50 free Paraguay trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Forty-five questions on Paraguay, the landlocked heart of South America where more people speak Guarani than Spanish. Geography and economy cover Asuncion, the Paraguay River that splits the country, the Gran Chaco and its Mennonite colonies, Ciudad del Este, soy and beef, and the Itaipu Dam that lets Paraguay run entirely on hydropower and sell the surplus abroad. History runs from the Jesuit reductions and their UNESCO-listed ruins through El Supremo's sealed-off republic, the Lopez dynasty, the Triple Alliance War that killed at least half the population, the Chaco War with Bolivia, 35 years of Stroessner and the harbouring of Josef Mengele, to the 1989 coup and the impeachment of a former bishop. Culture rounds cover terere, sopa paraguaya, nanduti lace, the harp and guarania, the flag with a different emblem on each side, and football's goalscoring goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its wars, its cities and its people, and the sentence that establishes it is quoted under each explanation. Suits a pub quiz, a Spanish classroom or a Mercosur road trip.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Paraguay is one of only two landlocked countries in South America. Which is the other?
Bolivia
Both lost their coasts in 19th-century wars, and both then fought each other in the 1930s; Paraguay reaches the Atlantic via the Parana-Paraguay waterway.
Q 02What is the capital and largest city of Paraguay?
Asuncion
Founded as a fort in 1537, it is nicknamed the 'Mother of Cities' because expeditions from it refounded Buenos Aires and other settlements.
Q 03The capital was founded on 15 August 1537 as the first capital of which Spanish governorate?
Rio de la Plata
The date is the feast of the Assumption, hence the name; Buenos Aires had been abandoned and was refounded from Asuncion decades later.
Q 04Over 90 percent of Paraguayans speak which indigenous language, the highest rate in Latin America?
Guarani
It shares official status with Spanish, which is actually spoken by slightly fewer people, about 87 percent.
Q 05What is Paraguay's third most spoken language, used by about 10 percent near the eastern border?
Portuguese
The 'Brasiguayos' crossed west from the 1970s for cheap land and now dominate soy farming.
Q 06Which religious order ran the 'reductions' that gathered indigenous people into mission towns in Paraguay?
The Jesuits
They protected converts from Portuguese slave raiders for about 150 years until Spain expelled the order in 1767.
Q 07The ruins of two Jesuit mission towns in Itapua department were listed by UNESCO in which year?
1993
La Santisima Trinidad and Jesus de Tavarangue form Paraguay's only World Heritage Site, near Encarnacion.
Q 08Paraguay dates its independence from Spain to 14 May of which year?
1811
Full independence was only formally declared in 1842 under Carlos Antonio Lopez.
Q 09Paraguay's first dictator, who sealed the country off from 1814 to 1840, was nicknamed what?
El Supremo
Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia tried to build a Rousseau-style utopia and forbade colonial-era elites from marrying each other.
Q 10Francia's marriage laws let white colonists marry only whom, to break the colonial elite?
Blacks, mulattoes or natives
He also slashed the powers of the Catholic Church and cut off relations with the rest of South America.
Q 11The 1864-1870 war in which Paraguay fought Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay is known as what?
The War of the Triple Alliance
It remains the bloodiest international conflict in the history of the Americas.
Q 12Which Paraguayan leader died at the Battle of Cerro Cora in 1870, refusing to surrender?
Francisco Solano Lopez
He had succeeded his father as president-dictator in 1862 and led a guerrilla campaign after Asuncion fell.
Q 13Per a common estimate, how many adult males survived in Paraguay after the 1864–70 war?
28,000
Q 21Paraguay's national drink, terere, is yerba mate prepared how?
With cold water and ice
Medicinal herbs are added and it is sipped through a bombilla from a guampa, often a cattle horn; National Terere Day is the last Saturday of February.
Q 22Paraguay's traditional lace, nanduti, takes its name from the indigenous word for what?
Spider web
Circular motifs are worked on fabric stretched in a frame; the town of Itaugua is its home.
Q 23Which instrument is most associated with Paraguayan music, from polkas to the languid guarania?
The harp
The guarania, a slow song form, was created by Jose Asuncion Flores around the 1920s.
Of a pre-war population of perhaps 450,000 to 900,000, only about 220,000 people were left.
Q 14Paraguay fought its northern neighbour in a 1932-1935 war over a region thought to be rich in what?
Oil
Standard Oil backed Bolivia and Royal Dutch Shell backed Paraguay; Paraguay won most of the Chaco despite a third of Bolivia's population.
Q 15Alfredo Stroessner ruled Paraguay for how many years before his 1989 overthrow?
35
He took power in a 1954 coup; his father was a Bavarian accountant and his regime harboured Nazi fugitives.
Q 16Which infamous Nazi doctor was among the war criminals sheltered in Stroessner's Paraguay?
Josef Mengele
Hans-Ulrich Rudel and Eduard Roschmann also found refuge; the foreign press called it 'the poor man's Nazi regime'.
Q 17Stroessner's Paraguay took part in which 1970s state-terror campaign run by six South American dictatorships?
Operation Condor
Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil coordinated the hunt for dissidents with US support.
Q 18Fernando Lugo, elected president in 2008 and ending 61 years of one-party rule, had previously been what?
A Roman Catholic bishop
A liberation theologian, he was impeached in 2012 in a process his supporters called a coup; the OAS disagreed.
Q 19Which party has dominated Paraguay since 1947 and produced Stroessner, Cartes and Santiago Pena?
The Colorado Party
Its only defeat in a presidential race since then was Lugo's in 2008; between 1904 and 1954 the country went through 31 presidents.
Q 20What is unusual about Paraguay's national flag?
Its two sides carry different emblems
The obverse bears the national seal and the reverse the Treasury seal; the tricolour was inspired by France.
Q 24The Itaipu Dam, shared with Brazil, sits on which river?
The Parana
Its name means 'sounding stone' in the indigenous language; ten of its twenty turbines generate at 50 Hz for Paraguay and ten at 60 Hz for Brazil.
Q 25What share of Paraguay's electricity comes from hydropower?
All of it
Domestic use is a fraction of output, so the surplus is sold to Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, making Paraguay the world's largest electricity exporter.
Q 26Paraguay's Ciudad del Este ranks as the world's third most important free commercial zone behind which two places?
Miami and Hong Kong
It sits at the triple frontier with Brazil and Argentina next to the Friendship Bridge and Itaipu.
Q 27Paraguay is the world's second-largest producer of which natural sweetener?
Stevia
The plant is native to the region and was used by the Guarani; the country is also the sixth-largest soybean producer.
Q 28The Paraguay River separates the eastern region from which sparsely populated western region?
The Chaco
It holds about 60 percent of the land but few people; the far west gets under 50 cm of rain a year.
Q 29Which religious community migrated from Canada in the 1920s to build prosperous farming towns in Paraguay's arid west?
Mennonites
Filadelfia and Loma Plata are their colonies; the Plautdietsch-speaking settlers dominate the country's dairy industry.
Q 30Roughly what share of Paraguay's original forest cover has been lost since the 1960s?
Nine-tenths
Cattle and soy expansion drive one of the world's highest deforestation rates.