Middle East Trivia
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117 free Middle East trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
68 free Middle East trivia questions with answers. The Middle East is where farming, writing and three world religions began, and where a huge share of the world's oil still comes from. This quiz covers the region as a whole: its geography (the Fertile Crescent, the Dead Sea, the Empty Quarter, the Nile, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz), its landmarks (Petra, Mecca, Jerusalem's Old City, the Burj Khalifa, the Suez Canal) and its modern history (Sykes-Picot, the founding of Israel, OPEC, the Arab League, the Iranian Revolution, the Gulf War and the Arab Spring). There are country-by-country questions too, from Turkey and Iran to Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and every Gulf state, plus a few on Arabic, the Hajj and who coined the term 'Middle East' in the first place. Early questions suit a general-knowledge round; later ones will stretch geography buffs. Every answer has been verified against Wikipedia and shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 117 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country is the largest in the Middle East by area?
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia covers about 2.15 million square kilometres, well ahead of Iran (1.65 million) and Egypt (1.0 million), making it the largest country in the Middle East.
Q 02Which three countries are the most populous in the Middle East?
Egypt, Iran and Turkey
Egypt, Iran and Turkey each have well over 80 million people, Egypt topping 105 million; the next most populous, Iraq, has about 45 million.
Q 03Which American naval strategist popularised the term 'Middle East' in 1902?
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Alfred Thayer Mahan used 'Middle East' in a September 1902 National Review article on the Persian Gulf, for the area between Arabia and India; the British had called the Ottoman lands the 'Near East'.
Q 04Mount Damavand, the highest peak in the Middle East, stands in which country?
Iran
Mount Damavand is a 5,610-metre dormant volcano in Iran's Alborz range north-east of Tehran, the highest peak in the Middle East, above Turkey's Mount Ararat at 5,137 metres.
Q 05Which three religions all originated in the Middle East and have their holiest sites there?
Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Judaism, Christianity and Islam all arose in the Middle East; Jerusalem is sacred to all three, and its Old City has been a World Heritage Site since 1981.
Q 06Which region spanning the Levant and Mesopotamia is nicknamed 'the cradle of civilization'?
The Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent, arcing from the Nile valley through the Levant to Mesopotamia, saw the earliest settled farming and the first writing, Sumerian cuneiform, around 3200 BC.
Q 07Which archaeologist popularised the term 'Fertile Crescent' in a 1914 textbook?
James Henry Breasted
James Henry Breasted spread the term 'Fertile Crescent' in his 1914 textbook Outlines of European History; he founded Chicago's Oriental Institute in 1919 and was the first American to earn a PhD in Egyptology.
Q 08The Tigris and Euphrates both rise in which mountain range?
The Taurus Mountains
Both rivers rise in the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey, then flow through Syria and Iraq before joining as the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf.
Q 09The Dead Sea's shores are the lowest land on Earth, at roughly how far below sea level?
440 metres
The Dead Sea's shore sits about 440 metres below sea level, the lowest land on Earth; it has dropped roughly a metre a year since the 1960s as Jordan River water was diverted upstream.
Q 10Roughly what is the salinity of the Dead Sea?
34%
The Dead Sea is about 34% salt, nearly ten times the ocean's 3.5%, which makes the water dense enough that swimmers simply float.
Q 11Which three territories border the Dead Sea?
Jordan, the West Bank and Israel
Jordan lies on the Dead Sea's eastern shore, Israel on the south-west and the West Bank on the north-west; the lake is shared by those three territories alone.
Q 12On what date did Egyptian President Nasser nationalise the Suez Canal?
26 July 1956
Nasser announced the nationalisation on 26 July 1956 in a speech in Alexandria; Britain, France and Israel invaded that October and withdrew under American and Soviet pressure.
Q 13Which container ship blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March 2021?
Ever Given
Q 21The Gulf Cooperation Council, founded in 1981, has how many member states?
Six
Six: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE signed the GCC charter in Abu Dhabi in May 1981, and the council's secretariat sits in Riyadh.
Q 22The secret 1916 Anglo-French deal carving up the Ottoman Middle East is named after whom?
Sykes and Picot
Mark Sykes for Britain and François Georges-Picot for France negotiated the secret agreement, concluded in January 1916 and ratified that May; it allotted zones of direct control and spheres of influence from the Mediterranean to Persia.
Q 23Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in December 2010 sparked the Arab Spring in which country?
Tunisia
The 400-metre Ever Given ran aground on 23 March 2021 and was refloated six days later; about 12 percent of world trade passes through the canal, so hundreds of ships queued.
Q 14The Suez Canal has how many locks?
None
It is a sea-level waterway, so seawater flows freely along its 193 km.
Q 15Which narrow waterway connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman?
The Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz, about 39 kilometres wide at its narrowest, links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and carries roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil.
Q 16How many nations have coastlines on the Persian Gulf?
Eight
Eight nations have Persian Gulf coastlines: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman (through its Musandam peninsula), Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Q 17What does 'Rub' al Khali', the name of the great desert of southern Arabia, mean?
Empty Quarter
Rub' al Khali means 'Empty Quarter'; the sand desert covers about 650,000 square kilometres across Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE and Yemen.
Q 18OPEC was founded in 1960 in which city?
Baghdad
OPEC was created at the Baghdad Conference of 10-14 September 1960, hosted by Iraq; its secretariat sat in Geneva from 1961 before moving to Vienna in 1965.
Q 19Which non-Middle Eastern country was one of OPEC's five founding members?
Venezuela
The organisation moved its base to Vienna after Switzerland declined to extend diplomatic privileges.
Q 20The Arab League was founded in 1945 in which city?
Cairo
The Arab League was founded in Cairo on 22 March 1945 by Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria, with Yemen joining that May; its headquarters left Cairo for Tunis only from 1979 to 1990.
Bouazizi, a street vendor in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, set himself alight on 17 December 2010; President Ben Ali fled the country on 14 January 2011, the first leader toppled by the Arab Spring.
Q 24Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned in February 2011 after how many days of mass protests?
18
Protests began on 25 January 2011 and Mubarak stepped down 18 days later, on 11 February; he had ruled since Anwar Sadat's assassination in October 1981.
Q 25Which city is considered the holiest in Islam and the birthplace of Muhammad?
Mecca
Mecca, in Saudi Arabia's Hejaz region, is where Muhammad was born around 570 AD; non-Muslims are barred from the city, and Muslims around the world face it in prayer.
Q 26The Kaaba, which pilgrims circle during the Hajj, stands inside which mosque?
Masjid al-Haram
The Kaaba stands in the courtyard of Masjid al-Haram, the Great Mosque of Mecca and the largest mosque in the world; Muslims believe Abraham and Ishmael raised its foundations.
Q 27How many times do Hajj pilgrims walk around the Kaaba during the tawaf?
Seven
They circle it counter-clockwise, dressed in the plain white ihram.
Q 28Jerusalem's Old City has been divided since the 19th century into how many quarters?
Four
They are the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters.
Q 29Israel captured East Jerusalem in which 1967 conflict?
The Six-Day War
In the Six-Day War of 5 to 10 June 1967 Israel took East Jerusalem from Jordan, along with the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai and the Golan Heights.
Q 30On what date did Israel declare independence?
14 May 1948
David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the state in Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948, hours before the British Mandate expired at midnight; Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon attacked the next day.