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50 free Karnataka trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Karnataka is where a boiled-bean supper named a tech capital, where iron-cased war missiles were fired at the British before Europe had them, and where an empire's ruined city still draws travellers to a riverbank of temples. It grows most of India's arabica, weaves the country's best-known zari saree and runs a ten-day royal festival that ends with a goddess riding through the streets. The 50 questions cover the kingdoms that ruled from the cave-temple capital, from Banavasi and from the Tungabhadra, the tiger-emblem sultan and the queen of Kittur, the poets who gave Kannada its first epics and its state anthem, the rivers, reserves and waterfalls of the Western Ghats, Dasara and the bitter-sweet new-year feast, the coast's all-night dance-drama, the dishes of the palace kitchens, and the engineers, scientists, cricketers and founders who made Bengaluru what it is. Each answer comes with a short explanation of why it matters. It works as a school or college general-knowledge round, a Rajyotsava quiz, a pub round or a warm-up before a trip to the Ghats. Play it on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for the table.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which meaning of Bengaluru's name comes from a tale of a 12th-century king, lost while hunting, fed by a poor old woman?
Town of boiled beans
Town of boiled beans is the literal sense of 'Benda-Kaal-uru', the name the grateful king Veera Ballala II gave the spot, and it wore down over the centuries into Bengaluru.
Q 02Which Garuda shrine in the Vittala temple courtyard of the Vijayanagara capital appears on India's ₹50 banknote?
Stone Chariot
The Stone Chariot is the most-pictured emblem of the ruined capital, and since 2017 the fluorescent-blue ₹50 note has carried it on the reverse as a symbol of the country's heritage.
Q 03Which son of Hyder Ali, nicknamed the Tiger of Mysore, was killed defending Srirangapatna against the British in 1799?
Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan adopted the tiger as the emblem of his rule, and his death on 4 May 1799 ended the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.
Q 04Which crop, started in India from seven seeds a Sufi saint smuggled from Yemen, is 71 percent grown in Karnataka?
Coffee
Coffee reached India in the 17th century when Baba Budan hid the seeds in his beard on his way home from Mecca, and Karnataka now grows 71 percent of the national crop, ahead of Kerala's 21.
Q 05Which Vijayapura tomb of Mohammad Adil Shah has a whispering gallery where the faintest sound carries across its dome?
Gol Gumbaz
Gol Gumbaz held the largest unsupported dome in India, and work halted at the ruler's death in 1656, leaving several decorative elements unfinished.
Q 06Which Kannada screen legend was abducted from his Gajanur farmhouse by the bandit Veerappan in 2000, for 108 days?
Rajkumar
Rajkumar is the only Indian lead actor to have won the National Film Award for playback singing, for 'Naadamaya' in 1992, and he took the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1995.
Q 07Which Karnataka mining town, electrified by cable in 1902 and shut in 2001, gave its initials to a 2018 Yash film?
Kolar Gold Fields
Kolar Gold Fields still held ore when falling prices closed it, and KGF: Chapter 1, set there in the 1970s and 80s, became the first Kannada film to gross ₹100 crore.
Q 08Which Bengaluru-born shuttler, father of Deepika, became the first Indian to win the All England men's singles in 1980?
Prakash Padukone
Prakash Padukone beat Indonesia's Liem Swie King in that final, was ranked world number one the same year, and also took the Danish and Swedish Opens.
Q 09Which Bengaluru online retailer, begun in 2007 by two ex-Amazon staff selling books, sold control to Walmart in 2018?
Flipkart
Flipkart's founders Sachin and Binny Bansal were IIT Delhi alumni, and Walmart beat Amazon itself in the bidding war for control of the company.
Q 10Which ruined city on the Tungabhadra, a World Heritage Site since 1986, was the Vijayanagara capital until 1565?
Hampi
Hampi served as capital from 1336, and Persian and Portuguese travellers described it as a prosperous and grand city before a coalition of sultanates pillaged it and left it in ruins.
Q 11Which dynasty built the star-plan soapstone temples at Belur, Halebidu and Somanathapura, listed by UNESCO in 2023?
Hoysala
The Hoysala temples were raised in the 12th and 13th centuries from chloritic schist, a soft rock that let carvers work lace-like detail into every surface.
Q 12Which goddess, slayer of the demon Mahishasura, rides through Mysuru in a 750 kg golden howdah to close Dasara?
Chamundeshwari
Chamundeshwari's temple crowns Chamundi Hill above a city whose old name, Mahishuru, means 'the abode of Mahisha', the buffalo demon she killed.
Q 13Which Jain figure's 57-foot monolith at Shravanabelagola is anointed in a Mahamastakabhisheka held every twelve years?
Bahubali
Q 21Which Hassan-born Karnataka chief minister went from that post in 1996 to eleven months as India's Prime Minister?
H. D. Deve Gowda
H. D. Deve Gowda led a United Front coalition from June 1996 to April 1997, and in July 1999 he founded the Janata Dal (Secular) as a breakaway from the Janata Dal.
Q 22Which wood, Karnataka's state tree, gives the Kannada film industry of Gandhi Nagar, Bengaluru its nickname?
Sandalwood
Sandalwood is 'Chandanavana' in Kannada, and the industry's first talkie was Sati Sulochana in 1934, shot in Kolhapur.
Q 23Which granite Bengaluru legislature building, finished in 1956, is inscribed 'Government Work is God's Work'?
Vidhana Soudha
Bahubali's statue was commissioned by Chavundaraya, a minister of the Ganga dynasty, and is cut from a single block of granite on Vindhyagiri hill.
Q 14Which Karnataka leg-spinner took all ten Pakistani wickets in a Test innings at Delhi in 1999, as Jim Laker once had?
Anil Kumble
Anil Kumble's 10 for 74 made him only the second bowler to take every wicket in an innings, and he was nicknamed Jumbo because his deliveries flew 'as fast as a jumbo jet'.
Q 15Which batsman, raised in Bengaluru and nicknamed The Wall, has faced more balls than anyone in Test cricket history?
Rahul Dravid
Rahul Dravid also holds the record for the longest time spent batting in Tests, and as head coach he guided India to the 2024 T20 World Cup title.
Q 16Which IT company, started in Pune in 1981 by seven engineers with $250 of capital, is now headquartered in Bengaluru?
Infosys
Infosys moved its base to Bengaluru in 1983 and in 1999 became the first Indian company listed on Nasdaq.
Q 17Which Bengaluru-based agency made India the first nation to land a craft near the Moon's south pole in 2023?
ISRO
ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 made India only the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon, and its earlier Mars Orbiter Mission was the first Asian craft to reach Martian orbit.
Q 18Which physicist, founder of his own Bengaluru research institute in 1948, was the first Asian to win the physics Nobel?
C. V. Raman
C. V. Raman won the 1930 prize for the light-scattering effect that bears his name, and in 1933 he became the first Indian director of the Indian Institute of Science.
Q 19Which Karnataka temple town, site of Madhvacharya's 13th-century Krishna shrine, names a style of vegetarian restaurant?
Udupi
Udupi restaurants serve the town's cuisine in cities across India, and pilgrims view the deity through a window called the Kanakana Kindi.
Q 20Which queen of Kittur took up arms against the British East India Company in 1824, decades before the 1857 uprising?
Rani Chennamma
Rani Chennamma fought after the Company refused to recognise her adopted heir Shivalingappa, and she died a prisoner at Bailhongal Fort in 1829.
Vidhana Soudha was built from pink Magadi and black Turuvekere granite and houses both the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council.
Q 24Which Bengaluru garden, commissioned by Hyder Ali in 1760, has a Glass House modelled on London's Crystal Palace?
Lalbagh
Lalbagh was completed by Hyder Ali's son, and its Glass House, begun in 1889, hosts flower shows in Republic Day and Independence Day week.
Q 25Which Rashtrakavi from Shivamogga district wrote 'Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujate', Karnataka's state anthem?
Kuvempu
Kuvempu is the pen name of Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, the first Kannada writer to win the Jnanpith Award, in 1967.
Q 26In which year did Mysore State, assembled from Kannada-speaking areas in 1956, formally take the name Karnataka?
1973
1973 brought the rename on 1 November, seventeen years to the day after the state was formed under the States Reorganisation Act.
Q 27Which Karnataka district, birthplace of Field Marshal Cariappa and General Thimayya, is administered from Madikeri?
Kodagu
Kodagu was a separate Coorg State until it merged into the enlarged Mysore State in 1956, and General Thimayya, another army chief, also came from the district.
Q 28Which dusk-to-dawn dance-drama of coastal Karnataka, led by a singing bhagavata, stages the epics in towering headgear?
Yakshagana
Yakshagana's bhagavata both sings and directs the show and is called the 'first actor', while the performers wear painted faces and a kireeta crown.
Q 29Which new-year festival, kept in Karnataka on the first day of Chaitra, opens with bevu bella, neem mixed with jaggery?
Ugadi
Ugadi's bitter-sweet bevu bella stands for life's mixed experiences, and Telugu households mark the same day with a six-flavour pachadi.
Q 30Which fibre, woven with zari at a Mysuru factory the maharaja founded in 1912, is nearly 45 percent Karnataka-made?
Silk
Silk from Karnataka's mulberry farms totals about 9,000 tonnes a year, and the Mysuru saree's zari is 65 percent pure silver with a trace of gold.