70 free Iran trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Iran was Persia until 1935, home to one of the oldest continuous civilisations on Earth, the empire of Cyrus and Darius, the poets Ferdowsi, Hafez and Rumi, and a spring new year older than Islam. It also produces most of the world's saffron and caviar, has Asia's highest volcano and the hottest ground temperature ever measured, and has spent the decades since 1979 at the centre of world news. This Iran trivia quiz covers all of it. Fifty-seven questions run from geography (Tehran, Damavand, the Caspian, the Lut and Kavir deserts, Isfahan) through ancient history (the Medes, the Achaemenids, Persepolis, the Cyrus Cylinder, the Sasanians), the Safavids and Qajars, Reza Shah, Mosaddegh and the 1953 coup, the revolution, the hostage crisis and the Iran–Iraq War, to culture (Nowruz, Zoroastrianism, the Shahnameh, Persian carpets), food (saffron, pistachios, caviar), science (Mirzakhani, the gas laser) and sport and film (wrestling, the Asian Cup, Kiarostami, Farhadi). Roughly a third are easy, a third medium, and the rest are for people who really know the region. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia and official pages, so the dates, numbers and names are ones you can rely on.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Iran?
Tehran
With about 9 million people in the city and 16.8 million in the metro area, it is the largest metropolitan area in the Middle East.
Q 02By what name was Iran commonly known in the West until the 1930s?
Persia
In 1959 the last Shah declared both names acceptable in formal correspondence.
Q 03In which year did the shah ask foreign delegates to use the name 'Iran' in formal correspondence?
1935
The request came during an international gathering for Nowruz, the Persian new year.
Q 04The territory of present-day Iran was first unified in the 7th century BC under which people?
The Medes
Their king Cyaxares joined Babylon in destroying the Assyrian capital Nineveh in 612 BC.
Q 05Who founded the Achaemenid Empire, the largest Iranian state in history?
Cyrus the Great
He conquered the Lydian and Neo-Babylonian empires; his son Cambyses II then took Egypt.
Q 06The Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in the ruins of Babylon in 1879, is held by which institution?
British Museum
The Akkadian cuneiform text was buried as a foundation deposit after the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC.
Q 07Which ancient city, settled around 4400 BC, was the capital of Elam and later an Achaemenid capital?
Susa
It sits beside modern Shush and was Darius the Great's first capital.
Q 08The Achaemenid Royal Road ran from Susa to which city in Lydia?
Sardis
Its first recorded mentions come from the reign of Darius the Great, who also improved the empire's road system.
Q 09Persepolis, the ceremonial Achaemenid capital, was captured and burned in 330 BC by whose army?
Alexander the Great
One theory says the fire avenged the Persian burning of Athens; another blames a drunken feast urged on by the courtesan Thaïs.
Q 10Who founded the Sasanian Empire in AD 224 after killing the last Parthian ruler?
Ardashir I
The Sasanians revived Zoroastrianism as a unifying ideal and at their height ruled from the Caucasus to Central Asia.
Q 11Which 16th-century dynasty re-unified Iran and made Twelver Shia Islam the state religion?
Safavid
Their empire collapsed in 1722 after the siege of their capital.
Q 12Who founded the Pahlavi dynasty by ousting the last Qajar ruler in 1925?
Reza Shah
He ruled for almost 16 years until the Anglo-Soviet invasion of 1941 forced him to abdicate in favour of his son.
Q 13Which Iranian prime minister's oil nationalisation led to the Anglo-American coup of 1953?
Mohammad Mosaddegh
He was tried for treason and confined to house arrest on his estate, while his foreign minister was executed.
Q 21Which is the largest of Iran's deserts?
Kavir
The east of the country is mostly desert basins and salt lakes; the populous west is the mountainous part.
Q 22Into how many provinces is Iran divided?
31
The provinces are grouped into five regions.
Q 23Iran ranks 17th in the world by both area and what other measure?
Population
Its population passed 92 million; the second city, Mashhad, has around 3 million people.
Q 24Which city is Iran's second most populous?
Q 14Who was Iran's first supreme leader after the 1979 revolution?
Ruhollah Khomeini
He became supreme leader in December 1979 and, on his deathbed in 1989, named Ali Khamenei to succeed him.
Q 15For how many days were 52 American hostages held after the November 1979 embassy seizure?
444
The students called the embassy a "den of spies"; the hostages were released in January 1981.
Q 16In which month and year did Iraq invade Iran, starting the eight-year Iran–Iraq War?
September 1980
The invasion came at Khuzestan; the war ended in 1988 when Khomeini "drank the cup of poison" and accepted a UN-mediated truce.
Q 17Which sea lies along Iran's northern border?
Caspian Sea
The lush lowland Hyrcanian forests along its southern shore are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Q 18Mount Damavand, Iran's tallest peak at 5,610 m, holds which continental record?
Highest volcano in Asia
The dormant stratovolcano sits 66 km northeast of the capital and looms large in Persian mythology.
Q 19Mount Damavand lies in the middle of which mountain range?
Alborz
The range runs along the Caspian coast; the capital sits at its southern foot.
Q 20Which arid region of Iran has recorded the highest land surface temperature on Earth, 70.7 °C?
Dasht-e Lut
Its name means "plain of emptiness", and it joined the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016.
Mashhad
It is among the country's most popular destinations after the capital.
Q 25Which currency replaced the qiran as Iran's official unit in 1932?
Rial
The rial is nominally divided into 100 dinars, though the dinar is worthless in practice; Iranians colloquially count in tomans of 10 rials.
Q 26The Takbir is written along the edges of Iran's flag how many times?
22
It appears 11 times each on the green and red bands, in white Kufic script; the flag took its current form in July 1980.
Q 27Nowruz, the Iranian new year, is timed to which astronomical event?
The spring equinox
Its roots lie in Zoroastrianism and it has been celebrated for more than 3,000 years, usually between 19 and 22 March.
Q 28Zoroastrians worship which supreme, uncreated deity?
Ahura Mazda
The faith centres on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra, known in Greek as Zoroaster.
Q 29The Shahnameh, the Persian national epic of some 50,000 couplets, was written by which poet?
Ferdowsi
It took him about 33 years and remains the longest epic poem ever created by a single author.
Q 30The 14th-century lyric poet Hafez, whose Divan sits in many Iranian homes, came from which city?
Shiraz
He is nicknamed Lisan al-Ghayb, the "Tongue of the Unseen", and his verses are used as everyday proverbs.