Oman Trivia
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59 free Oman trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Fifty questions on the Sultanate of Oman, from the ones every traveller learns on day one to the ones only a Gulf historian would know. Geography covers Muscat, the Musandam exclave on the Strait of Hormuz, the tiny Madha enclave with a UAE enclave inside it, Jebel Shams, the Sharqiya Sands and the monsoon that turns Salalah green every summer. History runs from the Bronze Age copper land the Sumerians called Magan, through the Portuguese fortresses, the Yaruba imams who chased Portugal off the Swahili coast, the empire that moved its capital to Zanzibar, the Jebel Akhdar and Dhofar wars, and the 1970 palace coup that put Sultan Qaboos on the throne for almost fifty years. The rest is the Oman people actually notice: a currency worth more than a US dollar, a flag with a dagger on it, frankincense, halwa, dhow building, the Grand Mosque's carpet and chandelier, and two Gulf Cup titles. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its cities, rulers and landmarks, and the sentence that establishes it is quoted under each explanation. Good for a pub quiz, a geography classroom or a pre-trip warm-up.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which line of latitude crosses northern Oman, passing just south of the capital?
The Tropic of Cancer
The Tropic of Cancer runs just south of Oman's capital, so around 21 June the midday sun stands almost directly overhead there.
Q 02Oman shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and which other country?
Yemen
Yemen meets Oman in the far southwest; during the Cold War, Marxist South Yemen backed a rebellion across that border in Oman's Dhofar province.
Q 03Which Omani exclave sits on the Strait of Hormuz, cut off from the rest of the country by the UAE?
Musandam
Musandam's deep, fjord-like inlets line the strait's southern shore, giving Oman a share of control over a channel that carried over 25 percent of the world's seaborne oil in 2022.
Q 04Which young republic in the Americas signed a treaty with Oman's ruler in 1833?
United States
The United States first opened relations with Oman through the 1833 treaty, struck when the sultanate was the most powerful state in Arabia.
Q 05Which dynasty, founded in the 1740s, still rules Oman?
Al Bu Said
The Al Bu Said dynasty began with Ahmad bin Said, a governor of the port of Sohar who displaced the previous ruling house in the 1740s; his descendants have held the throne ever since.
Q 06Ancient Sumerian tablets referred to Oman by what name, linked to its copper?
Magan
Magan. Mesopotamian tablets from the late third millennium BC name it as the land their copper came from, shipped overseas from mines in what is now Oman.
Q 07Which European power held Oman's coast from the early 1500s until Omani forces drove it out in 1650?
Portugal
Portugal. Afonso de Albuquerque's fleet sacked the coast's ports in 1507 to control the Gulf trade route, and two forts Portugal built above the main harbour still stand.
Q 08Fort Jesus, which fell to Omani forces in 1698 after a long siege, guarded which East African port?
Mombasa
Mombasa. Fort Jesus had commanded the harbour since the 1590s, and once it fell the rest of the coast as far south as Tanzania passed to Oman.
Q 09The 19th-century Omani ruler Said bin Sultan moved his capital to which island?
Zanzibar
Zanzibar. Its clove plantations made the island the heart of his trading empire, and after his death the realm was split between two heirs, leaving it a separate sultanate.
Q 10Gwadar, an Omani possession for over a century, was sold in 1958 to which country?
Pakistan
Pakistan. The Khan of Kalat gave the fishing port to an exile from Oman's ruling family in the 1780s; he kept it after taking the throne, and Oman held on until 1958.
Q 11Omani novelist Jokha Alharthi became the first Arabic-language author to win which prize, for Celestial Bodies in 2019?
International Booker Prize
International Booker Prize. She shared the £50,000 award equally with her translator, Marilyn Booth, and became the first Omani woman novelist to appear in English.
Q 12Two squadrons of which British regiment ended a 1950s rebellion in Oman with a surprise assault on the Jebel Akhdar plateau?
The SAS
The SAS. Two squadrons fresh from the jungles of Malaya feinted on one side of the mountain, climbed the other by surprise and quickly overwhelmed the rebels.
Q 13Sultan Said bin Taimur was deposed in a 1970 palace coup by which relative?
His son
Q 21The Omani rial is divided into 1,000 of which smaller unit?
Baisa
Baisa. The word comes by way of Arabic from the Hindi paisa, a relic of the rupees that circulated in Oman until the country brought in a rial of its own in 1970.
Q 22Since 1986 one Omani rial has been fixed at about 2.6 units of which foreign currency?
US dollar
US dollar. Oman's central bank says a fixed rate best suits an open economy that depends on oil exports, and it has not changed the peg since.
Q 23What traditional weapon appears on Oman's national flag and forms part of men's formal dress?
A khanjar dagger
A khanjar dagger. Once everyday wear, the curved blade is now kept for weddings and state occasions, and Oman presents khanjars to official guests as gifts.
His son. Qaboos, kept a virtual prisoner for years by a father who had banned radios and sunglasses, seized the palace with British support and exiled him.
Q 14What was Oman's official name before Sultan Qaboos shortened it soon after taking power in 1970?
Muscat and Oman
Muscat and Oman. The double name set the sultan's coast beside the interior, which long had rulers of its own; Qaboos dropped the first half as he unified the country.
Q 15Which practice did Sultan Qaboos finally outlaw in Oman in 1970?
Slavery
Slavery. The trade had once been a key part of Oman's economy, run through its East African empire, and abolishing it was among Qaboos's first reforms.
Q 16Sultan Qaboos named no public heir, so what settled his succession?
Sealed letter
Sealed letter. When he died in 2020 the ruling family had three days to agree on a sultan, but chose instead to open the envelope Qaboos had secretly left, and followed it.
Q 17Who succeeded Qaboos as Sultan of Oman?
Haitham bin Tariq
Haitham bin Tariq. Qaboos had no children, so the throne passed to a cousin: the Oxford-educated former culture minister, who pledged to keep Oman friendly with all nations.
Q 18Sultan Qaboos was born in 1940 in which southern Omani city?
Salalah
Salalah. The old sultan later withdrew to the southern port for good, safer there from plots and petitioners, and Qaboos was sequestered in its palace until the 1970 coup.
Q 19Before taking the throne, Sultan Qaboos graduated from which military academy?
Sandhurst
Sandhurst. After graduating he served with a British Army unit in West Germany, but once home he was shut away in a palace, a virtual prisoner until the 1970 coup.
Q 20Which branch of Islam, rare almost everywhere else, has been Oman's dominant tradition for more than a thousand years?
Ibadi
Ibadi. The school began as a moderate offshoot of the Kharijites, the early rebels who broke with the caliph Ali, and it outlived every harsher branch of that movement.
Q 24Before Sultan Qaboos took power in 1970, what did Oman's national flag look like?
Plain red
Plain red. The banner had flown over Oman for centuries; months after his coup Qaboos kept the colour and added white for peace and green for the fertility of the land.
Q 25Jebel Shams, Oman's highest peak, has an Arabic name meaning what?
Mountain of Sun
Mountain of Sun. The peak is best known not for its summit but for the view from its rim into Wadi Ghul, a sheer gorge nicknamed the Grand Canyon of Arabia.
Q 26Oman's Dhofar coast turns green each summer thanks to a monsoon season known locally as what?
Khareef
Khareef. The word is simply Arabic for autumn, but in Dhofar it means the misty monsoon of June to early September, when Omanis and other Gulf Arabs flock south to see green hills.
Q 27Which aromatic resin, harvested in Dhofar, gives its name to an Omani UNESCO World Heritage Site?
Frankincense
Frankincense. The Land of Frankincense site protects the trees of Wadi Dawkah with a caravan oasis and two old ports, relics of a trade that was among the most important in the ancient world.
Q 28Which Omani fortress, added in 1987, was the country's first UNESCO World Heritage Site?
Bahla Fort
Bahla Fort. Its walls of unbaked brick were crumbling so fast that UNESCO put it on the danger list the very next year, and it stayed there until 2004.
Q 29Oman's sanctuary for which animal became the first site ever deleted from UNESCO's World Heritage List, in 2007?
Arabian oryx
Arabian oryx. Oman cut the reserve by 90 percent to make way for oil prospecting after poaching had shrunk the herd from 450 animals to 65, and UNESCO struck it off.
Q 30What are Oman's aflaj, five of which UNESCO added to its World Heritage List in 2006?
Irrigation channels
Irrigation channels. Using gravity alone they carry water from underground springs to villages, where each share of the flow is still timed by watching the sun and stars.