Prague Trivia
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50 free Prague trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Prague was the imperial capital of Charles IV, the alchemical court of Rudolf II, the place where the Thirty Years' War and the Hussite Wars were both started by throwing officials out of windows, and the capital of Czechoslovakia through Nazi occupation, Soviet tanks and the Velvet Revolution. This quiz walks through all of that, from the legend of Libuse and the founding of Prague Castle to Jan Hus, Tycho Brahe, White Mountain, Operation Anthropoid, Jan Palach and Vaclav Havel. It then covers the city as visitors see it: the numerological start time of Charles Bridge, the clock with a skeleton that has been striking the hour since 1410, the largest ancient castle in the world according to Guinness, the cathedral that took nearly 600 years, the twelve-layer Jewish cemetery and the golem in the synagogue attic, the small Eiffel Tower on Petrin, the Dancing House, the Lennon Wall, the metro built in 1974, and why 'Good King Wenceslas' looks down on Wenceslas Square. Beer, Mozart's Don Giovanni and Kafka get their questions too. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Prague and its landmarks, people and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Czech Republic quiz covers the rest of the country.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Prague sits on which river?
The Vltava
It flows into the Elbe north of the city; Smetana's tone poem about the river is known abroad as The Moldau.
Q 02Prague is nicknamed the City of a Hundred Spires after a count by which 19th-century mathematician?
Bernard Bolzano
Today's estimate is around 500 spires; other nicknames are the Golden City and the Mother of Cities.
Q 03Which legendary prophetess foresaw Prague as 'a great city whose glory will touch the stars'?
Libuse
Her husband Premysl founded the Premyslid dynasty; she prophesied from the fort at Vysehrad.
Q 04The first bridge over Prague's river, built in 1170, was named after whom?
Judith, the king's wife
The Judith Bridge was destroyed by a flood in 1342, and Charles Bridge replaced it.
Q 05Charles IV, who made Prague an imperial capital from 1346, belonged to which new royal dynasty?
Luxembourg
He laid out the New Town himself, founded the university and started the cathedral and the bridge that carries his name; the Premyslids had died out in 1306.
Q 06Charles University, founded in 1348, holds what distinction?
Oldest in Central Europe
It is the third-oldest north of the Alps after Oxford and Cambridge; Jan Hus was once its rector.
Q 07Charles Bridge's first stone was reputedly laid at a minute chosen because the date and time digits formed what?
A palindrome
The emperor believed the numerical bridge would strengthen the stone one; it was simply the Stone Bridge until 1870.
Q 08How many statues line Charles Bridge?
30
Mostly baroque and erected around 1700, all have now been swapped for replicas; the bridge was the only river crossing until 1841.
Q 09The Hunger Wall south of Mala Strana was reputedly built in the 1360s for what purpose?
To give famine victims paid work
The emperor's make-work project gave labourers and their families food during a famine.
Q 10Which Prague preacher and university rector was burned at the stake in Konstanz in 1415?
Jan Hus
His death sparked the Hussite Wars; four years later Prague had its first defenestration.
Q 11The 1618 Defenestration of Prague triggered which conflict?
The Thirty Years' War
Catholics said angels caught the men; Protestants later claimed they landed on a dung heap, a story unknown at the time.
Q 12How many 'defenestrations of Prague' does Wikipedia count, in 1419, 1483 and 1618?
Three
The 1483 event is often overlooked, which is why the 1618 one is commonly called the second.
Q 13Which Habsburg emperor moved his court to Prague in 1583 and filled it with alchemists?
Rudolf II
Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Arcimboldo, John Dee and Edward Kelley all worked in his Prague.
Q 21Which Empress expelled the Jews from Prague in 1745, only to rescind the order three years later?
Maria Theresa
By 1708 Jews had made up about a quarter of Prague's population; the proportion never recovered.
Q 22Which two Mozart operas premiered at Prague's Estates Theatre?
Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito
Prague adored Mozart; the Estates Theatre later stood in for Vienna in the film Amadeus.
Q 23Wenceslas Square was known until 1848 as what?
The Horse Market
It is really a 750-metre boulevard; a baroque statue of St Wenceslas stood there from 1680.
Q 14Which 1620 clash just outside Prague crushed the Bohemian revolt and Frederick V, the 'Winter King'?
White Mountain
The city's population fell from 60,000 to 20,000 over the war that followed.
Q 15According to Guinness, Prague's Hradcany complex is the world's largest what?
Ancient castle
It covers almost 70,000 square metres and houses the president, the Bohemian crown jewels and St Vitus Cathedral.
Q 16St Vitus Cathedral was begun in 1344; when was it finally finished?
1929
It was completed for the millennium of St Wenceslas, nearly 600 years after the first stone.
Q 17The astronomical clock on Old Town Hall was created in which year?
1410
Mikulas of Kadan and Jan Sindel built it; the legend that a maker named Hanus was blinded so he could never repeat it is a later mistake.
Q 18Which figure on the astronomical clock strikes the hour and starts the Walk of the Apostles?
A skeleton representing Death
The rooster crows at the end; the other moving figures include Vanity with a mirror and a Miser with a purse.
Q 19Prague's most famous golem was said to be made from river clay by which rabbi?
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
The Maharal reportedly switched it off each Friday evening by removing the shem so it could rest on the Sabbath.
Q 20Graves in Prague's Old Jewish Cemetery are stacked up to how many layers deep?
Twelve
The oldest stone, from 1439, belongs to the rabbi and poet Avigdor Kara; lack of space forced burials on top of burials.
Q 24The 'Good King Wenceslas' of the carol was a 10th-century Duke of Bohemia murdered by whom?
His brother Boleslaus
Boleslaus the Cruel had him killed in 935; his grandmother Ludmila had been murdered too and both became saints.
Q 25Who took up residence in Prague Castle as first president of the new state created after World War I?
Tomas Masaryk
By 1930 the capital's population had risen to 850,000.
Q 26Which senior Nazi was assassinated in Prague in 1942 during Operation Anthropoid?
Reinhard Heydrich
Czechoslovak parachutists Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis carried it out; Hitler had proclaimed the Protectorate from Prague Castle in 1939.
Q 27Prague's giant Stalin monument, built in 1955, was destroyed in which year?
1962
A giant metronome now stands on the plinth.
Q 28Who led the reforms of the 1968 Prague Spring as First Secretary of the Communist Party?
Alexander Dubcek
'Socialism with a human face' ended when the Warsaw Pact invaded on 21 August 1968.
Q 29Which two Warsaw Pact members did NOT join the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia?
Romania and Albania
Soviet troops stayed until 1991; Jan Palach and Jan Zajic burned themselves to death in protest in early 1969.
Q 30The Velvet Revolution began after riot police broke up a student march on which date in 1989?
17 November
Within six weeks Dubcek was speaker of parliament and Vaclav Havel president.