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50 free Odisha trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Odisha gave English one of its most forceful words, turned a Mauryan emperor into a pacifist, and still hauls three towering chariots through a seaside pilgrim town every summer. Its coast has the world's biggest nesting beach for one sea turtle, a beach where the sea walks five kilometres out at low tide, and an offshore missile range renamed for a president. The 50 questions cover the state's ancient kingdom and its inscriptions, the 1817 rising it calls a first war of independence, the makers of modern Odia letters, the rituals and food of the great pilgrimage, harvest and womanhood festivals, tiger reserves, waterfalls and mangroves, cloth painting, filigree and tie-dye weaving, and the sprinters, sand artists and politicians who made the state's name. It works for a pub quiz round, a school general-knowledge test or a Utkala Dibasa celebration. Play it on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for the table.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Odisha shrine, called the Black Pagoda by European sailors, is built as a huge stone chariot on carved wheels?
Konark Sun Temple
Konark Sun Temple was raised around 1250 under King Narasingha Deva I, and its dark tiered tower was logged as the Black Pagoda in sailors' accounts as early as 1676.
Q 02Which English word for an unstoppable force comes from the deity whose chariot is hauled through Puri each year?
Juggernaut
Juggernaut is the early English rendering of Jagannath, and its figurative sense of an unstoppable force became common in English in the mid-19th century.
Q 03Which Mauryan emperor, sickened by the slaughter of the Kalinga War around 261 BCE, renounced conquest for Buddhism?
Ashoka
Ashoka fought no major war after Kalinga, pledging never again to wage a war of conquest and devoting the rest of his life to ahimsa and dharma-vijaya, victory through dharma.
Q 04Which Odisha lagoon, the second largest coastal lagoon in the world, is home to endangered Irrawaddy dolphins?
Chilika Lake
Chilika Lake was one of India's first two Ramsar wetlands, listed in 1981, and it supports more than 225 bird species alongside the dolphins.
Q 05Which classical dance from Odisha's temples, revived by four gurus around 1950, is known for its tribhangi pose?
Odissi
Odissi is often called the oldest surviving classical dance of India, and the tribhangi and chauka poses it uses appear in Jain Kalpasutra manuscripts discovered in Gujarat.
Q 06In which year did Parliament rename the state Orissa as Odisha and its language Oriya as Odia?
2011
2011 brought the change through the Orissa (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2010 and the Constitution (113th Amendment) Bill, 2010, both passed by Parliament in Delhi.
Q 07Which planned city, laid out by German architect Otto Königsberger, became Odisha's capital in April 1948?
Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar took over as capital on 13 April 1948, though settlement around it dates to the 1st century BCE, and its many surviving shrines earned it the nickname Temple City.
Q 08Which dam across the Mahanadi near Sambalpur, inaugurated by Nehru in 1957, is the longest earthen dam in the world?
Hirakud
Hirakud stretches nearly 26 km once its dykes are counted, and Nehru laid its first batch of concrete in April 1948, nine years before he opened it.
Q 09Which syrupy sweet won Odisha its own geographical indication tag in 2019, after a long origin feud with West Bengal?
Rasgulla
Rasgulla in Odisha is a temple offering to goddess Lakshmi at Puri, and Odias mark a Rasagola Dibasa each July to reaffirm the state as the sweet's birthplace.
Q 10Which sport's senior men's World Cup did Odisha host twice within five years, in 2018 and again in 2023?
Hockey
Hockey has become Odisha's signature sport: the 2018 tournament ran in the state capital, and for 2023 the state opened a 21,800-seat arena certified as the world's largest fully seated hockey stadium.
Q 11Which Odisha city, the state capital until 1948, was the 1897 birthplace of freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose?
Cuttack
Cuttack remains Odisha's judicial capital as the seat of the Orissa High Court, and it is called the Millennium City for its thousand-year history.
Q 12Which Kalinga emperor of the 2nd or 1st century BCE recorded his reign year by year in the Hathigumpha inscription?
Kharavela
Kharavela's record is cut in Brahmi with Jain phrasing, and it boasts of victorious expeditions against Magadha, the Satavahanas and a Tamil confederacy led by the Pandyas.
Q 13Which hill beside the Daya river, the presumed site of the Kalinga War, holds a peace pagoda built with Japanese help?
Dhauli
Q 21Which chariot, Jagannath's own at Puri's Rath Yatra, rolls on 16 wheels, two more than his brother Balabhadra's?
Nandighosha
Nandighosha is also called Garudadhwaja, and each of the three chariots carries a wooden charioteer and four horses, with nine painted guardian deities around its sides.
Q 22To which shrine, said to be the deities' aunt's home, are Puri's chariots hauled for a week each Rath Yatra?
Gundicha Temple
Gundicha Temple stands at the far end of the Bada Danda grand avenue from the main shrine, and it is named for the queen of Indradyumna, the temple's legendary builder.
Q 23Which Rath Yatra ritual has the Gajapati king of Puri, the deity's foremost servitor, ceremonially sweep the chariots?
Dhauli's Shanti Stupa was raised in 1972 by the Japan Buddha Sangha and the Kalinga Nippon Buddha Sangha, beside a set of Mauryan rock edicts cut into the hill.
Q 14Which 1817 uprising against Company rule, led by Jagabandhu, is hailed in Odisha as the first war of independence?
Paika Rebellion
Paika Rebellion fighters rallied behind Lord Jagannath as a symbol of Odia unity, and in 2017 the state formally asked Delhi to rank their rising above the 1857 revolt, a request the Union government turned down in Parliament in 2021.
Q 15In which year did Odisha become a separate province on a linguistic basis, now marked every 1 April as Utkala Dibasa?
1936
1936 stitched the new province together from Odia-speaking districts of Bihar and Orissa, the Madras Presidency and the Central Provinces, with John Austen Hubback as its first governor.
Q 16Which dynasty's ruler Anantavarman Chodaganga began the present Jagannath Temple at Puri in the early 12th century?
Eastern Ganga
Eastern Ganga kings are remembered as the builders of Odisha's grandest temples, including the Ananta Vasudeva temple in today's state capital and the Madhukeshwara temple at Mukhalinga.
Q 17Which lawyer, honoured as Utkal Gourab, founded the Utkal Sammilani in 1903 to campaign for a united Odisha?
Madhusudan Das
Madhusudan Das, also called Madhu Babu and the Grand Old Man of the state, has his 28 April birthday marked across Odisha as Lawyers' Day.
Q 18Which Odisha chief minister, a pilot who flew Indonesian leaders past the Dutch, funded UNESCO's Kalinga Prize?
Biju Patnaik
Biju Patnaik flew Sjahrir and other leaders out of Jakarta in a Dakota in July 1947 on fuel from abandoned Japanese dumps, and his donation created the science-popularisation prize in 1952.
Q 19Who, the father of modern Odia literature, wrote Chha Maana Atha Guntha, India's first novel about exploited peasants?
Fakir Mohan Senapati
Fakir Mohan Senapati wrote his four novels between 1897 and 1915, and he is also remembered as the father of Odia nationalism.
Q 20Which 12th-century poet's Gita Govinda, a lyric on Krishna and Radha, is sung every night in the Jagannath Temple?
Jayadeva
Jayadeva's birthplace is disputed, with Kenduli Sasan near Puri in Odisha, a Kenduli in Bengal's Birbhum district and another in Bihar's Mithila all claiming him.
Chhera Pahanra
Chhera Pahanra is performed by the Gajapati Maharaja as Adhyasevaka, the first and foremost servitor, and in 1975-76 the then king skipped it because he was away in Chicago.
Q 24Which tree supplies the wood for Puri's Jagannath idols, carved afresh in the Nabakalebara rite last held in 2015?
Neem
Neem is prescribed by the Bhavishya Purana as the most auspicious wood for Vishnu images, and the 2015 renewal came 19 years after the previous one in 1996.
Q 25What eight-spoked wheel of ashtadhatu alloy tops the Jagannath Temple in Puri, flying a different flag every day?
Nila Chakra
Nila Chakra is crafted from ashtadhatu, an alloy of eight metals, and is regarded as sacrosanct; by custom a fresh flag goes up on it daily.
Q 26Which three-day festival of womanhood in Odisha, when girls play on swings, marks the menstruation of Mother Earth?
Raja Parba
Raja Parba takes its name from rajas, Sanskrit for menstruation, and its second day opens the solar month of Mithuna, from which the rainy season starts.
Q 27Which western Odisha harvest festival, held the day after Ganesh Chaturthi, celebrates the season's new rice?
Nuakhai
Nuakhai falls on the fifth lunar day of Bhadrapada, and the first grain is presented to the presiding deity before any bird or animal can peck at it.
Q 28Which Bargarh festival drama, the world's largest open-air theatre, turns the town into Kansa's kingdom of Mathura?
Dhanu Yatra
Dhanu Yatra retells Krishna's visit to Mathura for the bow ceremony of his demon uncle Kansa, with the Jeera river standing in for the Yamuna and a nearby village as Gopapura.
Q 29Which Kartik Purnima fair on the Mahanadi bank recalls the overseas trading voyages of ancient Odia mariners?
Bali Jatra
Bali Jatra means 'voyage to Bali', and on the festival morning Odias float tiny boats of paper, banana bark and cork on rivers and ponds in memory of the Sadhaba sailors.
Q 30What name is given to food cooked in earthen pots over firewood in the Jagannath Temple and sold at Ananda Bazaar?
Mahaprasad
Mahaprasad comes out of the Rosa Ghara, described as the world's largest kitchen, where temple cooks called Suaras and Maha-Suaras prepare it, and it is sometimes fed to the dying.