60 free Iraq trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Iraq is the land between the rivers where cities, writing, the wheel and written law were invented, where Babylon and Nineveh rose, where the Abbasids built the round City of Peace and the House of Wisdom, and where the last century has brought a British-made monarchy, revolutions, Saddam Hussein, three wars and a hard-won recovery. This Iraq trivia quiz covers all of it. Fifty-three questions run from geography (Baghdad, the Tigris and Euphrates, Basra, the marshes, Cheekha Dar, Kurdistan) through ancient history (Sumer, Uruk, the Ziggurat of Ur, Hammurabi, the Ishtar Gate, Gilgamesh, Hatra) and the Islamic and Ottoman centuries (al-Mansur, Samarra, the Mongols, Suleiman) to the modern state (Faisal I, 1932, the 1958 coup, the Ba'ath, Halabja, Kuwait, 2003, ISIS) and culture and sport (the dinar, the flag, masgouf, the Lions of Mesopotamia). 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 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Iraq?
Baghdad
Home to more than 8 million people, it holds about 22% of the country's population.
Q 02Ancient Mesopotamia lay between which two rivers, both of which run through Iraq?
Tigris and Euphrates
Their flows were down 30–40% by 2023, a growing crisis for the country's farms and marshes.
Q 03Which civilisation, which emerged in southern Iraq around 6000-5000 BC, is recognised as the world's earliest?
Sumer
It gave the world urban life, written language, monumental architecture and advanced canal systems.
Q 04Which Sumerian city, today's Warka, may have had 50,000 residents at its peak around 3100 BC?
Uruk
It gives its name to the Uruk period and led the early urbanisation of Sumer.
Q 05Which Mesopotamian poem is the world's oldest surviving example of narrative literature?
Epic of Gilgamesh
Its earliest strands are five Sumerian poems that may date to around 2100 BCE; the combined Akkadian epic followed.
Q 06Which British archaeologist led the 1920s–30s excavation of the Great Ziggurat of Ur?
Leonard Woolley
It was built by King Ur-Nammu in the 21st century BC and restored by Nabonidus some 1,500 years later.
Q 07The stele bearing the Code of Hammurabi, composed around 1753 BC, is displayed in which museum?
The Louvre
It was found in 1901 at Susa in Iran, where it had been carried off as plunder 600 years after it was made.
Q 08The Ishtar Gate, built around 569 BC, was ordered by which king?
Nebuchadnezzar II
Its glazed bricks were mostly blue, with lions, bulls and dragons in low relief along a processional way.
Q 09Which Biblical structure was the ziggurat of the ancient city near Hillah said to inspire?
The Tower of Babel
The city also boasted the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders, and has undergone major restoration work since the 2000s.
Q 10Which fortified caravan city in northern Iraq is the richest archaeological site of the Parthian Empire?
Hatra
It flourished in the 2nd century between the Roman and Parthian worlds before the Sasanians destroyed it.
Q 11Which Abbasid caliph founded Iraq's present capital in 762?
Al-Mansur
He named it the City of Peace and laid it out as a 2-km-wide circle, the Round City.
Q 12What was the Abbasid academy that made the capital an Islamic Golden Age hub called?
House of Wisdom
Its founding is credited either to Harun al-Rashid or to the caliph who built the city before him.
Q 13The Great Mosque of Samarra is famous for a 52-metre minaret of what distinctive shape?
A spiral cone
The Malwiya, or "spiral one", was built for caliph al-Mutawakkil between 848 and 851, when the mosque was the largest in the world.
Q 21Who led the 14 July Revolution of 1958 that overthrew Iraq's monarchy?
Abd al-Karim Qasim
The king, the crown prince and prime minister Nuri al-Sa'id were all killed; the new ruler was himself toppled by the Ba'ath in 1963.
Q 22Who became president when the Ba'ath Party seized power in the 17 July Revolution of 1968?
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Power gradually passed to his vice-president, Saddam Hussein, who formally took the presidency on 16 July 1979.
Q 23The 1975 Algiers Agreement between Saddam and the Shah settled a dispute over which waterway?
Shatt al-Arab
Q 14Who captured and sacked the Abbasid capital in 1258, ending the dynasty's rule in Iraq?
The Mongols
The Seljuks had already reduced the caliphs to figureheads after taking the city in 1055.
Q 15Which Ottoman sultan conquered Iraq in 1534?
Suleiman I
The region was fought over with the Safavids until the Treaty of Zuhab confirmed Ottoman control in 1639.
Q 16From 1749 to 1831 Iraq was ruled with great autonomy by a Mamluk dynasty of what origin?
Georgian
They kept nominal allegiance to the sultan; after their fall, centralisation under Baghdad began.
Q 17Which three former Ottoman provinces did Britain merge into the mandate that became Iraq?
Mosul, Baghdad and Basra
British troops had occupied the capital in 1917 and the mandate was set up in 1920.
Q 18Whom did the British install as king of Iraq on 23 August 1921?
Faisal I
The country's official English name changed from Mesopotamia to Iraq at the same time; he died in a car accident in 1939.
Q 19In which year did Iraq gain formal independence and join the League of Nations?
1932
A 1930 treaty had already given a measure of independence while keeping British military bases and oil rights.
Q 20How old was the boy-king who inherited Iraq's throne in 1939?
3
His uncle Crown Prince Abdullah acted as regent until the king turned 18 in 1953.
Iran withdrew its support for Iraq's Kurds, who were then defeated in the second Iraqi–Kurdish war.
Q 24The Halabja attack of 16 March 1988 killed thousands of Kurds with what kind of weapon?
Chemical weapons
A UN investigation found mustard gas and nerve agents had been used; it was part of the wider Anfal campaign.
Q 25On 2 August 1990 Iraq invaded and annexed which country as its "19th governorate"?
Kuwait
The dispute grew from unpaid war debts and oil prices; the coalition's ground assault the next year lasted just 100 hours.
Q 26The 1991 Gulf War coalition's ground assault against Iraqi forces lasted roughly how long?
100 hours
It followed a long bombing campaign; sanctions imposed after the Kuwait invasion then crippled the economy.
Q 27On what date in 2003 did the US-led coalition invade Iraq?
20 March
The capital fell in the first week of April, and the toppling of a statue of Saddam symbolised the end of his rule.
Q 28The Islamic State's rapid expansion in Iraq began with a large-scale 2014 offensive on which city?
Mosul
About 500,000 civilians fled, and the group's genocide against the Yazidis of Sinjar killed some 5,000 people.
Q 29How many governorates does Iraq have alongside its single federal region?
19
The governorates are split into districts and sub-districts; the federal region is Kurdistan.
Q 30Which city is the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan Region?
Erbil
The region comprises four Kurdish-majority governorates: Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok and Halabja.