Nowruz Trivia
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41 free Nowruz trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Nowruz trivia quiz covers the Persian New Year from its Zoroastrian roots to the picnic that ends it thirteen days later. It asks what the name means, why the date moves between 19 and 22 March, how Omar Khayyam and Tusi pinned it to the equinox, and what King Jamshid did in the Shahnameh to earn the credit for founding it. From there it goes to Persepolis, the Achaemenid gift ceremonies, the Parthians who kept the festival in autumn and the Taliban ban of the 1990s. The traditions questions cover the whole holiday: the spring cleaning, the seven S items of the Haft-sin table and the goldfish beside it, jumping over bonfires on Chaharshanbe Suri, spoon banging, samanu cooked overnight, sabzi polo with fish, Amu Nowruz and his soot-faced companion Haji Firuz, visiting elders, and throwing the sprouted greens into running water on Sizdah Bedar. Other questions look at Afghanistan's tulip festival and buzkashi, Azerbaijan's four Tuesdays, Kurdish Newroz, Albania's Sultan Nevruz and the 2010 United Nations resolution. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Iran and world holidays quizzes next.
30 of 41 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does the Persian word Nowruz literally mean?
New Day
New Day: now means new and ruz means day, and in 2010 the UN General Assembly proclaimed 21 March the International Day of Nowruz.
Q 02Nowruz opens the year on which official calendar of Iran?
The Solar Hijri calendar
The Solar Hijri calendar starts its year at Nowruz, and in the 1970s Iran briefly swapped its Hijra year count for one dated from Cyrus the Great, dropped in 1978.
Q 03Which astronomical event fixes the date of Nowruz?
The Northern Hemisphere spring equinox
The Northern Hemisphere spring equinox fixes it, so families gather to await the exact moment the new year arrives.
Q 04In which ancient religion do the roots of Nowruz lie?
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism supplied the festival's sacred roots in ancient Iran; Nowruz remains a holy day for Zoroastrians and survived the Muslim conquest of Persia to become a secular national festival.
Q 05About how long has Nowruz been celebrated?
About 3,000 years
About 3,000 years by most reckonings, and it outlasted the 1979 revolution too: clerics discouraged it, yet Iran's leaders took to issuing yearly Nowruz messages.
Q 06Which Persian poet helped reform the calendar that fixed the date of Nowruz?
Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyam was among the astronomers Sultan Malik-Shah gathered, and their Jalali calendar tracked the sun so closely that the new year stayed fixed to spring.
Q 07Farvardin, the month Nowruz opens, matches which zodiac sign?
Aries
Aries: until 1925 Iran's official months were named after the zodiac signs, before old Persian names such as Farvardin replaced them.
Q 08If the astronomical moment of the new year falls after noon in Tehran, when is Nowruz?
The following day
The following day: the same rule decides whether Esfand, the year's last month, has 29 or 30 days.
Q 09According to the Shahnameh, which legendary ruler founded Nowruz?
Jamshid
Jamshid, in Ferdowsi's epic, rose into the sky on a jewelled throne, and the day of that wonder became Nowruz.
Q 10Which US president used a Nowruz video message to offer Iran's leaders a 'new beginning' of engagement?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama made the offer, but an adviser to Iran's president replied that America first had to recognise its past mistakes.
Q 11Reliefs of envoys bearing gifts at which ancient Achaemenid capital have been linked to Nowruz?
Persepolis
Persepolis: some scholars read its gift-bearer reliefs as a Nowruz scene, while others see that reading as a much later explanation.
Q 12What is the name of the outdoor picnic festival that closes the Iranian new-year holidays?
Sizdah Bedar
Sizdah Bedar falls on the thirteenth day, and by popular belief that date is unlucky, so families spend it outdoors to ward off misfortune.
Q 13What is traditionally done with the sprouted greens from the Haft-sin table at the holidays' end?
Thrown into running water
Q 21Which food is one of the seven traditional Haft-sin items?
Garlic
Garlic, sir in Persian, stands for medicine and health, a nod to how highly Iranians once prized it as a remedy.
Q 22Which fruit is the Haft-sin item called sib?
Apple
Apple is sib in Persian, placed on the table for beauty and health; senjed, the Persian olive, is another of the seven.
Q 23Which live creature is often placed on the Haft-sin table?
A goldfish
A goldfish, though the Haft-sin display itself seems to have caught on only in the last century or so.
Q 24What is the Afghan Nowruz dish Haft Mēwa?
Thrown into running water: the greens are believed to have absorbed the household's ill luck over the holidays, so they are carried out and cast into a stream.
Q 14What is the festival held on the eve of the last Wednesday before Nowruz called?
Chaharshanbe Suri
Chaharshanbe Suri is discouraged by Iran's religious authorities as a non-Islamic relic, yet Iranians turn out for it every year.
Q 15What is the central ritual of Iran's Wednesday-eve festival before Nowruz?
Jumping over bonfires
Jumping over bonfires is the heart of the night: jumpers chant for the fire to take their sickly yellow and give its healthy red in return.
Q 16Like trick-or-treaters, what do disguised Iranians do on the last Wednesday eve before Nowruz?
Bang spoons on bowls door to door
Bang spoons on bowls door to door, and the custom long gave a disguised young man an excuse to call at the house of a girl he liked.
Q 17In Azerbaijan, on which weekday are the four pre-Novruz element festivals held?
Tuesday
Tuesday is when all four are held, and by folk belief the elements they honour recall the acts of creation.
Q 18In old Iranian belief, which spirits did families welcome in the last days before Nowruz?
Spirits of the dead
Spirits of the dead were welcomed with offerings of food, and by one belief the departed come to share in the Nowruz table.
Q 19What is sabzeh on the Haft-sin table?
Sprouted wheat, barley or lentils
Sprouted wheat, barley or lentils make sabzeh, and centuries ago Iranians greeted Nowruz by growing seven kinds of grain on seven pillars.
Q 20What is samanu, one of the seven Haft-sin items?
A pudding of germinated wheat
A pudding of germinated wheat, samanu is cooked slowly through the night by women, who make wishes as they stir.
Seven dried fruits and nuts in syrup
Seven dried fruits and nuts in syrup make Haft Mēwa, while the Haft-sin table is traditionally not part of Afghan Nowruz.
Q 25What is the name of Azerbaijan's Novruz tray display, set with candles and dyed eggs?
Khoncha
Khoncha carries a dyed egg for each member of the family, so the size of the household shows on the tray.
Q 26In Iran, which herald of the festival brings children gifts, much like Santa Claus?
Amu Nowruz
Amu Nowruz, 'Uncle Nowruz', hands out the gifts, while Haji Firuz sings and dances in the streets for a few coins.
Q 27In Iranian folklore, what is the name of the Nowruz herald's wife?
Nane Sarma
Nane Sarma, roughly 'Grandma Cold' in Persian, waits all year for her husband, and tellings differ on whether they actually meet.
Q 28Which meal is traditionally eaten on Nowruz night in Iran?
Sabzi polo with fish
Sabzi polo with fish, herbed rice with fried fish, is the classic new-year dinner; sweets such as nan-e nokhodchi, chickpea cookies, are served too.
Q 29During Nowruz visits, who is expected to make the initial call on whom?
The young visit their elders first
The young visit their elders first, and the elders return the call later, often handing gifts or money to the younger relatives.
Q 30Which regime banned Nowruz from 1996 to 2001 as a pagan holiday?
The Taliban
The Taliban banned it in the 1990s, and after retaking power in 2021 they again dropped it as a public holiday, though many Afghans kept celebrating.