50 free Lebanon trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Lebanon gave the world the alphabet, purple dye and the word for book, holds some of the oldest cities on Earth and the largest Roman temple ever built, and packs 18 recognised religions into a country smaller than Connecticut. It has been the Switzerland and the Paris of the Middle East, then a battlefield, and lately the scene of one of the world's worst financial collapses and one of its biggest explosions. This Lebanon trivia quiz covers all of it. Forty-six questions run from geography (Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Qurnat as Sawda', the Beqaa, the Litani, Jeita Grotto, the cedars) through history (Phoenicia, Byblos, Tyre and Sidon, Baalbek, the Maronites and Druze, Fakhr al-Din, the Mutasarrifate, Greater Lebanon, independence in 1943, the National Pact, the civil war, Taif, Hariri, 2005, 2006, the port explosion) to culture (the flag, the pound, kibbeh, tabbouleh, mezze, arak, Fairuz, Gibran, the diaspora, ski-and-swim days). Roughly a third are easy, a third medium, and the rest are for people who really know the Levant. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia and official pages, so the dates, numbers and names are ones you can rely on.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Lebanon?
Beirut
Greater Beirut holds about 2.4 million people, nearly half the country, and has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years.
Q 02From 3200 to 539 BC the land of Lebanon was part of which seafaring civilisation?
Phoenicia
Its colonies included Carthage and Cádiz, and Cyrus the Great absorbed its cities into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC.
Q 03The Phoenicians are credited with inventing what?
The oldest verified alphabet
It inspired the Greek alphabet and, through it, the Latin one.
Q 04Which ancient Lebanese city gave Greek its word for papyrus?
Byblos
The Greeks knew it as the port through which Egyptian papyrus arrived, and the word for book, and the Bible, followed.
Q 05According to the Bible, which king of Tyre supplied cedar logs for Solomon's Temple?
Hiram
Tyre is also the legendary birthplace of Europa, Cadmus and Carthage's founder Dido.
Q 06Alexander the Great absorbed the Phoenician city-states after besieging which city in 332 BC?
Tyre
The city, added whole to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1984, was described by Ernest Renan as "a city of ruins, built out of ruins".
Q 07Which Roman general annexed the region into the Roman Republic in 64 BC?
Pompey
The land became part of the imperial province of Phoenice.
Q 08Baalbek is famous for the ruins of Roman temples dedicated to Bacchus and which chief god?
Jupiter
The Romans called the city Heliopolis, "Sun City", and UNESCO listed the site in 1984.
Q 09The Christian community that takes its name from a hermit named Maron traces him to when?
Late 4th–early 5th century
His followers moved into the mountains to escape persecution and later gave their allegiance to the Pope in Rome.
Q 10The Druze religion emerged in the 11th century from a branch of what?
Shia Islam
Druze feudal families ruled the southern mountain until the early 14th century.
Q 11Which Druze emir, executed by the Ottomans in 1635, is remembered as a founder of the Lebanese entity?
Fakhr al-Din II
Sultan Murad IV sent a punitive expedition against him in 1633; the Shihab clan later ruled Mount Lebanon until 1830.
Q 12The Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate of 1861–1918 was created as an autonomous homeland for which community?
Maronite Christians
It followed the 1860 civil war in which around 10,000 Christians were killed by the Druze.
Q 13Roughly how many people in the capital and Mount Lebanon starved to death in the WWI famine?
100,000
The Ottoman army's direct control disrupted supplies and confiscated animals.
Q 21Lebanon's civil war lasted from 1975 until which year?
1990
The Taif Agreement set out a Syrian withdrawal timetable and a formula for de-confessionalising politics.
Q 22Which country militarily occupied Lebanon from 1976 to 2005?
Syria
Israel occupied the south from 1985 to 2000; Syrian troops left after the 2005 Cedar Revolution.
Q 23Hezbollah emerged in the early 1980s with financial support and training from which country?
Iran
It was receiving about $3–5 million a month from Iran by the late 1980s and is called the world's most heavily armed non-state actor.
Which former prime minister was assassinated by a car bomb on 14 February 2005?
Q 14Greater Lebanon was established under French mandate on 1 September of which year?
1920
The Lebanese Republic itself was proclaimed on 1 September 1926 with a French-inspired constitution.
Q 15On what date in 1943 did France release the imprisoned Lebanese government and accept independence?
22 November
The government had unilaterally abolished the mandate two weeks earlier; 22 November remains Independence Day.
Q 16Under Lebanon's unwritten National Pact of 1943, the president must belong to which community?
Maronite Christian
The prime minister must be Sunni and the speaker of parliament Shia; the deputies of each are Greek Orthodox.
Q 17How many religious groups are officially recognised by the Lebanese state?
18
Four are Muslim, twelve Christian, one Druze and one Jewish, and each has its own family law and courts.
Q 18Lebanon's parliament has how many seats, split equally between Christians and Muslims?
128
They are shared proportionately among the 18 denominations and 26 regions.
Q 19Why has Lebanon not conducted a national census since 1932?
The relative size of religious sects is too sensitive
One private study put Sunnis and Shia at about 27% each and Maronites at 21%.
Q 20Lebanon was once 'the Switzerland of the Middle East' for its banks and what else?
Snow-capped holiday resorts
Beirut, meanwhile, was "the Paris of the Middle East".
Rafic Hariri
The killing triggered mass protests that forced Syrian troops out of Lebanon by 26 April.
Q 25The 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah was ended by which UN Security Council resolution?
1701
Some 1,191 Lebanese and 160 Israelis died in the 34-day conflict.
Q 26The August 2020 explosion at Lebanon's main port was caused by how much stored ammonium nitrate?
2,750 tonnes
More than 200 people were killed, and Prime Minister Hassan Diab's cabinet resigned six days later.
Q 27What is Lebanon's highest point, at 3,088 m?
Qurnat as Sawda'
It is the highest peak in the whole Levant; its Syriac name means "Martyrs' Peak".
Q 28What tree is Lebanon's national emblem, shown in green on its flag?
Cedar
The Cedars of God forest near Bsharri is a remnant of the vast ancient forests; over 600,000 trees have been replanted since 2011.
Q 29How big is the white central stripe on Lebanon's flag compared with each red stripe?
Twice the height
The green tree at its centre touches both red stripes.
Q 30The name of Mount Lebanon comes from a Phoenician root meaning what?
White
It apparently refers to the range's snow-capped peaks, where snow can linger until early summer.