Provence Trivia
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50 free Provence trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Provence has been a Greek colony, Rome's first province beyond the Alps, the seat of the papacy and the playground of painters, and this quiz covers all of it: the founding of Marseille around 600 BC, the counts and Good King René, the popes of Avignon, the mistral wind, the Camargue flamingos, and the food, wine and games that define the region today. Easy questions ask which sea it borders and which fish stew Marseille is famous for; harder ones dig into the underwater painted cave near Cassis, the rheumatic champion who invented pétanque, the Roman aqueduct that carried water to Nîmes, and why a mountain in the Vaucluse looks snow-capped all year. It suits anyone planning a trip, French-culture buffs, foodies and geography quiz nights that want a round with sunshine in it. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Provence, its towns, its landmarks, its artists and its cuisine, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which sea borders Provence to the south?
The Mediterranean
The Mediterranean washes Provence's whole southern edge, and its eastern shore got the name Côte d'Azur from an 1887 travel book by the writer Stéphen Liégeard.
Q 02Marseille holds which distinction among French cities?
It is the oldest city in France
It is the oldest city in France: Marseille began around 600 BC as the port of Massalia, and builders digging a shopping centre in 1967 unearthed remains of that ancient harbour.
Q 03Provence owes its name to being Rome's first 'provincia' beyond which mountains?
The Alps
The Alps were the barrier: Romans called their first province beyond them simply 'Provincia', or 'our province', and the nickname outlived the official name, Gallia Narbonensis.
Q 04Sailors from which ancient people founded Marseille as the trading post Massalia around 600 BC?
The Greeks
The Greeks came from Phocaea in Asia Minor, hence Marseille's nickname, the Phocaean City; when Persia besieged Phocaea, most of its people chose exile over surrender.
Q 05Pytheas, a navigator from ancient Marseille, explored which island over 2,300 years ago and reported the midnight sun farther north?
Great Britain
Great Britain was the heart of his voyage: Pytheas estimated its coastline and tied the tides to the moon, yet the geographer Strabo later branded him an arch-liar.
Q 06Which Provençal hill town is known as the world's perfume capital?
Grasse
Grasse got there by smell: its medieval tanneries stank, so its glove-makers began scenting their leather and in time became perfumers.
Q 07Gaius Marius, who crushed the invading Teutons in Provence in 102 BC, was the uncle by marriage of which Roman?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar was the nephew of Marius's wife Julia; in that battle Marius hid 3,000 men in wooded ravines to fall on the Teutons from behind.
Q 08The Pont du Gard aqueduct bridge carried water to which Roman city?
Nîmes
Nîmes was its goal: the Pont du Gard carried an aqueduct almost 50 km long, and the position codes Roman builders cut into its blocks can still be read.
Q 09How is the painted Cosquer Cave near Marseille entered?
Through a passage 37 metres under the sea
Through a passage 37 metres under the sea: Ice Age painters walked in on dry land, but the sea later rose over the entrance and hid the cave until diver Henri Cosquer found it.
Q 10Provence's flag carries the same red and gold stripes as which Spanish region, whose counts ruled it in the 12th century?
Catalonia
Catalonia's counts of Barcelona gained Provence when its heiress Douce married Ramon Berenguer III, and the striped arms the two lands shared still fly over Provence.
Q 11Clement V, the pope who moved to Provence, dissolved which crusading order?
Knights Templar
The Knights Templar were suppressed in 1312 after France's King Philip IV had them arrested and pressed Clement to act; much of their wealth then passed to the rival Hospitallers.
Q 12Which biblical episode nicknamed the popes' stay in Provence?
Babylonian Captivity
The Babylonian Captivity was the taunt: all seven popes of the period were French, and the poet Petrarch, who lived in the papal city, called it the Babylon of the West.
Q 13In the 14th century, seven popes in a row ruled the Church not from Rome but from which Provençal city?
Avignon
Q 21What is the cold, dry north wind that sweeps through Provence called?
The mistral
The mistral can blow for days but leaves the sky swept clear, and it shaped the houses: a traditional Provençal farmhouse faces south and turns a windowless wall to the north.
Q 22Which mountain, nicknamed the Giant of Provence, is one of the Tour de France's hardest climbs?
Mont Ventoux
Mont Ventoux stands alone, far higher than anything around it, and the poet Petrarch wrote that he climbed it in 1336 for no reason but to see the view.
Q 23Which mountain near Aix did Paul Cézanne paint again and again?
Montagne Sainte-Victoire
Avignon was the papal capital from 1309 to 1377, and its fortress-like Palais des Papes still stands, though after the Revolution it spent decades as an army barracks.
Q 14Which Italian city did Provence's "Good King René" rule as king before Aragon drove him out in 1442?
Naples
Naples was his for seven years until Alfonso of Aragon took it; back in Provence he gave himself to poetry, painting and the patronage of artists, and the nickname followed.
Q 15Which British author's 1989 memoir A Year in Provence became an international bestseller?
Peter Mayle
Peter Mayle, a former advertising man, moved to the Luberon meaning to write a novel, but his account of settling into village life overtook it and sold around the world.
Q 16The town of Orange in Provence gave its name to which country's royal house?
Netherlands
The Netherlands' house of Orange-Nassau took the name when William the Silent inherited the tiny principality in 1544, aged 11; the town's Roman name, Arausio, has nothing to do with the fruit.
Q 17Which disease reached Marseille on a merchant ship in 1720 and killed tens of thousands across Provence?
Plague
Plague came ashore from the Grand-Saint-Antoine, whose silk and cotton were wanted for a great trade fair; quarantine rules were bent, probably to save the cargo, and the city paid for it.
Q 18La Marseillaise was written in Strasbourg, so why is it named after Marseille?
Volunteers from Marseille sang it in Paris
Volunteers from Marseille sang it in Paris after marching north in 1792; Rouget de Lisle, an army engineer, had written it in a single night as a war song for the Army of the Rhine.
Q 19Which young artillery commander drove the British out of Provence's great naval port in December 1793?
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte, then a captain, planned the capture of the forts above the anchorage, took a bayonet in the thigh, and was made a brigadier general days later at 24.
Q 20France gained Nice and Savoy in 1860 for helping to unify which country?
Italy
Italy's unification cost it Nice: Piedmont handed the city and Savoy to France for its help against Austria, over the protests of Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was born in Nice.
Montagne Sainte-Victoire held him to the end: in October 1906 Cézanne was caught in a storm while painting outdoors, collapsed on the way home, and died of pneumonia days later.
Q 24The Camargue, a marshy delta known for white horses and flamingos, is formed by which river?
The Rhône
The Rhône splits into two arms as it nears the sea, and the Camargue is the wedge of marsh and salt lagoon caught between them, grazed by black bulls bred for Provençal bullfights.
Q 25What are the narrow rocky inlets between Marseille and Cassis called?
Calanques
Calanques began as steep dry valleys cut into white limestone and became inlets only when the rising sea flooded their lower ends.
Q 26Which Provençal river carved a limestone gorge nicknamed France's "Grand Canyon"?
The Verdon
The Verdon leaves its canyon through the Lac de Sainte-Croix, a reservoir filled in the 1970s that drowned the old village of Les Salles, rebuilt higher up the shore.
Q 27In 1942 the French fleet scuttled itself in which Provençal naval port rather than fall into German hands?
Toulon
Toulon's crews wrecked their own ships at their moorings on 27 November 1942 as German troops broke into the base; Admiral de Laborde had the orders ready for exactly that.
Q 28Which low, aromatic scrubland is typical of Provence's dry limestone hills?
Garrigue
Garrigue is a man-made landscape: it took over the limestone hills after their oak forests were cut, burned and grazed away, leaving thyme, rosemary and lavender.
Q 29Vincent van Gogh lived in which Provençal town from February 1888 to May 1889?
Arles
Arles is where he rented the Yellow House hoping to found an artists' colony; only Gauguin came, and their weeks together ended with Van Gogh cutting off part of his own ear.
Q 30Which artist spent his last twelve years at Mougins, in the hills above Cannes, and died there in 1973?
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso died at 91 in his farmhouse at Mougins and was buried at Vauvenargues, the château near Aix that he had bought in 1958.