Rio Carnival
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50 free Rio Carnival trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Rio de Janeiro's Carnival is often called the biggest party on Earth, but it is also a fiercely judged competition, a year-round neighbourhood institution and a piece of living history. Behind the feathers and the drumming are rules, rivalries and traditions that most visitors never hear about. This quiz covers the whole festival: the samba schools and the roles inside a parade, the Sambadrome and how it came to be built, the street parties that fill the streets, the music and the people who shaped it, and the films that put Carnival on screen. It is pitched for curious travellers, quiz hosts and anyone who has watched the parades on television and wondered how it all works. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Brazilian architect, also the designer of Brasília's main buildings, drew up Rio's Sambadrome parade ground?
Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Niemeyer designed it on his return from exile, and the concrete stands went up in about four months, in time for the 1984 parades.
Q 02At the opening of Rio Carnival, what does the mayor traditionally hand to King Momo, the festival's jolly monarch?
The key to the city
The key to the city passes to him as if he, not the mayor, governed Rio for the days of revelry, and his arrival marks the start of the party.
Q 03Which 1959 film set during Rio Carnival won both the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award?
Black Orpheus
Black Orpheus moved the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice to a Rio favela, and songs from its soundtrack became bossa nova classics.
Q 04In which James Bond film does 007 survive an attack by the steel-toothed Jaws during Rio Carnival?
Moonraker
Moonraker sent a crew to Rio in early 1978 to capture real Carnival footage, a location its producer had picked after holidaying there.
Q 05The Rio Carnival street band Sargento Pimenta parades to Brazilian-rhythm versions of songs by which British group?
The Beatles
The Beatles are the whole repertoire of Sargento Pimenta, whose name is simply Portuguese for Sergeant Pepper.
Q 06Beija-Flor, one of the most successful samba schools in Rio Carnival, is named after which bird?
Hummingbird
Hummingbird is beija-flor in Portuguese, and the bird is the school's symbol; the name was borrowed from an older Carnival group in the town of Valença.
Q 07The journalist Mário Filho, who staged Rio's first samba school contest in 1932, gave his name to which stadium?
The Maracanã
The Maracanã is officially the Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho; he launched the contest as a stopgap when his sports paper lost readers between football seasons.
Q 08What did Rio's Sambadrome house beneath its concrete grandstands when the Carnival parade ground opened in 1984?
Classrooms
Classrooms were built under the stands so that the parade ground would double as a school for the rest of the year.
Q 09What can a visitor with no ties to any samba school buy to parade through Rio's Sambadrome at Carnival?
A costume
A costume bought from a school comes with a spot as a dancer in one of its parade groups, so outsiders can march beside lifelong members.
Q 10On which day are the judges' scores read out and the champion samba school of Rio Carnival declared?
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday is when the grades are gathered and a winner named, and the top schools return to the avenue that Saturday for the Parade of Champions.
Q 11Which of Rio's oldest samba schools, founded on a hillside in 1928, parades at Carnival in green and pink?
Mangueira
Mangueira borrowed the colours from an older Carnival group, and its full name, First Station, marks the first railway stop out of central Rio where there was samba.
Q 12In the 2011 animated film Rio, whose finale unfolds at the Carnival parade, what kind of bird is the hero Blu?
A macaw
A macaw of the rare Spix's species, Blu was raised in Minnesota, and the film's smugglers use the Carnival parade as cover to move their stolen birds.
Q 13Rio Carnival is the last big blowout before which season of the Christian calendar?
Lent
Lent, the forty days of fasting before Easter, moves with Easter's date, which is why Rio Carnival falls on different dates from one year to the next.
Q 21Which section of a Rio samba school, an all-percussion orchestra of 250 to 300 players, sets the pace of the parade?
Bateria
Bateria players follow a conductor of their own, and the faster and stronger they play, the faster the whole group moves down the avenue.
Q 22Which wing of a Rio samba school parade features older women spinning down the avenue in wide, round dresses?
Ala das baianas
Ala das baianas honours the Bahian 'aunts' who hosted Rio's earliest samba circles, and every school is still required to field the wing.
Q 23What is the title of the artistic director who devises a Rio samba school's theme and designs its floats?
Carnavalesco
Q 14The Tuesday that closes Rio Carnival is the same day New Orleans celebrates under which French name?
Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras and Rio's final day share a date because both are the last chance to feast before the fasting season starts the next morning.
Q 15Entrudo, the rowdy street game that grew into Rio Carnival, was brought to Brazil by colonists from which country?
Portugal
Portugal's colonists brought it between the 16th and 17th centuries, and its rough street games slowly gave way to masks and fancy dress.
Q 16A 1989 Beija-Flor float at Rio Carnival paraded a replica of which landmark hidden under black plastic?
Christ the Redeemer
Christ the Redeemer was built as a ragged beggar for a parade about rubbish and poverty, and when the Church had the image banned it paraded shrouded instead.
Q 17Which star of Hollywood musicals was the theme of Império Serrano's winning 1972 Rio Carnival parade?
Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda was honoured by famous women who paraded dressed as her, one opening each section, and the tribute earned the school its eighth title.
Q 18The porta-bandeira, a spinning dancer escorted by the mestre-sala, displays what to the crowd in a Rio Carnival parade?
A flag
A flag in her group's colours is hers to show off, and the judges mark the pair down for slips as small as a dropped hat.
Q 19Which grand beachfront hotel in Rio de Janeiro is famous for hosting the city's most glamorous Carnival balls?
Copacabana Palace
Copacabana Palace holds its black-tie ball while samba schools are parading across town, so Rio has several Carnivals running at once.
Q 20What name, taken from an Old Tupi phrase, is given to the natives of Rio de Janeiro who fill the Carnival streets?
Carioca
Carioca covers only the capital, while people from the wider state of Rio de Janeiro were traditionally called Fluminense, from the Latin for river.
Carnavalesco is a job often held by people trained in theatre, dance or the visual arts, and some lead a team of researchers to develop the story.
Q 24The comissão de frente is a small choreographed troupe with which job in a Rio samba school's Carnival show?
Opening the parade
Opening the parade falls to ten to fifteen dancers, whose routine usually tells a short story and sets the mood for everything behind them.
Q 25The velha guarda, who parade through Rio's Sambadrome in suits and Panama-style hats, are a samba school's what?
Veteran members
Veteran members, often founders who no longer hold office, march in a place of honour wearing suits in their school's colours.
Q 26Which Brazilian friction drum, a staple of Rio Carnival percussion sections, shares its name with a shrill opossum?
Cuíca
Cuíca players rub a stick fixed inside the drum with a wet cloth while pressing the skin to bend the pitch, a squeal that earned it the nickname laughing gourd.
Q 27The agogô, a West African instrument heard in Rio Carnival percussion sections, is made of what?
Two metal bells
Two metal bells of different pitch, shaped like cones, give it a bright ring, and the school Império Serrano is known for leaning on it.
Q 28In the paradinha, devised by Mocidade's Mestre André, what does a Rio samba school's percussion section suddenly do?
Stop playing
The drummers stop playing, leaving only voices and a small cavaquinho for a moment, and the risk is that the song is picked up again at the wrong point.
Q 29Which group from Rio's Estácio district, founded in 1928, is regarded as the very first samba school?
Deixa Falar
Deixa Falar lasted under five years, yet it was the first group to call itself a samba school and set out the key ideas of what one is.
Q 30Who made the Rio samba school Portela drop its earlier name, Vai como Pode, in 1935 for being too vulgar?
A police officer
A police officer refused to renew the group's licence under the old name, which means 'go as you can', and suggested the new one himself.