National Anthem Trivia
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85 free National Anthem trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
National anthems are full of strange stories: a Dutch song older than the United States, a Japanese poem set to music by a British bandmaster, a Mexican poet locked in a bedroom by his fiancée until he produced lyrics, and a Spanish march that still has no official words. This national anthem trivia quiz covers the anthems of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, India, China, Russia, South Africa and more, plus the Olympic Hymn and the Anthem of Europe. Expect questions on who wrote them, when they became official, which ones share a melody, and the famous performances, protests and controversies attached to them. Easy questions ask which fort inspired The Star-Spangled Banner; hard ones ask which town the composers of the Welsh anthem lived in or which people's traditional tune became Kenya's anthem. It suits pub quiz rounds, geography and music classes, Olympic-watching parties, and anyone who has stood for an anthem and wondered where it came from. We deliberately ask about the songs rather than quoting their lyrics. Every answer was checked against the encyclopedia entry for the anthem in question, and each question links to its source.
30 of 85 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote the words of Turkey's national anthem, the İstiklal Marşı, adopted in 1921?
Mehmet Akif Ersoy
Mehmet Akif Ersoy wrote the İstiklal Marşı; Turkey's Grand National Assembly adopted it on 12 March 1921, and Ersoy refused the prize money.
Q 02Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner after watching the British bombard which fort?
McHenry
The poem was originally titled Defence of Fort M'Henry and describes the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814.
Q 03John Stafford Smith wrote The Star-Spangled Banner's tune for a gentlemen's club in which city?
London
John Stafford Smith composed the tune, 'To Anacreon in Heaven', in the 1770s for the Anacreontic Society, a gentlemen's music club in London.
Q 04Which US president signed the 1931 law making The Star-Spangled Banner the official national anthem?
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover signed the act on March 3, 1931, making The Star-Spangled Banner the official national anthem more than a century after Key wrote it.
Q 05How many stanzas does Francis Scott Key's original poem have?
Four
Only the first is normally performed, though the US Code makes all of them the official anthem.
Q 06The flag Francis Scott Key saw flying over the fort in 1814 had how many stars and stripes?
15 of each
Mary Pickersgill sewed it in her Baltimore home; the flag itself now hangs in the Smithsonian.
Q 07In his instrumental Star-Spangled Banner, Jimi Hendrix used distortion and the vibrato arm to imitate what?
Rockets and bombs
Hendrix's feedback and whammy-bar dives mimic rockets and bombs, the 'rockets' red glare' of the lyric, most famously at Woodstock in 1969.
Q 08Roseanne Barr's notorious 1990 anthem performance took place before a home game of which baseball team?
San Diego Padres
Barr sang before a San Diego Padres game at Jack Murphy Stadium on July 25, 1990, then grabbed her crotch and spat, drawing loud boos.
Q 09During which part of Game One of the 1918 World Series was the anthem famously played?
The seventh-inning stretch
The band struck up the anthem during the seventh-inning stretch of Game One at Comiskey Park on September 5, 1918, and the crowd rose and sang.
Q 10The British national anthem's melody is also the anthem of which small European country?
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein's anthem, Oben am jungen Rhein, is sung to the British anthem's melody; Switzerland used the same tune until 1961, and Americans know it as My Country, 'Tis of Thee.
Q 11Beethoven wrote a set of seven piano variations on which national anthem?
God Save the King
Beethoven's seven variations on God Save the King (WoO 78) date from 1803; J.C. Bach had already varied the same tune in a 1763 keyboard concerto.
Q 12Which song is used as England's anthem in cricket instead of the British national anthem?
Jerusalem
England's cricket teams adopted Jerusalem, Parry's 1916 setting of Blake's poem, in the mid-2000s; most other England sides use the British anthem.
Q 13La Marseillaise was written in 1792 in which city?
Strasbourg
Rouget de Lisle wrote it in Strasbourg on the night of 25 April 1792; the nickname came later, when volunteers from Marseille sang it marching to Paris.
Q 21A bandmaster from which country wrote the first, unpopular tune for Japan's anthem in 1869?
Britain
John William Fenton, stationed in Yokohama, noticed Japan had no anthem and suggested one; his tune was replaced in 1880.
Q 22The Wilhelmus, a 16th-century song, is the national anthem of which country?
Netherlands
The Wilhelmus, written about 1568–1572 during the Dutch Revolt, became the Netherlands' official national anthem only in 1932.
Q 23The first letters of the fifteen stanzas of the Wilhelmus form an acrostic spelling what?
Willem van Nassov
The fifteen stanzas' initials spell Willem van Nassov, an acrostic signature for William of Orange, leader of the Dutch revolt the song describes.
Q 14What was La Marseillaise originally titled?
War Song for the Army of the Rhine
Rouget de Lisle titled it Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin, the War Song for the Army of the Rhine, composed in a single night in April 1792, days after war was declared on Austria.
Q 15O Canada was commissioned for the 1880 celebration of which holiday?
Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day
Lieutenant Governor Théodore Robitaille commissioned it for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day celebrations of 1880; Calixa Lavallée's setting of Routhier's words was first performed in Quebec City on June 24.
Q 16In which year did O Canada officially become Canada's national anthem?
1980
It had been the de facto anthem since 1939; the National Anthem Act took effect on July 1, 1980.
Q 17Which poet wrote the words of Finland's national anthem, Maamme, in 1846?
Johan Ludvig Runeberg
Johan Ludvig Runeberg wrote Vårt land (Maamme) in Swedish in 1846; Fredrik Pacius set it to music for a student celebration on 13 May 1848.
Q 18Advance Australia Fair became the national anthem in 1984 under which prime minister?
Bob Hawke
Bob Hawke's government had Advance Australia Fair proclaimed the national anthem on 19 April 1984, after an earlier plebiscite had favoured it over Waltzing Matilda.
Q 19The lyrics of Japan's Kimigayo, the oldest of any national anthem, come from a poem of which form?
Waka
The text is a waka, a 31-syllable court poem from the Heian-period Kokin Wakashū anthology; the melody adopted in 1880 replaced an unpopular 1869 setting.
Q 20In which year did Japan's Act on National Flag and Anthem officially recognize Kimigayo?
1999
The Act on National Flag and Anthem passed on 13 August 1999, giving Kimigayo legal status after more than a century of customary use.
Q 24India's Jana Gana Mana was written by Rabindranath Tagore in which language?
Bengali
Tagore composed the words in Bengali, in a heavily Sanskritised register; it was first sung at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress on 27 December 1911.
Q 25Rabindranath Tagore wrote the national anthems of India and which other country?
Bangladesh
Tagore's Amar Shonar Bangla, written in 1905, was adopted as the anthem of Bangladesh at independence in 1971.
Q 26A formal rendition of India's national anthem takes approximately how many seconds?
52
The full version of Jana Gana Mana is specified to take about 52 seconds; a short version of the first and last lines takes about 20.
Q 27Haydn's melody for the German anthem was written in 1797 for the birthday of which Habsburg ruler?
Emperor Francis II
Haydn's Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser was first performed on Emperor Francis II's birthday, 12 February 1797; Hoffmann von Fallersleben fitted new words to it in 1841.
Q 28Since German reunification, which stanza of the Deutschlandlied is the national anthem?
The third
The third stanza's call for unity, justice and freedom was reconfirmed as the sole anthem in 1991.
Q 29Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the German anthem's words in 1841 on which North Sea island?
Heligoland
The island was British at the time and only became German through the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty of 1890.
Q 30In which year did Italy's Il Canto degli Italiani finally gain legal status as the national anthem?
2017
Law 181 of 4 December 2017 made Il Canto degli Italiani the official anthem; it had been provisional since October 1946.