Myanmar Trivia
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50 free Myanmar trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Myanmar, still called Burma by many, is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia and one of the least understood: a land of 10,000 temples at Bagan, a golden pagoda that dominates Yangon, a purpose-built capital few outsiders have seen, and a military that has run the country for most of the years since 1962. This quiz covers the geography (the Irrawaddy and Salween, Hkakabo Razi, the seven states and seven regions, the neighbours from India to Thailand), the kingdoms (Pyu and Mon, Anawrahta's Pagan, Bayinnaung's empire, the Konbaung dynasty and the three Anglo-Burmese wars), and the modern nation from Aung San's assassination and independence in 1948 through Ne Win, the 8888 Uprising, Cyclone Nargis, Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest and Nobel Prize, the Rohingya crisis and the 2021 coup. Culture and daily life are here too: Theravada Buddhism, the Burmese language, mohinga for breakfast, lahpet tea-leaf salad, chinlone and lethwei, the world's ruby supply from Mogok, teak, jade, the Golden Triangle and the flag with its big white star. Easy questions ask which city is the largest; hard ones want the height of the Shwedagon and the year Bagan finally made the World Heritage list. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, Naypyidaw, the Shwedagon Pagoda, Bagan, the Irrawaddy, mohinga and the flag, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which British author served in Burma's Imperial Police in the 1920s before turning to writing?
George Orwell
George Orwell left Burma on sick leave in 1927 and, once back in England, resigned from the police to become a writer.
Q 02What is the capital city of Myanmar?
Naypyidaw
Naypyidaw: the government began moving there in 2005, but the new capital was only proclaimed under that name in March 2006.
Q 03What is Myanmar's largest city?
Yangon
Yangon, Myanmar's commercial hub, is where the British exiled Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, after India's 1857 revolt.
Q 04Which Second World War route did Japan force Allied prisoners to build between Thailand and Burma?
The Death Railway
The Death Railway ran 415 km from Ban Pong in Thailand to Thanbyuzayat in Burma, and more than 12,000 Allied prisoners died building it.
Q 05Myanmar holds what distinction among the countries of mainland Southeast Asia?
Largest by area
Largest by area: Britain needed three wars, between 1824 and 1885, to annex all of it.
Q 06Which country borders Myanmar to the east, between China and Thailand?
Laos
Laos: the Mekong forms their whole border, a line two colonial powers agreed in 1896 would divide their possessions.
Q 07What is the principal river of Myanmar, about 2,170 km long?
The Irrawaddy
The Irrawaddy was to be dammed at its headwaters by a Chinese-backed project, until President Thein Sein suspended it in 2011 amid public opposition.
Q 08Which peak, at 5,881 m, has long been counted as Myanmar's highest?
Hkakabo Razi
Hkakabo Razi's title is disputed: in 2013 a GPS survey measured nearby Gamlang Razi at 5,870 m, and some references now name Gamlang Razi the highest.
Q 09Myanmar's 2008 constitution renamed the country's seven divisions as what?
Regions
Regions: each has its own legislature, yet its chief minister is chosen by the country's president.
Q 10Which 11th-century king became the first to rule all of Burma?
Anawrahta
Anawrahta captured the Mon city of Thaton in 1057, and Ceylon's king later asked him for Burmese monks to help revive Buddhism there.
Q 11Which ancient capital's plain holds thousands of Buddhist temples and stupas built between the 11th and 13th centuries?
Bagan
Bagan only became a World Heritage Site in 2019, and UNESCO still notes that restorations in the 1970s and 1990s impaired its authenticity.
Q 12Myanmar's Union Day marks which 1947 accord?
Panglong Agreement
The Panglong Agreement was signed in February 1947, and that July Aung San and six colleagues were assassinated.
Q 13Which invaders brought down Burma's first empire in 1287?
The Mongols
The Mongols of Kublai Khan had demanded that Burma's king accept them as overlords, and when he refused, their invasions ended his empire.
Q 21Which general seized power in the coup of 2 March 1962?
Ne Win
Ne Win dominated Burma's government for 26 years, until he resigned in July 1988 amid mass protests against his rule.
Q 22The mass protests in which Aung San Suu Kyi first rose to prominence are known by what name?
The 8888 Uprising
The 8888 Uprising is named for the general strike of 8 August 1988, and that September the military crushed the protests and seized power.
Q 23The 2007 protests led by Buddhist monks against fuel prices were called what?
The Saffron Revolution
The Saffron Revolution is named for the monks' robes; it began after fuel prices were raised in August 2007 and was crushed by the army in late September.
Q 14Which 16th-century king captured the Siamese capital Ayutthaya, making Burma mainland Southeast Asia's most powerful kingdom?
Bayinnaung
Bayinnaung took Ayutthaya in 1564 and carried the defeated Siamese king back to his own capital, Pegu.
Q 15Which Burmese king did Britain exile to India after conquering his kingdom in 1885?
Thibaw
Thibaw: his court had fined a British teak company for underreporting its extractions, and the dispute provoked Britain to invade.
Q 16Britain annexed the rest of Burma in 1885 partly out of alarm at which rival's expansion?
French Indochina
French Indochina: Britain feared the Burmese court's dealings with France, and after the war it ran Burma as a province of India until 1937.
Q 17In the 1920s, Rangoon overtook which city as the world's busiest immigration port?
New York
Rangoon, then the colonial capital, drew so many migrants from India that by the 1920s it surpassed New York as the world's greatest immigration port; Indians became a majority of its population.
Q 18Which special force, formed by Orde Wingate, fought deep behind Japanese lines in Burma?
The Chindits
The Chindits were supplied from the air on their 1943 raid, and Orde Wingate was killed in an air crash the following year.
Q 19Unlike India, which association did Burma decline to join at independence?
Commonwealth
Commonwealth: Aung San had demanded complete independence rather than dominion status, and Burma became a republic outside it in 1948.
Q 20Which Burmese diplomat led the United Nations as Secretary-General through most of the 1960s?
U Thant
After U Thant died in 1974, students seized his coffin and buried it on a university campus in Burma, until the authorities took it back by force.
Q 24Which cyclone devastated the rice-growing delta in May 2008, killing at least 138,000 people?
Nargis
Cyclone Nargis came ashore on 2 May 2008, yet the junta went ahead with its constitutional referendum only days later.
Q 25Aung San Suu Kyi won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while under what?
House arrest
House arrest: her son Alexander accepted the prize for her in Oslo, and she only gave her Nobel lecture there in June 2012.
Q 26Why was Aung San Suu Kyi barred from Myanmar's presidency after the 2015 election?
Her sons' foreign citizenship
Her sons' foreign citizenship: her late husband and their two sons were not Myanmar citizens, so she led the government as State Counsellor, a new post.
Q 27Aung San Suu Kyi's party, which won landslides in 1990, 2015 and 2020, is called what?
National League for Democracy
The National League for Democracy, founded in 1988, won the 1990 election by a landslide, but the junta refused to hand over power.
Q 28Which military chief took power in the coup of 1 February 2021?
Min Aung Hlaing
Min Aung Hlaing's troops detained Aung San Suu Kyi, and six months after the coup he made himself prime minister of a caretaker government.
Q 29What is the name of Myanmar's armed forces?
Tatmadaw
The Tatmadaw got a quarter of parliament's seats under the 2008 constitution, enough to block amendments needing more than 75% of members' votes.
Q 30Which minority has been denied citizenship under Myanmar's 1982 Citizenship Law?
The Rohingya
The Rohingya, mostly Muslims from Rakhine State, are almost all stateless, and in 2017 an army crackdown drove hundreds of thousands into Bangladesh.