Provinces of China
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40 free Provinces of China trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
China's map is a patchwork: provinces older than most nations, vast frontier regions, and giant cities that answer straight to the capital. Many are bigger than a European country, and each has its own food, dialects and landmarks. This quiz covers the whole map. You will be asked to name a province from its borders, its famous son or its signature dish, to match capitals and landmarks to the right place, and to learn what the names themselves mean. A few questions explain how the system works, from who really runs a province to how the spellings changed. It suits geography students learning the map of China, travellers planning a trip beyond Beijing, and quiz hosts who need a ready-made round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something, and the questions can be printed for use on paper.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which blockbuster film had a sandstone pillar in China's Zhangjiajie forest park renamed after it in 2010?
Avatar
Avatar is honoured in the official name 'Avatar Hallelujah Mountain', given to the 1,080-metre Southern Sky Column. The film's designers drew on Chinese karst peaks for its floating mountains.
Q 02Which Chinese province, famed for mouth-numbing peppercorn cooking, is home to most wild giant pandas?
Sichuan
Sichuan's panda sanctuaries are home to more than 30 percent of the world's giant pandas, and its capital Chengdu has a research base for breeding them.
Q 03Which city, a Portuguese colony until 1999, overtook Las Vegas to become the world's biggest gambling hub?
Macau
Macau, one of China's two special administrative regions, out-earned the Las Vegas Strip within a decade of its handover and is the most densely populated region in the world.
Q 04Which Chinese province is home to the Terracotta Army, found in 1974 by farmers digging a well near Xi'an?
Shaanxi
Shaanxi and its eastern neighbour Shanxi differ only in tone in Mandarin, which is why the two names look so alike in English.
Q 05Which Chinese city, founded around a Russian-built railway, hosts the world's largest ice and snow festival?
Harbin
Harbin is known as the Ice City for its bitterly cold winters, and it first prospered as a settlement of immigrants from the Russian Empire.
Q 06Which Chinese province, split from Guangdong in 1988, is a tropical island in the South China Sea?
Hainan
Hainan is the southernmost province of China, and it was made a Special Economic Zone in the same year it gained provincial status to draw in investment.
Q 07Which conqueror has a mausoleum in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, although his real tomb has never been found?
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan's mausoleum in Ordos is really a cenotaph: the coffin in its main hall holds headdresses and accessories but no body.
Q 08Which Chinese province was the birthplace of Confucius and is home to Mount Tai, a sacred Taoist peak?
Shandong
Shandong is where Confucius was born, in the city of Qufu, and its port of Qingdao is the home of Tsingtao Beer.
Q 09Which city, where the Potala Palace was the winter home of the Dalai Lamas, is the capital of Tibet?
Lhasa
Lhasa means 'place of gods', and it has been the religious and administrative capital of Tibet since the mid-17th century.
Q 10Which vast region covers about a sixth of China and borders eight countries, from Russia to India?
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is the largest province-level division of China, spanning over 1.6 million square kilometres, and its name can be translated as 'new frontier'.
Q 11Which Chinese province was the birthplace of Mao Zedong, born to a peasant family in the village of Shaoshan?
Hunan
Hunan literally means 'south of the lake', a reference to Dongting Lake in its north-east. Mao went on to study in its capital, Changsha.
Q 12Which province almost entirely surrounds Beijing and was once known as Zhili, meaning 'directly ruled'?
Hebei
Hebei means 'north of the river', and the land around Beijing was first called Zhili after the Yongle Emperor moved his capital there in 1421.
Q 13Which province-level division, China's northernmost, is named after the river that forms its border with Russia?
Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang is the Mandarin name of the Amur and means 'black dragon river'. The province also contains China's easternmost point, where the Amur meets the Ussuri.
Q 21Which Chinese city, split from its province in 1997, is a municipality about the size of Austria?
Chongqing
Chongqing was made a municipality to speed development in central and western China, and by population it is the largest city proper in the world.
Q 22Which Chinese city, home to the Bund waterfront, has the world's busiest container port?
Shanghai
Shanghai is written with the characters for 'upon' and 'sea', and it is run as a municipality with the same rank as a province.
Q 23Which port city, long the gateway to Beijing, is one of four Chinese municipalities ranked equal to a province?
Tianjin
Tianjin has been the capital's seaport and gateway since it became a treaty port in 1860, and like every municipality it answers directly to the central government.
Q 14Which south-western province of China borders three countries: Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam?
Yunnan
Yunnan is one of the most ethnically diverse provinces of China, with minorities such as the Yi, Bai and Dai making up about a third of its people.
Q 15Which coastal province is the closest part of mainland China to Taiwan, facing the island across a strait?
Fujian
Fujian is also home to the tulou, fortified earthen buildings that can house up to 800 people each.
Q 16Which Chinese province on the Tibetan Plateau shares its name with the country's largest lake?
Qinghai
Qinghai is named after Qinghai Lake, and both the Yangtze and the Mekong have their sources in the south-west of the province.
Q 17Which region on China's border with Vietnam is home to the Zhuang, the country's largest ethnic minority?
Guangxi
Guangxi carries the Zhuang in its full official name, and its city of Guilin has long been renowned for its scenery of limestone karst peaks.
Q 18Which Chinese province is home to the Shaolin Temple, the monastery recognised as the cradle of kung fu?
Henan
Henan's Shaolin Temple stands at the foot of the Mount Song range and is also recognised as the birthplace of Chan Buddhism.
Q 19The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest power station, spans the Yangtze near Yichang in which province?
Hubei
Hubei means 'north of the lake', after Dongting Lake, and planners expected the dam's reservoir to flood 13 cities and 140 towns in whole or in part.
Q 20Which southern Chinese city, long known in the West as Canton, hosts China's oldest and largest trade fair?
Guangzhou
Guangzhou is the capital and largest city of Guangdong, the province with the largest population in China, and its twice-yearly trade fair still carries the Canton name.
Q 24Which capital of Jiangsu province holds the mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen and was a capital of China until 1949?
Nanjing
Nanjing literally means 'Southern Capital', a name the first Ming emperor made official in 1368 to set it apart from a 'Northern Capital'.
Q 25Which capital of Zhejiang province, famed for its West Lake, sits at the southern end of the Grand Canal?
Hangzhou
Hangzhou was the capital of the Southern Song dynasty until the Mongol conquest of 1276, and it now hosts the headquarters of the Alibaba Group.
Q 26Which city on the Yangtze was the site of the 1911 uprising that ended 2,000 years of dynastic rule in China?
Wuhan
Wuhan grew out of three towns, Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang, and it was the Wuchang Uprising of 1911 that brought down the Qing dynasty.
Q 27Which Jiangsu city of canals and classical gardens is often called the 'Venice of the East'?
Suzhou
Suzhou's classical gardens are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Marco Polo's Travels credits the city with 6,000 stone bridges.
Q 28Which Chinese regional capital holds a Guinness record as the most remote city from any sea in the world?
Urumqi
Urumqi lies about 2,500 kilometres from the nearest coastline, and it once collected taxes from caravans travelling the northern route of the Silk Road.
Q 29Which capital of Gansu province is famous across China for beef noodles, sold in over 1,000 of its restaurants?
Lanzhou
Lanzhou was a major link on the ancient Northern Silk Road, and it is still a rail hub connecting China's far west to the eastern half of the country.
Q 30Which peak on the border between Tibet and Nepal is known in Tibetan as Qomolangma?
Mount Everest
Mount Everest stands 8,848.86 metres high by a joint Nepalese and Chinese survey of 2020, and most climbers on the Tibetan side drive straight to its North Base Camp.