Iran Trivia
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69 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 69 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Iran?
Tehran
Tehran became Iran's capital in the late 18th century; the city proper holds about 9 million people and its metropolitan area roughly 16 million.
Q 02By what name was Iran commonly known in the West until the 1930s?
Persia
Persia, from the Greek name for the Fars region, was the standard Western name until Reza Shah asked foreign governments to say Iran; in 1959 his son declared both names acceptable.
Q 03In which year did the shah ask foreign delegates to use the name 'Iran' in formal correspondence?
1935
In 1935 Reza Shah's government asked foreign delegates to use Iran, the country's native name, instead of Persia, effective from that year's Nowruz.
Q 04The territory of present-day Iran was first unified in the 7th century BC under which people?
The Medes
The Medes, an Iranian people of the northwest, built the first unified Iranian kingdom around 625 BC and went on to help Babylon destroy the Assyrian capital Nineveh in 612 BC.
Q 05Who founded the Achaemenid Empire, the largest Iranian state in history?
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire around 550 BC by overthrowing the Medes, then conquered Lydia and Babylon; his son Cambyses II added Egypt.
Q 06The Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in the ruins of Babylon in 1879, is held by which institution?
British Museum
The British Museum has held the Cyrus Cylinder since Hormuzd Rassam excavated it at Babylon in 1879; the Akkadian cuneiform text was buried as a foundation deposit after Cyrus took Babylon in 539 BC.
Q 07Which ancient city, settled around 4400 BC, was the capital of Elam and later an Achaemenid capital?
Susa
Susa, beside the modern town of Shush, was the Elamite capital for millennia; Darius the Great built a great palace there and made it an Achaemenid administrative 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
Alexander the Great burned Persepolis in 330 BC; ancient writers either call it revenge for Xerxes' burning of Athens or blame a drunken feast egged on by the courtesan Thaïs.
Q 10Who founded the Sasanian Empire in AD 224 after killing the last Parthian ruler?
Ardashir I
Ardashir I killed the Parthian king Artabanus IV at the Battle of Hormozdgan in AD 224 and founded the Sasanian dynasty, which ruled Iran until the Arab conquest of the 7th century.
Q 11Which 16th-century dynasty re-unified Iran and made Twelver Shia Islam the state religion?
Safavid
The Safavid dynasty, which took power in 1501, made Twelver Shia Islam Iran's state religion; its empire collapsed in 1722 after Afghan rebels besieged the capital.
Q 12Who founded the Pahlavi dynasty by ousting the last Qajar ruler in 1925?
Reza Shah
Reza Shah, a former Cossack Brigade officer, deposed the last Qajar in 1925 and ruled 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
Q 21Which strait at the mouth of the Persian Gulf separates Iran from Oman?
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz, about 39 km wide at its narrowest, links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman between Iran's coast and Oman's Musandam peninsula.
Q 22Into how many provinces is Iran divided?
31
Iran has 31 provinces (ostan); the creation of Alborz province out of Tehran province in 2010 brought the total to 31, and the provinces are grouped into five administrative regions.
Q 23Iran ranks 17th in the world by both area and what other measure?
Population
Iran is the 17th-largest country by area, about 1.65 million km², and also ranks 17th by population, having passed 90 million people in the 2020s.
Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951; after the 1953 coup he was tried for treason, jailed for three years, then kept under house arrest until his death in 1967.
Q 14Who was Iran's first supreme leader after the 1979 revolution?
Ruhollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini became the first supreme leader when the Islamic Republic's constitution took effect in December 1979 and held the post until his death in June 1989.
Q 15For how many days were 52 American hostages held after the November 1979 embassy seizure?
444
The 52 hostages were held for 444 days, from 4 November 1979 until 20 January 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office; the students called the embassy a 'den of spies'.
Q 16In which month and year did Iraq invade Iran, starting the eight-year Iran–Iraq War?
September 1980
Iraq invaded on 22 September 1980, striking into oil-rich Khuzestan; the war ended in August 1988 when Khomeini accepted UN Resolution 598, likening it to drinking a cup of poison.
Q 17Which sea lies along Iran's northern border?
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland body of water, forms Iran's northern coast; the Hyrcanian forests along its southern shore became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.
Q 18Mount Damavand, Iran's tallest peak at 5,610 m, holds which continental record?
Highest volcano in Asia
Damavand is the highest volcano in Asia, a dormant stratovolcano about 66 km northeast of Tehran; in Persian myth the tyrant Zahhak lies chained inside it.
Q 19Mount Damavand lies in the middle of which mountain range?
Alborz
Damavand rises in the central Alborz, the range that walls the Caspian lowlands off from the interior plateau; Tehran 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
The Dasht-e Lut, whose name means 'plain of emptiness', registered 70.7 °C in a 2005 satellite reading and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016.
Q 24Which city is Iran's second most populous?
Mashhad
Mashhad, in the northeast, is Iran's second city with over 3 million people; its shrine of Imam Reza draws millions of Shia pilgrims every year.
Q 25Which currency replaced the qiran as Iran's official unit in 1932?
Rial
The rial replaced the qiran at par in 1932; it was nominally divided into 100 dinars, and Iranians have long quoted prices colloquially in tomans of 10 rials.
Q 26The Takbir is written along the edges of Iran's flag how many times?
22
The Takbir (Allahu Akbar) appears 22 times, 11 along the green band and 11 along the red, in white Kufic script; the flag took this form on 29 July 1980.
Q 27Nowruz, the Iranian new year, is timed to which astronomical event?
The spring equinox
Nowruz begins at the exact moment of the spring equinox, which falls between 19 and 22 March; its roots lie in Zoroastrianism and it has been celebrated for over 3,000 years.
Q 28Zoroastrians worship which supreme, uncreated deity?
Ahura Mazda
Ahura Mazda, the 'Wise Lord', is the uncreated creator god of Zoroastrianism, opposed by the destructive spirit Angra Mainyu; the faith's scripture is the Avesta.
Q 29The Shahnameh, the Persian national epic of some 50,000 couplets, was written by which poet?
Ferdowsi
Ferdowsi of Tus completed the Shahnameh around 1010 after some 33 years of work; at roughly 50,000 couplets it is the longest epic poem composed by a single poet.
Q 30The 14th-century lyric poet Hafez, whose Divan sits in many Iranian homes, came from which city?
Shiraz
Hafez was born and died in Shiraz, where his tomb garden, the Hafezieh, draws visitors daily; he is nicknamed Lisan al-Ghayb, the 'Tongue of the Unseen'.