Orienteering
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
40 free Orienteering trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Orienteering is a race with no marked route. Competitors get a detailed map, a compass and a list of checkpoints, and choose their own way between them, on foot, on skis or by bike. The fastest runner rarely wins unless they are also the best navigator. This quiz covers what a newcomer meets at a first event and what a club regular takes for granted: the colours and symbols on the map, how a compass is used with it, how control descriptions work, and the techniques for staying on course. It also visits the sport's Scandinavian roots, its biggest relays and its champions. It suits school and Scout groups learning to navigate, PE classes, club members testing each other, and anyone who has wondered what those flags in the woods are for. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Orienteering began in late-19th-century Sweden as map-and-compass training for which group of people?
Army officers
Army officers ran the first race, at the Stockholm garrison's yearly meet in 1893. The word itself had been coined seven years earlier at the Karlberg military academy.
Q 02Which colour joins white on the three-sided flags that mark control points at orienteering events worldwide?
Orange
Orange took over from red: the earlier specification for the flag was white and red. Each face of the modern one is a square about 30 cm across.
Q 03On an orienteering map, where green means thick vegetation that slows a runner, what does plain white show?
Runnable forest
Runnable forest is left white, which surprises walkers used to green woods. On these maps the darker the green, the thicker and slower the going.
Q 04Which kind of terrain is printed yellow on an orienteering map, with the brightest shade for the clearest ground?
Open land
Open land is yellow, and the shade matters: bright yellow is a lawn you can race across, while pale yellow is rough meadow with tall grass.
Q 05The parallel lines printed across every orienteering map are aligned to what, sparing runners any compass correction?
Magnetic north
Magnetic north is where a compass points, so a map drawn to it lets a runner take a bearing straight off the paper with no adjustment for declination.
Q 06Which long-distance team navigation sport is named after three of its founders, Rod, Gail and Neil Phillips?
Rogaining
Rogaining stitches together Rod, Gail and Neil. Championship events last 24 hours, with teams of two to five choosing which checkpoints to visit.
Q 07Radio orienteers hunt hidden transmitters with a handheld receiver; which animals give the transmitters their nickname?
Foxes
Foxes is the name for the transmitters, and the sport is often called foxhunting. The map shows only the start and finish, so the radio signal does the rest.
Q 08Which shape, overprinted in the same colour as the numbered controls, marks the start on an orienteering map?
Triangle
A triangle marks the start, and it is the first thing a runner hunts for, because the map is normally handed over only as the clock starts.
Q 09Brown contour lines packed tightly together on an orienteering map warn a runner that the ground ahead is what?
Steep
Steep ground squeezes the contours together because each line marks a fixed height step, normally 5 metres on an orienteering map.
Q 10Which small safety item do most national orienteering bodies recommend that every competitor carries on a course?
A whistle
A whistle is the standard safety item, and it is about the only kit the sport asks for besides a compass and suitable outdoor clothing.
Q 11The compass style that caught on among orienteers in the 1980s straps to which part of the hand?
Thumb
Thumb compasses pin the compass to the hand that holds the map, so both are read as a unit. Most carry few or no degree markings.
Q 12A runner who sets a compass bearing of 90 degrees and follows it is heading in which direction?
East
East sits a quarter-turn clockwise from the top of the dial, because the four cardinal points are spaced 90 degrees apart.
Q 13Which symbol on an orienteering map shows where the course ends and a competitor's clock is stopped?
A double circle
A double circle marks the finish, and every starter must report there even after giving up, so that organisers know nobody is still out on the course.
Q 21Which Stockholm major, who staged a 220-runner meet in 1919, is known across Scandinavia as the Father of Orienteering?
Ernst Killander
Ernst Killander was a Scout leader who saw the sport as a way to draw young people into athletics, and he went on to shape its early rules.
Q 22The first World Orienteering Championships, in 1966, took place in which Finnish village known for its scissors?
Fiskars
Fiskars staged only an individual race and a relay, and all eleven nations that came were European.
Q 23Which night relay, named after a family in the novel Seven Brothers, is the biggest orienteering relay in the world?
Jukola
Jukola starts at about 11 pm as the June sun sets, and its seven runners per team race through the night until early on Sunday morning.
Q 14Which colour is used to overprint the course itself, with its numbered controls, on an orienteering map?
Purple
Purple marks everything that belongs to a single event, including temporary hazards such as out-of-bounds fields, because none of it is a permanent feature of the terrain.
Q 15Which orienteering race format, usually won in about 12 to 15 minutes, is often held in city parks and streets?
Sprint
Sprint races joined the world championships in 2001. They use larger-scale maps on which benches, sculptures and litter bins can all serve as control sites.
Q 16Mountain bike orienteers read the map while riding, so where is their rotating map board fixed?
On the handlebars
On the handlebars is the standard spot, and most holders let the map rotate. Ski orienteers wear theirs strapped to the chest instead.
Q 17Night orienteering often adds what to each control flag to help runners find it in the dark?
Reflective markers
Reflective markers change the tactics: runners can move fast to the right area, then sweep it with the lamp until the flag flashes back.
Q 18What do orienteers call a fence, stream or path that they follow as a guide along part of a route?
A handrail
A handrail is any line feature used as a guide. Advanced courses offer subtler ones, such as a ridge or the edge of a marsh.
Q 19A good orienteering compass has a capsule filled with oil or alcohol rather than air; what is the liquid for?
To steady the needle
To steady the needle: the liquid damps its swing, so a runner can read the compass without standing perfectly still.
Q 20Which compass brand did the Kjellström brothers and Gunnar Tillander found in Sweden in the early 1930s?
Silva
Silva grew out of Tillander's 1928 idea of building a protractor into a see-through baseplate, so that a bearing could be taken straight from the map.
Q 24Thierry Gueorgiou contributed to all 14 world orienteering golds won by which country before he retired in 2017?
France
France has him to thank for all of them: Gueorgiou took his first world medal in 2003 and dominated the men's sport for more than a decade.
Q 25Which Swiss orienteer won 23 World Championship gold medals between 2001 and her retirement in 2013?
Simone Niggli-Luder
Simone Niggli-Luder won all four women's golds at the 2005 championships in Japan. Her total of 23 stood alone until Tove Alexandersson matched it in 2025.
Q 26Which orienteering discipline judges accuracy rather than speed, so wheelchair users compete on equal terms?
Trail-O
Trail-O competitors stay on the path and decide from a distance which of several flags matches the map. At elite level the right answer can be that none of them does.
Q 27In which orienteering format do competitors collect as many controls as they can, in any order, before a time limit?
Score
Score events give harder controls more points and take points away for every minute late, so the winner is whoever plans the smartest loop.
Q 28Relay teams run the same course sections in different orders so nobody can simply follow; what is this method called?
Forking
Forking is a translation of the Swedish word gaffling, and the rule behind it is that every team has covered every section by the end of the race.
Q 29Which word do orienteers use for a small valley, shown by contour lines bending back into a hillside?
Re-entrant
Re-entrant contours make a U or V pointing back into the hill, where rain would gather and run downhill. Its opposite, a ridge that sticks out of the hill, is a spur.
Q 30Which number, displayed at each checkpoint, should an orienteer check against the description sheet before punching?
The control code
The control code proves the flag is yours. Several courses are usually out at once, so a flag showing a different number belongs to someone else's.