Monaco Trivia
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45 free Monaco trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Monaco is two square kilometres of the French Riviera that has been ruled by the same family since a Grimaldi disguised as a monk seized its fortress in 1297. It is the second-smallest country on Earth, the most densely populated, and home to more millionaires per head than anywhere else, and it has not charged its citizens income tax since 1869. This quiz covers the whole principality: the Rock of Monaco-Ville, Monte Carlo and its 1858 casino, the Franco-Monégasque treaties, the 1910 revolution, the wartime occupation, Rainier III's 56-year reign and Prince Albert II's bobsleigh career. It also takes in the things everyone knows Monaco for: the Grand Prix run through the streets since 1929, Ayrton Senna's six wins, Grace Kelly's Oscar and her 1956 wedding, AS Monaco's eight French titles despite not being French, the Oceanographic Museum that Jacques Cousteau ran, the Café de Paris, and the red-and-white flag that is nearly identical to Indonesia's. Easy questions ask which country surrounds Monaco; hard ones want the price France paid for Menton and Roquebrune and the year Italian stopped being the official language. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Monaco, the Grand Prix, Grace Kelly, the flag, AS Monaco, Prince Albert II and the Oceanographic Museum, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Monaco's entire coastline faces which sea?
Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea: short of land, Monaco has built whole new districts out into it, reclaiming ground from the water since the 1960s.
Q 02Monaco is the second-smallest sovereign state in the world; which is the smallest?
Vatican City
Vatican City would fit inside Monaco more than four times over, yet Monaco itself is smaller than New York's Central Park.
Q 03Which family has ruled Monaco, with brief interruptions, since 1297?
Grimaldi
Grimaldi rule began in 1297; the family lost the principality to the French revolutionary republic from 1793 to 1814 and regained it under the Treaty of Paris.
Q 04How is 'Malizia' said to have captured Monaco's fortress in 1297?
Disguised as a Franciscan friar
Disguised as a Franciscan friar, the story goes, he was let through the gates and seized the fortress with his men; two sword-bearing friars still flank Monaco's coat of arms.
Q 05Monaco was refounded in 1215 as a colony of which maritime republic?
Genoa
Genoa was granted the site by Emperor Henry VI in 1191 and built a fortress there in 1215 to guard its interests along the coast.
Q 06Which tennis player won the Monte-Carlo Masters a record 11 times?
Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal won it eight years running from 2005 and three more times from 2016 to 2018, though the club's clay courts actually sit just across the border in France.
Q 07Which American-born entertainer who found fame in Paris is buried in Monaco?
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was helped by Princess Grace to find a home nearby after losing her château; France honoured her in the Panthéon in 2021, but her grave stayed in Monaco.
Q 08Which two towns, most of Monaco's territory, did Charles III cede to France in 1861?
Menton and Roquebrune
Menton and Roquebrune had broken away in 1848 and sat under Sardinian protection; under the 1861 treaty Charles III sold his claim for about 4 million francs and won recognition of Monaco's sovereignty.
Q 09Casino profits let Monaco stop collecting which tax from its residents in 1869?
Income tax
Income tax was scrapped by Charles III in 1869 once the casino was paying the state's way, and the lure for wealthy newcomers has lasted ever since.
Q 10Which future World Cup winner, aged 18, fired AS Monaco to the 2017 French league title?
Kylian Mbappé
Kylian Mbappé had made his debut at 16, taking Thierry Henry's record as the club's youngest player, and joined Paris Saint-Germain within months of the title.
Q 11Which French architect designed the opera house inside the Monte Carlo casino?
Charles Garnier
Charles Garnier, who had built the Paris Opéra, gave the casino its theatre, the Salle Garnier, opened in January 1879 with a performance by Sarah Bernhardt.
Q 12Who is forbidden to gamble in the Monte Carlo casino?
Monégasque citizens
Monégasque citizens have been kept out of the gaming rooms since the casino's early years, a rule put down to morals in one account and to protecting locals' money in another, while visitors' losses went on to fund the state.
Q 13Monaco has no airport, so a helicopter shuttle links it to the airport of which city?
Nice
Q 21How did Princess Grace die in 1982?
A car crash
A car crash on 13 September 1982, after she suffered a stroke at the wheel on the road above the principality, left her in a coma; she died the next day aged 52.
Q 22In which US city was the future Princess Grace born?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia: her father, John B. Kelly, was a self-made brick millionaire and triple Olympic rowing champion, so the future princess grew up wealthy long before Hollywood.
Q 23What are the names of Princess Grace's three children?
Caroline, Albert and Stéphanie
Caroline, Albert and Stéphanie: Albert, the middle child, inherited the throne in 2005 ahead of his elder sister Caroline because Monaco's succession puts sons first.
Nice: the hop to its airport takes about seven minutes, and passengers on some airlines can check in for their flight at Monaco's heliport before they board the helicopter.
Q 14Which Russian impresario based his Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo in the 1920s?
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev made Monte Carlo his company's base, and many of the Ballets Russes' new works were given their premieres on the casino's stage.
Q 15What is the highest point in Monaco?
The entrance to a residential building
The entrance to a residential building, the Patio Palace on the Chemin des Révoires, is Monaco's top at just over 160 metres; the slope belongs to Mont Agel, whose summit lies across the border.
Q 16Which Monaco district was built on land reclaimed from the sea in the 1970s?
Fontvieille
Fontvieille exists because Monaco ran out of land: landfill pushed the shore outward to make room for light industry, a marina and the national stadium.
Q 17Monaco's old town and seat of government sit on a promontory known as what?
The Rock
The Rock (Le Rocher) is a headland about 60 metres high whose cliffs made it a natural stronghold, so the medieval fortress that became the Prince's Palace was built on top.
Q 18Which prince reigned over Monaco from 1949 to 2005?
Rainier III
Rainier III succeeded his grandfather in 1949 and reigned for nearly 56 years; in 1962 he gave Monaco a new constitution that shared his power with an elected council.
Q 19Which Pierce Brosnan Bond film shot its casino scenes on location in Monte Carlo?
GoldenEye
GoldenEye sends 007 to Monaco, where he beats the assassin Xenia Onatopp at baccarat before she steals a helicopter from a military display in the harbour.
Q 20Princess Grace won her Best Actress Oscar for which 1954 drama about a fading singer's wife?
The Country Girl
The Country Girl, with Bing Crosby as the washed-up singer, brought her the Academy Award in 1955 ahead of Judy Garland, nominated for A Star Is Born.
Q 24Prince Albert II competed at five Winter Olympics in which sport?
Bobsleigh
Bobsleigh took him to five straight Winter Games, from Calgary 1988 to Salt Lake City 2002; he had already tried the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1985, without reaching the finish.
Q 25Prince Albert II's wife, Princess Charlene, was an Olympic competitor for South Africa in which sport?
Swimming
Swimming brought them together: Charlene Wittstock met the prince at a meet in Monte Carlo in 2000, the year she swam for South Africa at the Sydney Olympics.
Q 26Which driver won the Monaco Grand Prix six times, including five in a row from 1989?
Ayrton Senna
Ayrton Senna won in 1987 and then five years running from 1989; the one he lost in between, in 1988, he threw away by crashing at Portier while far in the lead.
Q 27Which British driver was nicknamed 'Mr Monaco' after five wins in the 1960s?
Graham Hill
Graham Hill won it in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1969, yet he had not even passed his driving test until he was 24.
Q 28The Monaco Grand Prix forms the Triple Crown of Motorsport with Le Mans and which other race?
The Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500 completes the trio; chasing it, Fernando Alonso skipped the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix to race at Indianapolis, where he led 27 laps before retiring near the end.
Q 29Which manager signed Glenn Hoddle and George Weah for AS Monaco and won the 1988 French title?
Arsène Wenger
Arsène Wenger won the league in his first season; Monaco later refused to release him to Bayern Munich, then sacked him weeks into the 1994-95 season, two years before he joined Arsenal.
Q 30Which Russian billionaire bought a majority stake in AS Monaco in December 2011?
Dmitry Rybolovlev
Dmitry Rybolovlev, who made his fortune in potash fertiliser, bought two-thirds of the club in December 2011 while it sat at the bottom of the second division; it won promotion in 2013 and the French title in 2017.