Genghis Khan Trivia
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57 free Genghis Khan trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Genghis Khan trivia quiz follows Temüjin from an abandoned family on the Onon River to master of the largest contiguous empire in history: the poisoned father, the murdered half-brother, the kidnapped bride, the blood brother turned enemy, the assembly of 1206, the wars against Western Xia, the Jin and the Khwarazmian shah, and a death that was kept secret while a city fell. The easy questions cover the outline: his birth name, his wife, his heir, the grandson who founded the Yuan dynasty. The harder half is for readers of the Secret History: the tribe that poisoned his father, the phobia the Secret History admits to, the unit of a thousand, the size of the keshig, the shaman who tried to split the family, the spitting response to a Jin envoy, the border town where a caravan was massacred, the Taoist patriarch summoned to the Hindu Kush, the scribe who gave the Mongols an alphabet, and the thirty maidens sacrificed at his grave. Every answer was checked against Genghis Khan's encyclopaedia entry before publishing. If you enjoy this, try our Alexander the Great, Marco Polo and medieval history quizzes next.
30 of 57 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Genghis Khan's birth name?
Temüjin
Temüjin was the name of an enemy chief his father had just captured, and the Secret History says the newborn was named after him to mark the victory.
Q 02Genghis Khan was born into which clan of the Mongols?
Borjigin
Borjigin princes outlasted the empire by centuries: the clan was still supplying rulers in Mongolia in the 20th century, some 700 years after Genghis was born into it.
Q 03According to the most prominent legend, what was Genghis clutching in his hand when he was born?
A blood clot
A blood clot in a newborn's fist was read by the Mongols as an omen, and storytellers took this one as the sign that the boy was born to be a warrior.
Q 04Genghis's father was poisoned while accepting a meal from members of which tribe?
Tatars
The Tatars recognised him as an old enemy when he stopped to share their meal on his ride home, and slipped poison into his food; he reached his own camp only to die.
Q 05What did Genghis Khan's clan do after his father's death?
Abandoned his family
Abandoned his family: the clan had no use for a child chief and rode off, leaving his mother to keep the children alive on roots, nuts, fish and small game.
Q 06In the Secret History, whom does the young Genghis kill over hunting spoils?
His half-brother
His half-brother Behter had been seizing the younger boys' catch, so Genghis and a brother ambushed and killed him; the chronicle also records their mother's furious scolding.
Q 07Which childhood blood brother of Genghis became his greatest rival and was eventually executed?
Jamukha
Jamukha was handed over by his own companions, whom Genghis executed for betraying their lord; the Secret History says Jamukha then asked his old friend for an honourable death and got it.
Q 08Who was Genghis Khan's principal wife, betrothed to him when both were children?
Börte
Börte's children alone carried the empire forward: only her four sons were ever candidates to succeed Genghis, while the sons of his many later wives were passed over.
Q 09Which Hollywood star played Genghis Khan in the notorious 1956 epic The Conqueror?
John Wayne
John Wayne's Mongol warlord became one of Hollywood's most famous miscastings, and the film a grim legend: it was shot in Utah, downwind of Nevada's nuclear test site, and by 1980, 91 of its 220 cast and crew had developed cancer.
Q 10Who was Genghis Khan's mother?
Hö'elün
Hö'elün had been snatched by his father from her first husband on the road home from her wedding, a kidnapping that started a feud and later cost Genghis his own bride.
Q 11Genghis's newlywed wife was kidnapped by raiders from which tribe?
Merkits
The Merkits were settling an old score, since his father had stolen his mother from one of their own; Genghis called on two powerful allies, and their combined armies won her back.
Q 12Which eldest son of Genghis was born soon after his mother's rescue, his paternity in doubt?
Jochi
Jochi was raised by Genghis as his own son, but the doubt never died: when the succession came up, his brother Chagatai called him a bastard to his face and the two came to blows in front of their father.
Q 13Medieval Europeans identified Toghrul, the steppe khan who was Genghis's first patron, with which legendary king?
Prester John
Q 21According to the Secret History, Genghis had a phobia of what?
Dogs
Dogs: in the Secret History his own father, leaving the boy with his future in-laws, asks them not to let his son be frightened by theirs.
Q 22Which Mongol khanate, founded by a grandson of Genghis Khan, took tribute from the Russian princes for over two centuries?
The Golden Horde
The Golden Horde left the Russian princes on their thrones but made them answer to its capital on the Volga and collect its tribute themselves, a grip that held until Moscow threw it off at the Ugra River in 1480.
Q 23The Xia kingdom, which Genghis invaded in 1209, was ruled by which people?
The Tanguts
Prester John was the Christian priest-king Europe hoped would appear out of the East, and Toghrul's people were Christians; Marco Polo retold their war as Genghis fighting Prester John over a refused marriage.
Q 14The Song envoy Zhao Hong wrote in 1221 that the young Genghis spent over a decade how?
As a slave of the Jin
As a slave of the Jin, the envoy wrote, which was how he came to know that empire's affairs so well; Mongol chronicles are silent on those years, and historians now think the report likely.
Q 15The Baljuna Covenant, made by Genghis in 1203, was what kind of pact?
An oath with his last followers
An oath with his last followers, sworn by the muddy waters of Baljuna after a crushing defeat; the men who drank there with him came from many peoples and faiths, and were honoured for the rest of their lives.
Q 16How did Genghis's former patron Toghrul die after his defeat in 1203?
Killed unrecognised by a Naiman
Killed unrecognised by a Naiman: the old khan had ridden west to seek shelter with that people, and one of its soldiers cut him down. Genghis then married two of the dead man's nieces to himself and a son.
Q 17Which Orkhon Valley site, a campsite under Genghis Khan, did his heir wall in as the Mongol Empire's capital?
Karakorum
Karakorum was little more than a town of tents until 1235, when walls and a palace went up; centuries later its stones were carted off to build a Buddhist monastery that still stands beside the ruins.
Q 18Genghis Khan was proclaimed ruler in 1206 at which kind of assembly?
A kurultai
A kurultai also had to choose every later Great Khan: when Genghis died, the throne stood empty for two years until one met to confirm his heir.
Q 19One theory holds that the title 'Genghis' derives from a Turkic word meaning what?
Ocean
Ocean: the sea was thought to ring the whole earth, so an 'oceanic' khan ruled everything, which is why the title is usually glossed as 'universal ruler'; its true origin is still debated.
Q 20Genghis Khan expanded the keshig to 10,000 men to serve as what?
His bodyguard
His bodyguard was recruited from the sons and brothers of his commanders, which kept their families loyal; it doubled as the training ground for his future generals.
The Tanguts wrote in a script of their own, thousands of intricate signs devised in the 1030s; it outlived the kingdom the Mongols destroyed but was later forgotten, and scholars had to decipher it in the 20th century.
Q 24In his 1209 siege of the Xia capital, Genghis dammed which waterway, only to flood his own camp?
The Yellow River
The Yellow River broke through the Mongols' crude dam and swamped their own camp; even so, the Xia emperor sued for peace and handed over tribute, including a daughter.
Q 25How did Genghis respond in 1210 when a Jin envoy demanded that he submit and pay tribute?
He spat and rode away
He spat and rode away, which was as good as a declaration of war: the following spring he called his chiefs together and led them south against the Jin.
Q 26In 1212 Genghis began recruiting Chinese experts to form a corps of what?
Siege engineers
Siege engineers were what his cavalry lacked: after his horsemen failed before the walls of a Jin city in 1212, he recruited Chinese specialists, and their catapults later broke the cities of Central Asia.
Q 27The Jin capital Zhongdu, which fell to Genghis Khan's army in 1215, is which modern city?
Beijing
Beijing, then called Zhongdu, was sacked so thoroughly that it is said to have burned for a month; half a century later a grandson of Genghis rebuilt it as his own capital.
Q 28In which time-travel comedy do two high-school slackers kidnap Genghis Khan for a history report?
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure has its heroes collect Genghis, Joan of Arc, Lincoln and others for extra credit, then park them at a California mall, where the great figures of history run riot and get arrested.
Q 29In the Secret History, the enemy warrior Jebe joins Genghis after admitting he had done what to him in battle?
Shot his horse
Shot his horse from under him, the archer confessed, expecting to die for it; Genghis praised a man who did not hide what he had done, gave him the new name Jebe, and saw him rise to be one of the empire's great generals.
Q 30A 2003 genetics paper proposed that about one man in 200 worldwide carries what from Genghis Khan's family?
A Y chromosome
A Y chromosome, handed from father to son: the team found one lineage in about 8% of men from China to Uzbekistan and traced it to Mongolia about 1,000 years ago, though later studies have questioned the link.