Marrakech
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48 free Marrakech trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Marrakech was founded around 1070 as the capital of a Berber dynasty whose empire ran from Senegal to Spain, and for centuries the whole of Morocco was simply called the Kingdom of Marrakesh. Its red clay walls, 77-metre minaret and the nightly circus of Jemaa el-Fnaa now draw more than two million visitors a year, from Churchill at La Mamounia to the hippies of the 1960s and the French jet set who bought up its riads. These 48 questions cover the whole story: the Almoravids and Almohads, the Saadian golden age and El Badi Palace, the seven patron saints, Pasha El Glaoui and the French Protectorate, the 1985 UNESCO listing, the 1994 agreement that created the World Trade Organization, the 2016 climate conference, and the 2023 earthquake. There are landmark questions on the Koutoubia, the Ben Youssef Madrasa, the Menara and Agdal gardens, the Majorelle Garden and its blue villa, the Mellah and the Saadian Tombs, and culture questions on Gnaoua music, tanjia marrakshia, ras el hanout, the souks, the film festival and the Formula E circuit. Easy questions stay with the country, the nickname and the square; the hardest reach for dynasties, dates and twin towns. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a travel quiz night.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which city, like Marrakech, is one of Morocco's four imperial cities?
Rabat
Rabat. Morocco's imperial cities are the four that served as capital under a ruling dynasty, which is why Casablanca, the country's biggest city, isn't one.
Q 02What colour gives Marrakech its famous nickname?
Red
Red. The 'Red City' is named for the old town's ramparts and buildings of beaten clay, whose reddish earth gives the whole medina its colour.
Q 03Which mountain range rises to the south-east of Marrakech?
Atlas Mountains
Atlas Mountains. The High Atlas peaks stay snow-capped through winter, and Oukaïmeden, a short drive from the hot city, is Morocco's main ski resort.
Q 04Marrakech lies in the valley of which river?
Tensift
Tensift. The river passes the city's northern edge on its way to the Atlantic, and until a 2015 redrawing the whole region was called Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz.
Q 05Which dynasty founded Marrakech in the 11th century as its capital?
Almoravids
Almoravids. They began as Berber nomads deep in the Sahara, and from their new capital they went on to rule an empire reaching into Spain.
Q 06Which trio's 1969 hit 'Marrakesh Express' recalls a train ride from Casablanca?
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills & Nash. Graham Nash wrote it about a 1966 holiday train ride, and his old band the Hollies turned the song down as not commercial enough.
Q 07Which Córdoba-born philosopher died in Marrakech in 1198?
Averroes
Averroes. Banished in 1195 and his books burned, he was soon recalled to the court at Marrakech and died there; his body was later carried home to Córdoba.
Q 08Which movement captured Marrakech in 1147 and made it their own capital?
The Almohads
The Almohads. From the 1120s their revolt was based at Tinmel, a mountain village to the south, and it took more than twenty years of fighting before Marrakech fell.
Q 09Which city took over as capital when the Marinids conquered Marrakech in 1269?
Fez
Fez. The Marinids preferred to rule from the north, and Marrakech slid into decline until the Saadians made it a capital again in the 16th century.
Q 10Which ruined Marrakech palace did sultan Ahmad al-Mansur build?
El Badi Palace
El Badi Palace. Its name is usually translated as 'the Incomparable', yet later rulers stripped it bare, and Moulay Ismail is said to have carted its marble off to build Meknes.
Q 11The 'Seven Men' buried in Marrakech are the city's seven what?
Patron saints
Patron saints. Sultan Moulay Ismail set up the pilgrimage to their seven tombs in the late 1600s, partly to draw crowds away from a rival Berber pilgrimage near Essaouira.
Q 12Who was Pasha of Marrakech for almost the entire French Protectorate?
T'hami El Glaoui
T'hami El Glaoui. He helped the French depose and exile the sultan in 1953, then knelt before him to ask forgiveness two years later and died within months.
Q 13Which exiled sultan's 1955 return led to Moroccan independence?
Mohammed V
Mohammed V. The French had deposed him in 1953 and sent him to Corsica, then Madagascar, but the unrest that followed forced them to bring him back.
Q 21Marrakech souks like Haddadine are named after what?
Their trades
Their trades. Haddadine is the blacksmiths' souk, and in the dyers' souk skeins of freshly dyed wool are hung out to dry.
Q 22Jemaa el-Fnaa, the great square of Marrakech, has a name often translated as what?
Assembly of the dead
Assembly of the dead. The meaning is disputed: some link it to the executions once staged on the square, others read it as 'mosque of annihilation', after a mosque left unfinished there.
Q 23Which Spanish tower is the near-twin of Marrakech's most famous minaret?
La Giralda
La Giralda. Seville Cathedral's bell tower began as the minaret of a mosque built by the same dynasty, which is why it so closely resembles its Marrakech twin.
Q 14Which Alfred Hitchcock thriller opens with an American family on holiday in Marrakech?
The Man Who Knew Too Much
The Man Who Knew Too Much. A dying Frenchman, stabbed in Jemaa el-Fnaa, whispers a secret to James Stewart, and Doris Day's 'Que Sera, Sera' went on to win an Oscar.
Q 15Which fashion designer bought and restored the Majorelle Garden?
Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent. He and Pierre Bergé bought the garden when it was slated to be razed for a hotel, and his ashes were scattered there in 2008.
Q 16Marrakech's Majorelle Garden is famous for walls and a villa painted which intense colour?
Cobalt blue
Cobalt blue. Painter Jacques Majorelle, who spent almost forty years planting the garden, used the shade so widely that it is now known as Majorelle blue.
Q 17Which Marrakech monument, walled off by a sultan, was rediscovered only in 1917?
Saadian Tombs
Saadian Tombs. Moulay Ismail walled off the necropolis of the dynasty his own had replaced, and a French aerial survey of the medina is said to have spotted it again.
Q 18Which international body was established by the Marrakesh Agreement of 15 April 1994?
The World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization. Ministers signed the deal in Marrakech to close eight years of Uruguay Round trade talks, and the new body replaced the GATT at the start of 1995.
Q 19Which UN event did Marrakech host in November 2016?
A Climate Change Conference
A Climate Change Conference. COP22 opened three days after the Paris Agreement took legal force, which made it the first meeting of the countries that had joined the deal.
Q 20Which business on Marrakech's main square was destroyed in the April 2011 bomb attack?
Argana Cafe
Argana Cafe. The blast wrecked the upper floor of the café overlooking Jemaa el-Fnaa, and most of those killed were foreign visitors.
Q 24Which Marrakech landmark is named after the booksellers who once traded beside it?
Koutoubia Mosque
Koutoubia Mosque. Churchill painted its tower in 1943 and gave the picture to Roosevelt; it was his only painting of the war, and in 2021 it sold for a record price for his work.
Q 25Which famous gate, built by Ya'qub al-Mansur, was the main entrance to the Kasbah?
Bab Agnaou
Its floral carving is framed by a Quranic inscription in foliated Kufic script.
Q 26What were the khettaras that watered Marrakech's gardens?
Underground channels
Underground channels. First dug about nine centuries ago, the tunnels carried water in from the foothills, which is how a hot, dry city came to have its great gardens.
Q 27Which walled royal garden, begun in the 12th century, is the largest historic green space in Marrakech?
Agdal
Agdal. Its orchards cover several times the area of the Menara, and in 1873 Sultan Mohammed IV drowned in its great reservoir while out boating with his son.
Q 28What is a riad?
A mansion with a central garden courtyard
A mansion with a central garden courtyard. Blank walls face the street and every room looks inward, which keeps a riad private and cool; many are now guesthouses.
Q 29Marrakech's 16th-century royal mausoleums stand beside the south wall of which mosque?
Kasbah Mosque
Kasbah Mosque. It was the mosque of the walled royal citadel, so the ruling dynasty raised its family mausoleums directly against its southern wall.
Q 30Which large birds famously nest on top of Marrakech's old ramparts and palace walls?
Storks
Storks. They are seen all over the old city, and the arts centre Dar Bellarj, 'house of the storks', was once a hospital for injured birds.