Kites Trivia
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47 free Kites trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Kites were flown in China 2,500 years ago, commanded a Korean navy, lifted Benjamin Franklin's key into a thunderstorm and carried the Wright brothers' first wing-warping experiment. Today they cut each other down over Ahmedabad, pull riders across the ocean and fly under their own category at the Olympics. This kite trivia quiz covers the history, science and festivals of kites, from muyuan and fengzheng to Hargrave's box kite, the Rogallo wing, manja, Weifang's kite capital, the wau bulan and the Bali Kite Festival. Every answer is sourced and explained.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Peanuts, whose kites always end up in the Kite-Eating Tree?
Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown. In a 1977 storyline he finally took an angry bite out of the tree, then ran away from home when the Environmental Protection Agency came after him for it.
Q 02Fengzheng, the modern Chinese word for kite, is said to describe which feature of early kites?
Their sound in the wind
Their sound in the wind. Fengzheng joins 'wind' with zheng, a zither: the word once named chimes hung under eaves, and is said to have passed to kites because of the noise they made aloft.
Q 03Which traveller first brought stories of kites to Europe at the end of the 13th century?
Marco Polo
Marco Polo. He described a custom of sending a man up on a kite before a ship sailed and reading its flight as an omen of whether the voyage would prosper.
Q 04The English word 'kite' comes from the name of what?
A hovering bird of prey
A hovering bird of prey. The toy took the bird's name in the 1660s because it hangs in the air the same way; the bird's own Old English name, cyta, probably imitated its cry.
Q 05In 1752, Benjamin Franklin published a kite experiment to prove what?
That lightning is electricity
That lightning is electricity. Contrary to legend, no bolt ever struck the kite, which would probably have killed him: it simply gathered charge from the storm clouds overhead.
Q 06What object did Benjamin Franklin tie to the string of his famous 1752 kite?
A metal house key
A metal house key. The kite itself was a large silk handkerchief stretched on a cedar cross, because silk stands up to the wet and wind of a storm far better than an ordinary kite would.
Q 07Which kite, invented in Australia by Lawrence Hargrave in 1893, became the model for the wings of Europe's first aeroplanes?
The box kite
The box kite. Hargrave refused to patent it, calling patent fees 'much wasted money', because he wanted other experimenters to be free to build on his work.
Q 08In 1894 Lawrence Hargrave tethered four of his kites to a beach to do what?
Lift himself
Lift himself. Moored by piano wire, the kites raised him almost 16 feet above Stanwell Park beach, which showed they were steady enough to carry a person.
Q 09In 1899 the Wright brothers built a biplane kite to test which key flight-control idea?
Wing warping
Wing warping. Four lines to the kite's corners let the brothers twist its wings from the ground, the way a soaring bird banks, and the same idea went on to steer their first aeroplanes.
Q 10Which man-lifting kite of the British Army was developed by a Wild West showman?
The Cody kite
The Cody kite. Samuel Cody, born Cowdery, claimed to be Buffalo Bill's son but was no relation at all, and his man-lifting kites were good enough for the Army to take him on.
Q 11Which inventor spent years building giant man-lifting kites out of thousands of tetrahedral cells?
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell. He chose the pyramid-shaped cell because any number can be joined into a kite of almost any size without the sticks having to get any thicker or stronger.
Q 12Francis and Gertrude Rogallo's flexible kite wing, turned down by NASA for landing Gemini capsules, went on to launch which sport?
Hang gliding
Hang gliding. Unable to find official backing, the couple sold their wing as a five-dollar toy kite, and its simple shape later inspired the builders of the first modern hang gliders.
Q 13Which kite design is the ancestor of the steerable, wing-shaped canopies used by skydivers?
Q 21Basant, the Punjabi kite festival long centred on Lahore, marks the start of which season?
Spring
Spring. Lahore banned the festival in 2007 after years of deaths blamed on kite fighting, and a generation grew up without it before the kites came back in February 2026.
Q 22Gujarat's huge kite festival Uttarayan falls on which Hindu harvest festival each January?
Makar Sankranti
Makar Sankranti. It marks the Sun's passage into Capricorn and the start of the harvest season, and kite sales across India peak as families take to the rooftops to duel.
Q 23Which Central American country marks All Saints' Day, 1 November, by flying giant hand-made kites?
Guatemala
The parafoil
The parafoil. Domina Jalbert's 1964 design has no rigid parts at all: the wind rams into its open fabric cells and inflates them into the curved shape of a wing.
Q 14In 647 the Korean general Kim Yu-sin sent a burning kite into the sky to convince his troops of what?
A fallen star had risen
A fallen star had risen. The chronicle Samguk Sagi tells that his men took a falling star as an omen of defeat, so he sent fire up on a kite, let it be known the star had gone back, and beat the rebels.
Q 15In World War II, US Navy gunners trained by shooting at steerable kites printed with the outline of what?
An enemy aircraft
An enemy aircraft. Kite expert Paul Garber's diamond could loop, dive and climb like a real fighter, and hundreds of thousands were shot to pieces in gunnery training.
Q 16Which Chinese city calls itself the kite capital of the world?
Weifang
Weifang. Local tradition makes the Shandong city the birthplace of the kite, and its international festival each April draws kite fliers from around the world.
Q 17Airmen adrift at sea in World War II flew a folding kite from their life raft to raise what?
A radio aerial
A radio aerial. The hand-cranked 'Gibson Girl' rescue transmitter, nicknamed for its hourglass shape, sent its distress call up the kite's own flying line, which doubled as the antenna.
Q 18Manja, the cutting line of South Asian kite fighting, is traditionally cotton thread coated with what?
Powdered glass
Powdered glass. Fliers saw at each other's lines until one kite is cut free, and the string is sharp enough to kill: Delhi moved to ban it in 2016 after three deaths.
Q 19In kite fighting, what are the people who chase down kites that have been cut loose called?
Runners
Runners. By custom whoever catches a cut kite gets to keep it, so crowds race after the best ones, and Khaled Hosseini named his 2003 novel The Kite Runner after the role.
Q 20Gudiparan bazi is kite fighting in which country, where it was outlawed from 1996 to 2001?
Afghanistan
Afghanistan. The Taliban called kite flying un-Islamic and would beat anyone caught at it and tear up the kite, yet the fighters were back in the skies over Kabul once the regime fell.
Guatemala. Teams in Sumpango and Santiago Sacatepéquez spend months building and decorating the kites, then fly them to carry messages between the living and their ancestors.
Q 24Which airline's tail logo is a stylised wau, a traditional kite of its home country?
Malaysia Airlines
Malaysia Airlines. Its wau bulan, or moon kite, was restyled in red and blue in 1987; a 2012 redesign turned the kite all blue, but the airline later went back to both colours.
Q 25In 1848 a boy's kite carried the first line for a suspension bridge across which gorge?
Niagara Gorge
Niagara Gorge. Homan Walsh flew his kite from the Canadian side, and its string was tied to a tree and used to haul ever stronger cords across until the builders could pull over a cable.
Q 26Islanders in the Pacific and Southeast Asia have long flown kites made of leaves out over the sea to do what?
Catch fish
Catch fish. Leaf kites trailing baited lines are so old in the Pacific and Southeast Asia that some scholars think the kite was invented there independently of China.
Q 27Japan's Hamamatsu Kite Festival is said to have begun as a way to celebrate what?
The birth of a first son
The birth of a first son. Legend has a castle lord's heir honoured with a kite more than 460 years ago, and families still send up a giant kite painted with the name of each new baby.
Q 28In Japan, kite flying is a traditional children's pastime at New Year and which other holiday?
The Boys' Festival in May
The Boys' Festival in May. The holiday was renamed Children's Day in 1948 so that it would honour girls as well, but the kites and carp streamers still go up every 5 May.
Q 29In Bermuda and Guyana, kites are traditionally flown at which Christian festival?
Easter
Easter. The soaring kites are said to stand for Christ rising, and in both places they are flown at almost no other time of year.
Q 30In which South American country do kites called volantines fill the sky during independence celebrations each September?
Chile
Chile. The 18 September holidays come as the weather warms and the winds pick up, which has made them the traditional time of year for flying, and fighting, kites.