El Salvador
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95 free El Salvador trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
11 free El Salvador trivia questions with answers. Discover how much you know about El Salvador with our engaging trivia quiz. From its rich history and vibrant culture to stunning natural landmarks, this quiz covers essential facts about Central America's smallest country. Put your knowledge to the test and learn fascinating insights about El Salvador!
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Q 01Which city is the country's capital and its largest city, sitting in the Valle de las Hamacas?
San Salvador
San Salvador is not only the capital of El Salvador but also its largest city and primary political, cultural, educational, and financial center.
Q 02In what year did El Salvador declare its independence from Spain?
1821
El Salvador signed the Act of Independence of Central America on 15 September 1821 in Guatemala City, the same day as the rest of the captaincy general.
Q 03Which colourful bird, known locally as the torogoz, is the national bird of El Salvador?
Turquoise-browed Motmot
The Turquoise-browed Motmot's local name torogoz imitates its call; it is also the national bird of Nicaragua, where it is the guardabarranco.
Q 04Which ocean borders El Salvador to the south?
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is El Salvador's only coast; it is the one Central American country with no Caribbean shoreline.
Q 05Which Salvadoran archbishop was assassinated at the altar in March 1980?
Óscar Romero
Óscar Romero, archbishop from 1977, was shot through the heart on 24 March 1980 while celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Divine Providence hospital in San Salvador.
Q 06In 2001 El Salvador abandoned the colon, its currency since 1892, in favour of which foreign currency?
US dollar
El Salvador adopted the US dollar under the Monetary Integration Law that took effect on 1 January 2001, joining Ecuador and Panama among Latin America's formally dollarised economies.
Q 07Which country lies along El Salvador's north-western border?
Guatemala
Guatemala lies to the north-west; Honduras, the only other neighbour, fought El Salvador in the brief 1969 Football War.
Q 08El Salvador's twelve-year civil war ended in January 1992 with peace accords signed in which foreign capital?
Mexico City
The Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City on 16 January 1992 under United Nations mediation, ending twelve years of war between the government and the FMLN.
Q 09What is El Salvador's national dish, a thick corn griddle cake stuffed with cheese, beans or chicharron?
Pupusa
The pupusa has its own national day; its ancestor was a thick corn tortilla eaten in the pre-Columbian era.
Q 10Which Salvadoran site, buried by ash around AD 600 and UNESCO-listed in 1993, is nicknamed the Pompeii of the Americas?
Joya de Ceren
The eruption of the Loma Caldera sealed the village so quickly that everyday objects were left exactly where their owners had set them down.
Q 11Ilamatepec, El Salvador's highest volcano at 2,381 metres, is better known by which name?
Santa Ana
Santa Ana volcano, Ilamatepec in Nawat, rises 2,381 metres in Santa Ana department in the west of the country; its last eruption was on 1 October 2005.
Q 12What is the affectionate nickname of El Salvador?
Pulgarcito de América
Pulgarcito de América, 'Tom Thumb of the Americas', refers to El Salvador being the smallest country on the Central American mainland, smaller than the US state of Massachusetts.
Q 13The Nahua-speaking Pipil people of El Salvador originally migrated from where?
Central Mexico
Q 21By what other name is the 1969 El Salvador–Honduras 'Football War' known?
The 100 Hour War
The 100 Hour War began on 14 July 1969 and ended with an OAS-brokered ceasefire on the night of 18 July, roughly 100 hours later; Salvadoran troops withdrew in early August.
Q 22The Football War got its nickname from rioting during a qualifier for which tournament?
The 1970 FIFA World Cup
The riots came at the June 1969 qualifiers for the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico; the deeper causes were Honduran land reform and some 300,000 Salvadoran migrants living in Honduras.
Q 23In which year did Pope Francis canonize the assassinated archbishop of El Salvador's capital?
2018
The Pipil migrated from Central Mexico in waves from roughly the 8th century, after Teotihuacan's decline, bringing Nawat, a close relative of Nahuatl.
Q 14The Pipil called their territory Kuskatan, a Nawat word meaning what?
The Place of Precious Jewels
Kuskatan means 'The Place of Precious Jewels', from the Nawat kuskat (jewel or necklace); Hispanicised as Cuzcatlán, it names a department whose capital is Cojutepeque.
Q 15Which conquistador led the first incursion into Cuzcatlan in June 1524?
Pedro de Alvarado
Pedro de Alvarado entered Cuzcatlan in June 1524 after the battle of Acajutla, where a Pipil arrow left him lame; he withdrew and left the conquest to his brother Gonzalo de Alvarado.
Q 16Which short-lived state briefly annexed El Salvador before it joined the Federal Republic of Central America in 1823?
The First Mexican Empire
The First Mexican Empire under Agustín de Iturbide annexed Central America in January 1822; Iturbide abdicated in March 1823 and the provinces declared their own independence that July.
Q 17Which natural dye crop was El Salvador's main export in the 19th century, before coffee?
Indigo
Indigo (añil) was El Salvador's chief export until synthetic dyes undercut it in the 1870s and 1880s; coffee then took over and at its peak supplied roughly 90% of export earnings.
Q 18The brutal 1932 suppression of a rural revolt in western El Salvador, led by Farabundo Martí, is remembered by what name?
La Matanza
La Matanza killed between 10,000 and 40,000 people, mostly Pipil peasants, after the rising led by Feliciano Ama and Farabundo Martí.
Q 19The Salvadoran Civil War's guerrilla coalition took its name from which revolutionary?
Farabundo Martí
Farabundo Martí, a co-founder of the Communist Party of El Salvador in 1930, was executed by firing squad on 1 February 1932 after the peasant uprising; the FMLN adopted his name in 1980.
Q 20According to the UN, roughly how many people were killed in the Salvadoran Civil War?
Over 75,000
The UN Truth Commission's 1993 report put the dead at over 75,000, with around 8,000 more disappeared, in a war that ran from 1980 to 1992.
Pope Francis canonised Óscar Romero in St Peter's Square on 14 October 2018, three years after his 2015 beatification in San Salvador.
Q 24On 7 September 2021, El Salvador became the first country to adopt what as legal tender?
Bitcoin
Bitcoin became legal tender on 7 September 2021, 90 days after the Bitcoin Law was published in the official gazette; the state Chivo wallet launched the same day.
Q 25Which global lender pressured El Salvador into removing the cryptocurrency's legal-tender status in 2025?
The International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund made the change a condition of a $1.4 billion loan agreed in December 2024; in January 2025 the legislature made Bitcoin acceptance voluntary.
Q 26Nayib Bukele first became president of El Salvador in which year?
2019
Nayib Bukele won the February 2019 election outright with about 53% of the vote and took office on 1 June 2019; a court ruling later allowed his 2024 re-election.
Q 27In 2023, who became the first female president in Salvadoran history, serving in an acting capacity?
Claudia Rodríguez de Guevara
Claudia Rodríguez de Guevara, Bukele's private secretary, was designated acting president on 1 December 2023 while he and Vice President Félix Ulloa took leave to campaign.
Q 28El Salvador's colón, its currency from 1892, was named after which historical figure?
Christopher Columbus
The colón honoured Christopher Columbus, Cristóbal Colón in Spanish; it replaced the Salvadoran peso in 1892 and was divided into 100 centavos.
Q 29El Salvador's flag is a horizontal triband of which colours?
Blue-white-blue
The blue-white-blue triband copies the flag of the Federal Republic of Central America, itself modelled on Argentina's, with the national coat of arms on the central white band.
Q 30From 1865 to 1912, El Salvador's flag, with a red canton and alternating stripes, resembled which country's?
The United States
Adopted under President Francisco Dueñas in 1865, the flag copied the Stars and Stripes of the United States, with white stars for the departments in a red canton and blue-and-white stripes.