Landmark Trivia
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This landmark trivia quiz has 98 free questions with answers and tours the world's most famous structures and monuments: the New Seven Wonders, ancient sites like Stonehenge, the Acropolis and Angkor Wat, and modern icons from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Burj Khalifa. Questions cover who built each landmark and when, how tall or old it is, the odd stories behind them (a bus jumping Tower Bridge, a hydrant patent lost in a fire, a Hollywood sign that was really an advert) and what makes each one unusual. It suits pub quiz rounds, geography classrooms and travel-obsessed families: the early questions are easy for anyone who has seen a postcard, and the later ones reward people who read the plaques. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries and official sources before publishing, so the answer key holds up under argument.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from the people of which country?
France
France gave the statue to mark the two nations' friendship: Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi sculpted it, Gustave Eiffel engineered the iron frame, and it was dedicated in New York Harbor on 28 October 1886.
Q 02What does the Statue of Liberty hold in her left hand?
A tablet
A tablet inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI, the date of the Declaration of Independence; a broken chain and shackle lie half-hidden at her feet.
Q 03The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan as a tomb for whom?
His wife
His wife Mumtaz Mahal died in 1631 giving birth to their 14th child; Shah Jahan had the white-marble mausoleum built for her at Agra, with some 20,000 workers on the project.
Q 04Why were the Taj Mahal's four minarets built leaning slightly outward?
To topple away from the tomb
To topple away from the tomb: the four minarets, each more than 40 metres tall, tilt slightly outward so any collapse would miss the mausoleum.
Q 05Which Roman emperor began building the Colosseum in AD 72?
Vespasian
Vespasian began the amphitheatre around AD 72 on the site of Nero's Golden House lake; his son Titus opened it in AD 80, and the name Flavian Amphitheatre comes from their dynasty.
Q 06What was the hypogeum of the Colosseum?
An underground maze of tunnels and cages
The hypogeum was an underground maze of tunnels and cages beneath the arena floor, added under Domitian, where animals and gladiators waited before being hoisted up through trapdoors.
Q 07Machu Picchu is believed to have been an estate for which Inca emperor?
Pachacuti
Pachacuti is most often named, though no Inca records confirm it; radiocarbon dates show people living there by about 1420, two decades before texts say his reign began.
Q 08Which American explorer brought Machu Picchu to international attention in 1911?
Hiram Bingham
Hiram Bingham was led to the ruins by a local guide on 24 July 1911, but Peruvian explorer Agustín Lizárraga had already written his name there in charcoal in 1902.
Q 09Petra, the 'Rose City' carved into sandstone cliffs, is in which country?
Jordan
Petra lies in southern Jordan; the Nabataeans made it their trading capital and survived the desert by collecting rainwater in cisterns they carefully concealed.
Q 10Petra's Treasury stood in for the Holy Grail's temple in which film franchise?
Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade used the Treasury's facade as the entrance to the Grail temple, and the film helped make Petra a global tourist destination.
Q 11Christ the Redeemer stands on top of which mountain in Rio de Janeiro?
Corcovado
The statue crowns the 710-metre Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest; the 30-metre Art Deco figure, finished in 1931, is reinforced concrete faced with soapstone.
Q 12Which natural hazard has repeatedly damaged the fingers and head of Rio's Christ the Redeemer?
Lightning
Lightning strikes the statue often: a 2008 storm damaged its fingers, head and eyebrows, and in 2014 a bolt broke a finger off its right hand.
Q 13At Chichen Itza, what shape does the equinox shadow on El Castillo appear to form?
A serpent
At the equinoxes the stepped corners of El Castillo cast a zigzag shadow that joins the carved stone head at the stairway's base, forming the body of a serpent, the feathered-serpent god Kukulcán.
Q 21The world's largest religious complex, in Cambodia, was originally dedicated to which Hindu god?
Vishnu
Suryavarman II dedicated the temple to Vishnu in the early 12th century; from the late 13th century it was gradually turned into a Buddhist temple, as it remains.
Q 22Unlike most Khmer temples, Cambodia's great 12th-century temple faces which direction?
West
It faces west, unlike most Khmer temples, which led scholars such as George Coedès to suggest it was built as Suryavarman II's funerary temple.
Q 23Stonehenge's smaller 'bluestones' were hauled from the Preseli Hills in which country?
Wales
The Preseli Hills are in Pembrokeshire, Wales; the Altar Stone was long thought Welsh too, until a 2024 study traced it to north-east Scotland.
Q 14Strictly speaking, 'Big Ben' is the name of what?
The Great Bell inside it
Big Ben is the Great Bell inside the tower; it cracked months after first ringing in 1859, so it was given an eighth of a turn and still chimes with that different tone.
Q 15Which architect quit the Sydney Opera House project in 1966 and never returned to Australia to see it finished?
Jørn Utzon
Jørn Utzon resigned after the state's works minister refused to pay running costs; he declined an invitation to the 1973 opening and never saw the building complete.
Q 16Who officially opened the Sydney Opera House on 20 October 1973?
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II opened the Sydney Opera House on 20 October 1973; its roof shells are covered in more than a million Swedish-made tiles laid in a subtle chevron pattern.
Q 17What is the official name of the Golden Gate Bridge's colour?
International Orange
Consulting architect Irving Morrow chose International Orange because it complemented the headlands and stood out against fog; the bridge opened to pedestrians on 27 May 1937.
Q 18Workers saved by the Golden Gate Bridge's safety net during construction formed which group?
The Half Way to Hell Club
The 19 men caught by the safety net Joseph Strauss had slung beneath the deck called themselves the Half Way to Hell Club; the net failed in February 1937 when a scaffold fell through it, killing ten.
Q 19Which four presidents are carved into Mount Rushmore?
Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln
Gutzon Borglum carved Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln, chosen for the nation's founding, expansion, development and preservation; the 60-foot heads were to continue to the waist before money ran out in 1941.
Q 20The Burj Khalifa was known by what name during its construction?
Burj Dubai
Built as Burj Dubai from 2004, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa at its opening on 4 January 2010 in honour of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the UAE president whose Abu Dhabi had bailed out Dubai's debts.
Q 24Stonehenge is aligned to the sunrise on which day of the year?
The summer solstice
The monument's axis points toward the Heel Stone and the summer solstice sunrise, and in the opposite direction to the winter solstice sunset; building went on in phases from about 3000 BC to 1600 BC.
Q 25The Leaning Tower of Pisa began tilting in 1178 while builders were on which floor?
The second
The tower began to sink in 1178 while work was on the second floor, its three-metre foundation set in soft clay and sand; construction paused for nearly a century, and engineers reduced the lean to under four degrees by 2001.
Q 26The famous leaning structure in Pisa is actually what kind of building?
A bell tower
It is the bell tower (campanile) of Pisa Cathedral, begun in 1173 as the third structure of the Piazza dei Miracoli; seven bells hang at the top, reached by nearly 300 steps.
Q 27Which pope consecrated the Sagrada Família and declared it a basilica in 2010?
Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI consecrated the church and proclaimed it a minor basilica on 7 November 2010, 128 years after the first stone was laid; Gaudí's plan calls for eighteen spires for the apostles, evangelists, Mary and Jesus.
Q 28Which composer did King Ludwig II of Bavaria intend Neuschwanstein Castle to honour?
Richard Wagner
Ludwig built it as a homage to Richard Wagner, whose operas Lohengrin and Tannhäuser inspired its murals and Singers' Hall; he died in June 1886 before it was finished, and it opened to paying visitors that August.
Q 29Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was completed in 537 under which Byzantine emperor?
Justinian I
Justinian I had the current church built in five years by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, dedicating it on 27 December 537; it became a mosque in 1453, a museum in 1935 and a mosque again in 2020.
Q 30Which of the Forbidden City's 24 emperors was the last to live there, until troops evicted him in 1924?
Puyi
Puyi abdicated as a boy in 1912 but was allowed to keep living in the palace's inner court until a warlord's coup evicted him in 1924.