution?
Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak: a court sentenced him to life in prison in 2012 over protesters' deaths, but he was finally acquitted in 2017.
Who became president of Egypt in 2014?
Q 21Which country helped Egypt build its High Dam, completed in 1970?
Soviet Union
Soviet Union: Moscow stepped in after the United States and Britain withdrew their offer to finance the dam in 1956.
Q 22Mohamed Morsi, elected president in 2012, belonged to which movement?
Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood: after the military removed Morsi in 2013, the government banned the movement and declared it a terrorist organisation.
Q 23The city of Luxor was formerly known by what name?
Thebes
Thebes: once Egypt's capital, it was sacked in the 660s BC by the army of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi: Mohamed Morsi had promoted him to defence minister in 2012, and a year later Sisi led the military's removal of Morsi.
Q 15Anwar Sadat signed a 1979 peace treaty with which country?
Israel
Israel: in response the Arab League suspended Egypt and moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis, readmitting Egypt only in 1989.
Q 16Which Cairo plaza was the focus of the 2011 protests?
Tahrir Square
The name means Liberation Square; it was briefly renamed for Sadat in 1981 but nobody used the new name.
Q 17Which Egyptian leader nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, provoking the Suez Crisis?
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser: he vowed that canal tolls would pay for his dam, and the crisis left him a hero across the Arab world.
Q 18Who invaded Egypt in 1798 and won the Battle of the Pyramids?
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte: within weeks Nelson destroyed his fleet at Aboukir Bay, leaving the French army cut off in Egypt.
Q 19Which Egyptian writer won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature?
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz: in 1994 an extremist stabbed him in the neck, but he survived the attack.
Q 20Egypt joined which country in 1958 to form the United Arab Republic?
Syria
Syria: it pulled out after a military coup in 1961, yet Egypt kept calling itself the United Arab Republic until 1971.
Q 24Whose penalty did Egypt save first in the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations final?
Didier Drogba
Didier Drogba: he had also sent a late chance over from six yards, and Egypt went on to win the shootout 4–2 in Cairo.
Q 25Which university in Cairo grew out of a 10th-century mosque?
Al-Azhar
Al-Azhar: in 2019 its Grand Imam, Ahmed el-Tayeb, signed a joint declaration on human fraternity with Pope Francis.
Q 26Which king abdicated after the Free Officers coup of 1952?
Farouk
Farouk: he abdicated in favour of his son, but within a year the monarchy was abolished and Egypt became a republic.
Q 27Which Egyptian dish of lentils, rice and pasta is UNESCO-listed heritage?
Koshary
Koshary: it started out as cheap, filling food for the poor, and today it is often called Egypt's national dish.
Q 28Which Frenchman formed the Compagnie de Suez in 1858 to dig the Suez Canal?
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand de Lesseps: his later attempt to dig a Panama Canal collapsed amid disease and debt, and the company was wound up.
Q 29Amr Shabana, Ali Farag and Ramy Ashour were world number ones in which sport?
Squash
Squash: in 2017 Ali Farag and his wife, Nour El Tayeb, won the US Open men's and women's titles on the same day.
Q 30Who became the first president of Egypt in 1953?
Muhammad Naguib
Muhammad Naguib: he lost a power struggle with the other Free Officers and was forced out of the presidency in 1954.