Jordan River
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50 free Jordan River trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Jordan is a small river with an outsized story. It is short enough to drive alongside in an afternoon, yet it marks borders, waters farms in one of the driest corners of the world, and turns up in scripture, hymns and pop songs known far beyond the Middle East. This quiz collects the fun facts people look for about the river: where it rises and where it ends, the springs and streams that feed it, the miracles and crossings the Bible sets there, the explorers who charted it, and the modern arguments over who gets its water. A few questions follow the name itself to places and things that borrowed it. It is written for curious travellers, Sunday school teachers, geography fans and anyone planning a visit to the Holy Land. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the questions for a class or a quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Into which lake, almost ten times saltier than the ocean, does the Jordan River empty?
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea has no outlet, so the Jordan River's water can only leave by evaporating, and the salts it carried in stay behind.
Q 02Which US state has its own Jordan River, named because it also drains a freshwater lake into a salty one?
Utah
Utah's Jordan River runs from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake, and Mormon settlers named it in 1847 after noticing the likeness to the biblical river.
Q 03Water from the Jordan River was used at the 2013 christening of which British royal baby?
Prince George
Prince George was christened with it at St James's Palace because Jesus was baptised in the river, a custom Bulgaria's royal house also kept.
Q 04Which password did Gileadite guards at the Jordan River fords use to unmask fleeing Ephraimites who mispronounced it?
Shibboleth
Shibboleth, a Hebrew word for an ear of grain, gave the Ephraimites away because their dialect changed its first sound. The word has since come to mean any test that marks outsiders.
Q 05Who made Jordan a popular first name in Europe by carrying Jordan River water home to baptise their children?
Crusaders
Crusaders and pilgrims brought the water back in containers for baptisms at home, and the river's name caught on for the children.
Q 06Jordan almonds probably take their name from the French word for what, rather than from the Jordan River?
Garden
Garden is 'jardin' in French, and a 'jardin almond' meant a cultivated nut rather than a wild one before English speakers turned the word into Jordan.
Q 07Which source overtook the Jordan River system as Israel's largest water supply in the early twenty-first century?
Desalinated seawater
Desalinated seawater from the Mediterranean took over after years of drought, ending four decades in which the Sea of Galilee supplied Israel's coastal plain.
Q 08Which New Testament preacher drew crowds to the Jordan River before Herod Antipas had him beheaded?
John the Baptist
John the Baptist immersed his followers in the river as a sign of repentance, and the Gospels say Jesus came to be baptised by him there.
Q 09Which successor to Moses led the Israelites across the Jordan River on dry ground into the Promised Land?
Joshua
Joshua saw the Jordan's waters part as the Ark of the Covenant was carried across, echoing the Red Sea crossing a generation earlier.
Q 10Which territory got its modern name when the Kingdom of Jordan annexed it in 1950?
West Bank
The West Bank got its name after Jordan annexed the land in 1950 and needed a label to tell it apart from the kingdom's territory east of the river.
Q 11Snowmelt from which mountain on Syria's border feeds the springs that become the Jordan River?
Mount Hermon
Mount Hermon keeps snow on its peaks for much of the year, and the meltwater seeps through the limestone to emerge as springs at its foot.
Q 12In which country does the Hasbani River, a main source of the Jordan River, rise from two springs?
Lebanon
Lebanon's Wazzani and Haqzbieh springs supply most of the Hasbani's water, and the stream runs some 40 km through the country before crossing the border.
Q 13Which headstream of the Jordan River, rising from springs beside an ancient city mound, carries the most water?
The Dan
The Dan brings in about as much water as the other two main headstreams combined, all of it from springs at the mound of Tel Dan.
Q 21The prophet Elisha told the Syrian commander Naaman to bathe seven times in the Jordan River to cure which disease?
Leprosy
Leprosy left Naaman only after a servant persuaded the angry commander, who had been about to go home, to try the cure.
Q 22Which prophet parted the Jordan River with his rolled-up cloak shortly before a whirlwind carried him to heaven?
Elijah
Elijah crossed on dry ground with Elisha, who picked up the cloak when it fell from his master as horses of fire appeared.
Q 23Which lost iron object did the prophet Elisha make float on the Jordan River by throwing in a stick?
An axe head
An axe head had sunk while Elisha's followers were cutting timber beside the river, which the Bible pictures as thick woodland.
Q 14Which river, the largest tributary of the lower Jordan River, forms part of the Syria–Jordan border?
Yarmouk
The Yarmouk also gave its name to a battle fought beside it in 636, when Arab armies defeated the Byzantine Empire and won control of Syria.
Q 15Under which biblical name does the Zarqa River, a tributary of the Jordan River, appear in the story of Jacob wrestling?
Jabbok
Jabbok is the stream Jacob forded on his way home to Canaan, on the night Genesis says he wrestled a mysterious stranger until daybreak.
Q 16The Jordan River flows along the northern stretch of which geological feature that runs on to Mozambique?
Great Rift Valley
The Great Rift Valley puts the Jordan on the boundary where the African and Arabian plates slide past each other.
Q 17The Hula marshes on the upper Jordan River were drained in the 1950s partly to wipe out which disease?
Malaria
Malaria-carrying mosquitoes bred in the swamp, but draining it harmed the ecosystem so badly that part of the valley was later flooded again.
Q 18The Jordan River holds which world record for a waterway, thanks to the deep trench it follows?
Lowest elevation
Lowest elevation is the Jordan's claim: it is already about 210 metres below sea level on leaving the Sea of Galilee and keeps dropping from there.
Q 19The upper Jordan River forms the western edge of which plateau that Israel captured from Syria?
Golan Heights
The Golan Heights rise from the river's east side along the whole stretch north of the Sea of Galilee, where the Jordan drops fastest.
Q 20Which city near the Jordan River, among the oldest in the world, fell after the Israelites crossed the river?
Jericho
Jericho was the first battle after the crossing, and digs there have uncovered more than twenty successive settlements going back some 11,000 years.
Q 24From which mountain east of the Jordan River does the Bible say Moses viewed the Promised Land before dying?
Mount Nebo
Mount Nebo rises about 700 metres above sea level in Jordan, and on a very clear day the view from its summit reaches Jerusalem.
Q 25Which nephew of Abraham chose the well-watered plain of the Jordan River and settled near Sodom?
Lot
Lot was offered first pick after his herdsmen quarrelled with his uncle's, and he took the greener country that led him to Sodom.
Q 26Which tribe of Israel split into two halves, one settling on each side of the Jordan River?
Manasseh
Manasseh's eastern half joined Reuben and Gad beyond the river, and together they built a great altar beside it as a witness to their kinship with the rest.
Q 27In the Gospel accounts of Jesus's baptism in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit descends in the form of which bird?
A dove
A dove is named in the Gospels, and Luke stresses that the Spirit took the bird's bodily form rather than simply descending like one.
Q 28The Jordan River baptism site Al-Maghtas is officially named after which Gospel place 'Beyond the Jordan'?
Bethany
Bethany Beyond the Jordan was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015, and Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis have all visited.
Q 29Which January feast do Eastern Christians keep for Jesus's baptism in the Jordan River rather than the Magi's visit?
Epiphany
Epiphany is also called Theophany in the East, and in Byzantine times a cross in the middle of the river marked the traditional baptism spot.
Q 30Which wartime hazard had to be cleared from the Jordan River baptism area around Qasr al-Yahud and Al-Maghtas?
Land mines
Land mines were sown when both sides of the river became a front line in 1967. Jordan cleared its side after the 1994 peace treaty, and the HALO Trust later demined the western side.