50 free Lighthouses trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Lighthouses have guided sailors for more than two thousand years, and this quiz covers the whole story: the ancient Pharos of Alexandria, the still-working Roman Tower of Hercules, the wave-washed towers of Eddystone and Bell Rock, the Fresnel lens that made a lamp visible from twenty miles, and the keepers, heroines and mysteries that came with the job. Easy questions ask what a keeper's nickname was and which US lighthouse is the tallest; harder ones dig into the 1801 Smalls tragedy, the three keepers who vanished from the Flannan Isles in 1900, the Danish tower rolled 70 metres inland on rails, and why the Statue of Liberty once answered to the Lighthouse Board. It suits coastal-holiday fans, sailors, history buffs and any pub quiz that wants a round with real stories in it. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on lighthouses, individual towers, their engineers and their keepers, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The most famous lighthouse of antiquity, one of the Seven Wonders, stood at which city?
Alexandria
The Pharos was finished under Ptolemy II and was at least 100 metres tall; earthquakes between 956 and 1323 reduced it to ruins.
Q 02What was built on the site of the ruined Pharos in 1480, using its last stones?
The Citadel of Qaitbay
The Pharos was the third longest-surviving ancient wonder, outlasted only by the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Great Pyramid.
Q 03The Tower of Hercules, the oldest known Roman lighthouse still standing, is in which country?
Spain
It overlooks the Atlantic at A Coruña, has been in use since the 2nd century and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009.
Q 04Which Irish lighthouse built by William Marshal is the world's second-oldest still operating?
Hook Head
Its first custodians were monks, and tradition says the missionary Dubhán kept a beacon on the headland as early as the 5th century.
Q 05The Kõpu Lighthouse, in continuous use since 1531, stands on an island belonging to which country?
Estonia
It sits on the highest hill of Hiiumaa island and was once known by the Swedish name Övre Dagerort.
Q 06Henry Winstanley's Eddystone tower of 1698 was the world's first lighthouse to be what?
Fully exposed to the open sea
It lasted only until the Great Storm of 1703, which swept it away along with Winstanley himself.
Q 07What happened to Henry Winstanley when the Great Storm of 1703 struck the Eddystone?
He was killed on the lighthouse
During construction a French privateer had captured him, and Louis XIV ordered his release, saying France was at war with England, not with humanity.
Q 08John Smeaton modelled the shape of his 1759 Eddystone lighthouse on what?
An oak tree
He also rediscovered the Romans' hydraulic lime, a concrete that sets under water, and locked his granite blocks together with dovetail joints.
Q 09Where can the upper part of Smeaton's Eddystone tower be seen today?
Plymouth Hoe
It was re-erected as a monument after the tower was replaced in 1882 by James Douglass, who was knighted for the job.
Q 10The Bell Rock Lighthouse, the oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse, is off which country?
Scotland
Robert Stevenson built it between 1807 and 1810 on the Inchcape reef, 11 miles east of the Firth of Tay.
Q 11According to legend, how did the Inchcape reef get its better-known name?
An abbot installed a warning bell that a pirate stole
Robert Southey immortalised the tale in his poem The Inchcape Rock; the wreck of HMS York in 1804 finally forced Parliament to fund a light.
Q 12Which Scottish family made lighthouse building a three-generation profession?
The Stevensons
Robert, Alan, David, Thomas, David Alan and Charles Stevenson all built lights; the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson was the odd one out.
Q 13Skerryvore lighthouse, southwest of Tiree, was built between 1838 and 1844 by which Stevenson?
Alan
Q 21Which was the first lighthouse built in what is now the United States, first lit in 1716?
Boston Light
The British blew up the original tower as they withdrew in 1776; the rebuilt light is still the only one staffed by the US Coast Guard.
Q 22Which is the oldest working lighthouse in the United States?
Sandy Hook, New Jersey
It was built in 1764 by Isaac Conro and later served as a backdrop for the final episode of the soap opera Guiding Light.
Q 23Which president ordered construction of Portland Head Light, the first US government lighthouse?
George Washington
The 48-metre tower southwest of Tiree took from 1838 to 1844 to build on a remote reef called "The Great Skerry".
Q 14Which Swiss scientist's 1782 lamp, with its steady smokeless flame, revolutionised lighthouse lighting?
Aimé Argand
Matthew Boulton manufactured it from 1784, burning whale oil, colza or olive oil, and it stayed standard for over a century.
Q 15Which French physicist developed the multi-part lens that bears his name for lighthouses?
Augustin-Jean Fresnel
His lens captured 85% of a lamp's light against 20% for parabolic reflectors; he died of tuberculosis at 39, days after receiving the Rumford Medal.
Q 16The first Fresnel lens was installed in 1823 in which French lighthouse?
Cordouan
Its light could be seen more than 20 miles out, and the lens increased a lamp's luminosity by a factor of four.
Q 17Which country's oldest lighthouse, the 'Patriarch of Lighthouses', was completed in 1611 at the Gironde's mouth?
France
Designed by Louis de Foix as a Renaissance masterpiece complete with a domed chapel, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021.
Q 18What is the tallest lighthouse in the United States from base to tip?
Cape Hatteras
The 210-foot tower stands on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, guarding the shoals known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
Q 19What was done to the tallest lighthouse in the United States in 1999?
It was moved 2,900 feet inland
The "Move of the Millennium" left the tower 1,500 feet from the shoreline and won an outstanding engineering award.
Q 20The black-and-white barber-pole spiral on the Hatteras tower is an example of what?
A daymark
Nearby lighthouses of similar shape get unique paint patterns so sailors can tell them apart in daylight.
Work began in 1787 with a $1,500 fund he established and the light was completed in January 1791.
Q 24Which Union general built many Atlantic and Gulf lighthouses before winning at Gettysburg?
George Meade
Colonel Orlando Poe, Sherman's engineer at Atlanta, later designed some of the most exotic lights on the Great Lakes.
Q 25Which lighthouse-turned-tower in Saudi Arabia has a credible claim to be the world's tallest?
Jeddah Light
At 431 feet it doubles as an observation deck and port control tower at the entrance to Jeddah Seaport.
Q 26Split Rock Lighthouse in Minnesota was built after a 1905 storm damaged or sank 29 ships on which lake?
Superior
The Mataafa Storm prompted the $75,000 tower, first lit in 1910 and now considered one of America's most picturesque lights.
Q 27Lighthouse keepers were nicknamed "wickies" because of which task?
Trimming the lamp wicks
They also refilled fuel, wound the clockwork that turned the lens and kept the glass spotless.
Q 28How many keepers vanished without trace from the Flannan Isles Lighthouse in December 1900?
Three
The relief crew found the clocks stopped and a set of oilskins still indoors; the 2018 film The Vanishing is based on the mystery.
Q 29Which detail in Wilfrid Gibson's 1912 Flannan Isles ballad is not supported by the actual findings?
An overturned chair and an uneaten meal
The real relief crew found unmade beds, an unwound clock and a coat still on its peg, but no half-eaten dinner.
Q 30In the 1801 Smalls Lighthouse tragedy, what did keeper Thomas Howell do with his dead colleague's body?
Built a coffin and lashed it to an outside shelf
The wind blew the box apart and an arm hung within view of the window, yet Howell kept the lamp lit for weeks alone.