50 free Munich trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Munich's name means 'at the monks', and its birthday is the day in 1158 when a duke's salt-toll bridge won a legal fight with a bishop. This quiz follows the city from Henry the Lion through 700 years of Wittelsbach rule, the royal wedding party of 1810 that became Oktoberfest, Ludwig I's 'Athens on the Isar', the Bavarian Soviet Republic, the Beer Hall Putsch and Munich Agreement, the White Rose students, 71 air raids, and the postwar boom that brought the 1972 Olympics and their tragedy. The modern city gets equal attention: the Frauenkirche's devil's footprint and 99-metre height cap, the Glockenspiel's coopers' dance, the Hofbrauhaus and the Reinheitsgebot, the English Garden built by an American loyalist, the Eisbach surfers, Nymphenburg, the Deutsches Museum, the tent roof of the Olympiapark, the Allianz Arena's colour-changing skin, Bayern's record titles, BMW's aircraft-engine origins, Weisswurst before noon and the strange fact that Munich is bigger than any German city that isn't its own state. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Munich and its landmarks, clubs and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Germany quiz covers the rest of the country.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Munich's name comes from a monastic settlement called what?
Zu den Munchen, 'to the monks'
A monk still appears on the city's coat of arms as the Munchner Kindl.
Q 02Munich sits on which river?
The Isar
The Isar was a prehistoric trade route and in the Bronze Age Munich was one of Europe's largest raft ports.
Q 03Which duke founded Munich around 1158 to control the salt trade, after burning a rival's bridge?
Henry the Lion
He was Duke of Saxony and Bavaria; the settlement with the Bishop of Freising on 14 June 1158 is the official founding date.
Q 04Which dynasty ruled Bavaria from Munich until the revolution of 1918?
The Wittelsbachs
Otto I Wittelsbach became duke in 1180; the last king fled in November 1918 and a short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic followed.
Q 05Munich became capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria in which year?
1806
Elector Maximilian IV Joseph became the first king after allying with Napoleon; the city had been capital of reunited Bavaria since 1506.
Q 06The first Oktoberfest, on 12 October 1810, celebrated what?
Crown Prince Ludwig's wedding
He married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen; the meadow was named Theresienwiese, still called the Wiesn.
Q 07What did the very first Oktoberfest feature as its main event?
A horse race
It was modelled on the medieval Scharlachrennen; beer tents and fairground rides came later.
Q 08Since 1950 the Mayor of Munich has opened Oktoberfest by tapping the first keg and shouting what?
O'zapft is!
'It's tapped!' follows a 12-gun salute; visitors drank some 7.4m litres of beer in 2023.
Q 09Oktoberfest attendance hit a record in 2023 of how many visitors?
7.2m
It is the world's largest Volksfest, running from mid-September to the first Sunday in October.
Q 10The Reinheitsgebot beer purity law adopted across Bavaria in 1516 allowed which ingredients?
Water, barley and hops
Yeast was not yet understood; a Munich version of the law dated back to 1487.
Q 11Duke William V had the Hofbrauhaus built in 1589 for what reason?
Munich beer was bad; he had imported from Saxony
It became the prototype for beer halls across the city; Hitler founded the Nazi Party there in a 1920 speech.
Q 12Munich Weisswurst, invented in 1857, is traditionally eaten when?
Before noon
It comes with sweet mustard and a fresh pretzel, and tradition says it should not hear the noon church bells.
Q 13Marienplatz was named after what?
A Marian column erected in 1638
Q 21Nymphenburg Palace, begun in 1664, was the birthplace in 1845 of which 'fairy-tale king'?
Ludwig II
The builder of Neuschwanstein stayed aloof from his capital; the palace was the Wittelsbach summer residence.
Q 22The Deutsches Museum, opened in 1925, is described as the world's largest what?
Science and technology collection
Oskar von Miller founded it in 1903 with the Association of German Engineers; it holds about 125,000 objects.
Q 23The Lenbachhaus displays which Munich-based modernist movement?
Der Blaue Reiter
Kandinsky and Franz Marc's Blue Rider grew out of bohemian Schwabing.
The Mariensaule celebrated the end of Swedish occupation; the square had been the city's centre and grain market since 1158.
Q 14The Rathaus-Glockenspiel on Marienplatz has 43 bells and how many life-size figures?
32
Added when the New Town Hall was finished in 1908, it re-enacts a 1568 ducal wedding and the coopers' dance every day at 11 am.
Q 15The Glockenspiel's coopers' dance recalls barrel-makers luring people back outdoors after what?
The plague
The Schafflertanz is still danced in the streets every seven years.
Q 16Munich's Frauenkirche, the cathedral with the onion domes, was built in how long, from 1468?
Only 20 years
It is the city's largest Gothic church; a black 'devil's footprint' at the entrance recalls a legend about its 'windowless' nave.
Q 17A local plebiscite led Munich to ban city-centre buildings taller than what?
99 m
The narrow vote protects the view of the Frauenkirche's towers, which stand about 99 m tall.
Q 18Munich's English Garden was begun in 1789 under which American-born loyalist and scientist?
Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford
He proposed that idle soldiers do civilian work such as gardening; at 3.7 km2 the park is one of the world's largest urban parks.
Q 19Which unusual sport is practised on a standing wave on the Eisbach stream in Munich?
River surfing
The Munich Surf Open is held there on the last Saturday of July.
Q 20The grand neoclassical buildings of the king who reigned from 1825 earned Munich which nickname?
Athens on the Isar
Leo von Klenze designed the museums; the city had earlier been called the 'German Rome' under William V.
Q 24BMW's first product, made in Munich in 1916, was what?
An aircraft engine
The name came from Rapp Motorenwerke's 1917 rebranding; the company moved its headquarters to a Munich factory in 1922.
Q 25Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923 began at which Munich beer hall?
The Burgerbraukeller
About 600 SA men surrounded it while Gustav von Kahr spoke; Hitler got five years in Landsberg and dictated Mein Kampf.
Q 26Georg Elser's bomb in a Munich beer hall on 8 November 1939 missed Hitler by how much?
Minutes
Hitler cut his anniversary speech short and left before the blast.
Q 27The 1938 Munich Agreement let Germany annex which region of Czechoslovakia?
The Sudetenland
Britain, France and Italy signed on 30 September; Czechoslovakia itself was not at the table.
Q 28The Nazis' first concentration camp opened in March 1933 at Dachau, how far from Munich?
16 km north-west
It was also the longest-running camp; the Munich-Allach subcamp held up to 17,000 prisoners in 1945.
Q 29The White Rose resistance group was based at which Munich institution?
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat
Sophie and Hans Scholl were caught distributing leaflets on campus and guillotined four days later, on 22 February 1943.
Q 30Roughly what share of Munich was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in World War II?
About 50%
There were 71 air raids over five years; US troops took the city on 30 April 1945.