Kashmir Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Kashmir trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Kashmir trivia quiz covers the whole northernmost region of the subcontinent, not just the valley: Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan, Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract, the three rivers that carve it up, K2 and the Karakoram, the Siachen and Biafo glaciers, and the Pir Panjal wall that keeps the monsoon out. On history it runs from Panini's first mention and Kashyapa's lake through the Karkota and Lohara dynasties, Akbar's conquest, the Afghans, Ranjit Singh's Sikhs, the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar that sold the valley to Gulab Singh for 75 lakhs, the 77 percent Muslim princely state that Hari Singh hesitated over in 1947, the wars of 1947, 1965 and 1999, the Line of Control, Operation Meghdoot, the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits and the 2019 revocation of special status. Culture and economy get their turn too: Dal Lake and its houseboats, the Mughal gardens, saffron from Pampore, pashmina, papier-mache, the Amarnath ice lingam, the world's highest rail bridge, and why Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' was really about Morocco. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on Kashmir and its places, and each explanation adds one further fact. Good for South Asian geography and history students and quiz nights.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Kashmir's traditional noon chai, a salted tea boiled with baking soda, is famous for turning which colour?
Pink
Pink comes from boiling the leaves with baking soda until the brew turns burgundy, then adding milk. 'Noon' means salt in Kashmiri, so the tea is sipped savoury.
Q 02The Kashmir Valley lies between the Great Himalayas and which lower range to its southwest?
Pir Panjal
The Pir Panjal separates the valley from the Jammu hills. The Jawahar Tunnel was bored beneath its Banihal Pass in the 1950s so that traffic could get through snow-free all year.
Q 03In one traditional etymology, Kashmir is named after which Vedic sage, said to have settled people there?
Kashyapa
Kashyapa gives 'Kashyapa-mir', the sage's lake. Legend says the valley once lay under water and, in one telling, he cut a gap in the hills at Baramulla to drain it, then invited Brahmins to settle.
Q 04Which ancient Sanskrit grammarian's Ashtadhyayi contains one of the earliest known mentions of Kashmir?
Panini
Panini listed its people as the Kashmirikas. His grammar packs Sanskrit into nearly 4,000 terse rules, and it is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit.
Q 05Which Mughal emperor conquered Kashmir in 1586?
Akbar
Akbar summoned Kashmir's king to the Mughal court again and again, and sent an army in late 1585 when he still had not come. He later visited the valley three times and ringed a hill in Srinagar with fortifications.
Q 06Which Sikh ruler's armies took the Kashmir Valley from the Afghans in 1819?
Ranjit Singh
Ranjit Singh's army won the valley at Shopian in July 1819. His governors then shut Srinagar's Jamia Masjid, which stayed closed for more than two decades, and banned the public call to prayer.
Q 07Who sold the Vale of Kashmir to Jammu's Raja Gulab Singh for 75 lakh rupees in 1846?
The East India Company
The East India Company had taken the hill country from the defeated Sikhs a week earlier in place of war indemnity. The sale also bound the raja to a yearly tribute that included one horse and three pairs of the valley's prized shawls.
Q 08Zorawar Singh, the general who conquered Ladakh for Jammu's raja, died in 1841 while invading which land?
Tibet
Tibet was a campaign too far. After taking Ladakh and Baltistan he pushed east in 1841, but winter caught his army in the mountains and he was killed in battle that December.
Q 09At Partition, Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by a maharaja of which faith?
Hindu
Hindu Dogra maharajas had ruled since 1846, though the 1941 census counted the state as 77 percent Muslim. Pakistan still bases its claim to the region on that majority.
Q 10Who was the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir at the time of Partition in 1947?
Hari Singh
Hari Singh, the last ruling Dogra maharaja, at first wanted Kashmir to stay independent of both India and Pakistan. An invasion by tribal fighters from Pakistan that October forced his hand.
Q 11On what condition did Governor-General Mountbatten agree to send troops to Kashmir in October 1947?
That the ruler accede to India
That the ruler accede to India was Delhi's price for help, so the maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession, dated 26 October 1947, and Indian troops were airlifted to Srinagar on the 27th.
Q 12The 1965 India-Pakistan war over Kashmir ended with a peace declaration signed in which Soviet city?
Tashkent
Tashkent hosted the talks under Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin, and the declaration was signed on 10 January 1966. India's prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, died the very next day.
Q 13India's 2019 decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir's autonomy also split the state into what?
Q 21Which peak marks the western end of the Himalayas at Kashmir's boundary?
Nanga Parbat
Nanga Parbat is the westernmost major peak of the Himalayas, rising just inside the great bend of the Indus. So many climbers have died on it that it earned the nickname 'Killer Mountain'.
Q 22Which peak on Kashmir's northern edge is the second-highest mountain on Earth?
K2
K2 is a surveyor's label that stuck. In 1856 Thomas Montgomerie sketched the range's summits from a distance and simply numbered them, with K standing for Karakoram.
Q 23Which Karakoram glacier, some 76 km long, is often called the world's highest battlefield?
Siachen
Siachen has been garrisoned by both India and Pakistan since April 1984, at posts above 6,000 metres. More soldiers have died there from the weather and the terrain than from combat.
Two union territories
Two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, replaced the state, each under a lieutenant governor. As the move was announced, phone and internet services were suspended and regional leaders were put under house arrest.
Q 14Which numbered provision of the Indian constitution had given Jammu and Kashmir special status?
Article 370
Article 370 let the state keep its own constitution and a separate flag, while Delhi handled defence, foreign affairs and communications. Drafted as a 'temporary' provision, it lasted some 70 years.
Q 15Which aromatic red lamb curry is a centrepiece of the wazwan, Kashmir's traditional multi-course feast?
Rogan josh
Rogan josh took shape in Kashmir under the Mughals. Its deep red comes from mildly pungent Kashmiri chillies or alkanet root rather than from fierce heat.
Q 16By what name was Gilgit-Baltistan officially known until 2009?
The Northern Areas
The Northern Areas were renamed in 2009, when Pakistan also granted the region self-government with its own elected assembly, short of making it a province.
Q 17What are the two capital towns of Ladakh?
Leh and Kargil
Leh and Kargil became joint capitals when Ladakh was split from Jammu and Kashmir in 2019. Leh is the centre of the mainly Buddhist east, Kargil of the mostly Shia Muslim west.
Q 18What is Aksai Chin, the Chinese-controlled part of the region, geographically?
A high-altitude salt desert
A high-altitude salt desert, Aksai Chin lies about 5,000 metres above sea level. Almost nobody lives there, yet India still claims it as part of Ladakh.
Q 19Discovery of a new Chinese road across Aksai Chin helped trigger which conflict?
The Sino-Indian War of 1962
The Sino-Indian War of 1962 followed five years of rising tension. India learned of the road only in 1957, after it was finished, and saw it confirmed on Chinese maps the next year.
Q 20Which three rivers traverse the Kashmir region, dividing it into three valleys?
Indus, Jhelum and Chenab
The Indus, Jhelum and Chenab all flow on into Pakistan. The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty named them the 'Western Rivers' and gave their waters to Pakistan, leaving three eastern rivers to India.
Q 24What was the codename of the 1984 Indian operation that seized the world's highest battlefield?
Meghdoot
Meghdoot beat Pakistan's own plan, Operation Ababeel, to the high passes. Pakistani planners had ordered Arctic gear from a London outfitter who also supplied the Indian Army, which tipped India off.
Q 25Which 1972 accord renamed the ceasefire line in Kashmir the 'Line of Control'?
Simla
Simla hosted Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in July 1972. They agreed that neither side would try to alter the line unilaterally, and India has cited the deal ever since to refuse outside mediation.
Q 26In which district of Ladakh was the 1999 war between India and Pakistan fought?
Kargil
Kargil's ridges, some 5,000 metres up, overlook the highway from Srinagar to Leh. Pakistani troops crossed the Line of Control to occupy them over the winter of 1998-99, even as both governments signed a peace declaration in Lahore.
Q 27Which body of water in Srinagar is known as the 'Jewel in the crown of Kashmir'?
Dal Lake
Dal Lake holds a floating economy. Vendors sell lakeside produce from boats at a daily market on the water, and local Hanji families tend its floating gardens and houseboats.
Q 28On which river does Srinagar, the summer capital, stand?
Jhelum
The Jhelum has long threatened the city it runs through. An ancient king's flood embankment partly survives, and in September 2014 the swollen river submerged more than half of Srinagar.
Q 29Which two terraced Mughal gardens in Srinagar were laid out by Emperor Jahangir and his brother-in-law Asif Khan?
Shalimar and Nishat
Shalimar and Nishat both step down towards the water in terraces. Shalimar came first, in 1619, and its name was later borrowed for imperial gardens in Lahore and Delhi.
Q 30Srinagar is home to a garden billed as Asia's largest for which flower?
Tulips
Tulips carpet the garden at the foot of the Zabarwan hills each spring. It was conceived to bring Kashmir's tourist season forward by two months.