50 free Pyrenees trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Pyrenees trivia quiz covers the mountain range that walls off the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe. The easy questions handle the basics: which countries it divides, the microstate tucked inside it, the highest peak, the Song of Roland and the big white dogs that guard its flocks. From there it moves through the geology, the cirques and gaves, the passes from Roncevaux to Envalira, the desman and the brown bears, and the languages spoken along the range. The harder half is for geography and history buffs: the Bay of Biscay's role in raising the mountains, Xatardia and the saxifrages, the talc pit at Trimoun, the Pic du Midi telescope that photographed the Moon for Apollo, the Odeillo solar furnace, Pheasant Island and the treaty that left Llívia stranded in France, and the Gascon meaning of Tourmalet. If you have played our mountains or France and Spain quizzes, this is the deep dive on one range. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the Pyrenees, the treaty, the Tourmalet, Roncevaux and the Pyrenean Mountain Dog before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Pyrenees form the border between which two countries?
France and Spain
The microstate of Andorra sits sandwiched between them in the eastern part of the range.
Q 02Roughly how long are the Pyrenees, from their western junction to the Mediterranean?
500 km
They end at Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast.
Q 03What is the highest peak in the Pyrenees?
Aneto
It reaches 3,404 metres in the Maladeta ridge in Huesca, Spain.
Q 04How high is Aneto, the range's highest summit?
3,404 m
Posets (3,375 m) and Monte Perdido (3,355 m) come next.
Q 05Which microstate lies within the range?
Andorra
Its capital Andorra la Vella is the largest town inside the range.
Q 06In Greek myth, the mountains are named for Pyrene, a princess violated by which hero?
Hercules
Silius Italicus says he later found her remains and demanded the mountains echo her name forever.
Q 07Other ancient writers derived the name Pyrenees from the Greek word for what?
Fire
Diodorus Siculus told of herdsmen whose fire burned the whole range.
Q 08Which French département is also known as Northern Catalonia?
Pyrénées-Orientales
It is the easternmost of the six French Pyrenean départements.
Q 09Physiographically, the Pyrenees are a province of which larger mountain division?
The Alpine System
They are divided into Atlantic, Central and Eastern sections.
Q 10Compared with the Alps, the Pyrenees are what?
Older
Their sediments were first laid down in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic; the uplift culminated in the Eocene.
Q 11The Pyrenees rose when which body of water 'fanned out', pushing Spain against France?
The Bay of Biscay
This happened between 100 and 150 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous.
Q 12What rock gives the eastern Pyrenees their massive, unworn character?
Granite
In the west the granite peaks are flanked by limestone layers.
Q 13What is the local name for the mountain torrents that form the Pyrenees' waterfalls?
Gaves
Their waterfalls are surpassed in Europe only by Scandinavia's.
Q 14What is the highest waterfall in the Pyrenees?
Q 21Roughly where does the annual snow-line lie in the Pyrenees?
2,700 to 2,800 m
Seasonal snow is seen at least half the time above 1,600 m from December to April.
Q 22Which small aquatic mammal is found only in streams on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees?
The Pyrenean desman
Its only relative, the Russian desman, lives in the Volga basin.
Q 23The Pyrenean ibex, an endemic subspecies, became extinct in which year?
2000
The western Spanish ibex was later introduced and numbered over 400 by 2020.
Gavarnie
It drops 462 metres at the head of the Gave de Pau, inside the famous cirque of the same name.
Q 15What is a 'cirque' in Pyrenean landscape terms?
A semicircle of precipitous cliffs at a valley head
Gavarnie, Troumouse and Estaubé are the most famous examples.
Q 16What is the highest road pass in the Pyrenees, on the road up to the microstate?
Port d'Envalira
At 2,408 m it is one of the highest points on the European road network.
Q 17Which crossing in Navarre, at 1,057 m, is an important point on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route?
Roncevaux
At 1,057 m it is one of the lower crossings.
Q 18According to legend, which of Charlemagne's paladins cut the famous gap in the main ridge, La Brèche, with his sword?
Roland
La Brèche de Roland is said to have been struck by his sword Durendal.
Q 19The open pit at Trimoun near Luzenac in Ariège is one of Europe's greatest sources of what?
Talc
Roman-era marble quarries in the range supplied the Louvre, Versailles and Constantinople.
Q 20Why do the western Pyrenees receive far more precipitation than the eastern?
Moist Atlantic air from the Bay of Biscay
By the time the air reaches the east it has dropped its moisture, so the eastern range has no glaciers.
Q 24From which country were three brown bears brought in 1996 to revive the Pyrenean population?
Slovenia
About 15 now live in the central region around Fos.
Q 25The genus most abundantly represented in the range's flora, with several endemic species, is which?
Saxifrages
The monotypic genus Xatardia grows only on one high pass between the Val d'Eynes and Catalonia.
Q 26Which Spanish national park in the Pyrenees is named after a mountain called 'Lost Mountain'?
Ordesa y Monte Perdido
Together with France's Pyrénées National Park it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
Q 27The 1997 UNESCO listing cited the landforms and testimony to which traditional agricultural system?
Transhumance
Whole families once moved uphill with their livestock in May or June and back down in autumn.
Q 28Which minority language, in its Aranese dialect, is spoken in the Aran Valley?
Occitan
Spanish, French, Catalan, Aragonese and Basque are the other main languages of the range.
Q 29The Pic du Midi Observatory sits at what altitude?
2,877 m
Its telescope helped discredit the Martian canal theory in 1909 and photographed the Moon for Apollo.
Q 30A NASA-funded telescope at Pic du Midi was installed in 1963 to photograph what?
The Moon, ahead of the Apollo missions
Studies there in 1965 also helped JPL predict that Mars and Venus had no life.