Rio de Janeiro Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
59 free Rio De Janeiro trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Rio de Janeiro was named for a river that does not exist, hosted a European royal court on the run from Napoleon, and lost the capital of Brazil to a city built from scratch in five years. This quiz covers that history alongside the postcard: Christ the Redeemer and the sculptor who made it, Sugarloaf and its 1912 cableway, the Maracanã and the 1950 defeat cariocas still talk about, Copacabana's wave-pattern promenade, Ipanema and the song that made it famous, the Sambadrome, the Selarón steps and the reforested Tijuca forest. There are also questions on the 2016 Olympics, Rock in Rio, funk and bossa nova, Machado de Assis, the Vaccine Revolt, favela origins, the conical cathedral and the New Year's Eve crowd dressed in white. Easy questions ask which city is bigger than Rio and what season Carnival precedes; hard ones want the height of Sugarloaf, the inventor who was meant to light the statue from Rome and the number of tiled steps in Lapa. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city and its landmarks, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Try our Brazil and Buenos Aires quizzes next.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Rio de Janeiro is the second-largest city in Brazil after which city?
São Paulo
São Paulo, with over 11 million residents, is Brazil's largest city; Rio's roughly 6 million in the city proper and 13 million in its metro area rank second nationally.
Q 02Rio de Janeiro's name comes from the date Europeans first sighted Guanabara Bay, in which year?
1502
Portuguese explorers entered Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502 and, mistaking it for a river mouth, called it the River of January; Amerigo Vespucci is said to have sailed as an observer.
Q 03Which European power landed 500 colonists on an island in Guanabara Bay in 1555, before the Portuguese expelled them?
France
France's Admiral Villegagnon landed 500 colonists who built Fort Coligny on an island in the bay, the start of 'France Antarctique'; Mem de Sá and his nephew finally drove the French out in 1567.
Q 04The city was founded on 1 March 1565 by a Portuguese force led by whom?
Estácio de Sá
Estácio de Sá, nephew of Governor General Mem de Sá, founded the city on 1 March 1565 as a base against foreign invaders and their Tamoio allies; he died of an arrow wound in 1567.
Q 05Which saint, also the city's patron, does Rio's full founding name honour?
Sebastian
Saint Sebastian is the city's patron: the 1565 settlement was named São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro for the namesake saint of King Sebastião, and the Metropolitan Cathedral downtown carries the same dedication.
Q 06In 1808 the Portuguese royal court moved to Rio, fleeing whose invasion of Portugal?
Napoleon's
The court fled Napoleon's invasion of Portugal in late 1807 under General Junot; Rio thus became the only European capital ever located outside Europe, and hundreds of nobles arrived so suddenly that residents were evicted to house them.
Q 07Rio stopped being the capital of Brazil in which year, when the seat of government moved to Brasília?
1960
Brasília was inaugurated on 21 April 1960 and took over as capital; the old Federal District became its own state, Guanabara, until the 1975 'Fusion' merged it into Rio de Janeiro state.
Q 08Which Brazilian president, elected in 1955, kept his promise to build a new inland capital?
Juscelino Kubitschek
Juscelino Kubitschek, president from 1956 to 1961, made the new capital the centrepiece of his '50 years in 5' promise; Brasília was built at great cost within his term.
Q 09Which city was capital of Rio de Janeiro state until the 1975 merger with Guanabara?
Niterói
The 1975 'Fusion' decree merged the city-state of Guanabara with the surrounding state, and Rio replaced Niterói across the bay as capital.
Q 10What are residents of Rio de Janeiro called?
Cariocas
Residents are called Cariocas, a Tupi-derived word; the name also belongs to the local dialect and to the Carioca River, whose springs King João VI protected by decree in 1817.
Q 11Which famous Rio beach lies directly west of Ipanema, across the Jardim de Alah canal?
Leblon
Leblon sits immediately west of Ipanema, the two beaches divided by the Jardim de Alah canal that drains the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon; it is among the priciest neighbourhoods in Brazil.
Q 12The statue of Christ the Redeemer stands on the summit of which mountain?
Corcovado
Corcovado, a 700-metre peak inside Tijuca National Park, carries the statue; its cog railway opened in 1884 and was used to haul the statue's pieces up the mountain.
Q 13Which sculptor created Christ the Redeemer?
Paul Landowski
Paul Landowski sculpted the statue in Paris; engineer Heitor da Silva Costa built it, Albert Caquot handled the concrete design and Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida did the face.
Q 21Passengers reaching Sugarloaf's summit change cable cars on which intermediate hill?
Morro da Urca
The first car climbs to Morro da Urca, a 220-metre hill, and the second continues to the summit; each leg takes about three minutes.
Q 22To which country did Brazil lose the deciding 1950 World Cup match before a record Maracanã crowd?
Uruguay
Uruguay beat Brazil 2–1 on 16 July 1950 before a crowd of around 200,000; Brazil had needed only a draw, and the defeat is remembered as the Maracanaço.
Q 23The Maracanã is officially named after Mário Filho, who was what by profession?
A sports journalist
Mário Filho was a sports journalist, brother of playwright Nelson Rodrigues, who championed the stadium's construction in his newspapers; the popular name comes from the nearby Maracanã River.
Q 14Christ the Redeemer's outer layer is made of which stone?
Soapstone
The core is reinforced concrete; the soapstone was chosen for durability and ease of use, and periodic repairs replace pieces damaged by wind and lightning.
Q 15How tall is Christ the Redeemer, excluding its 8-metre pedestal?
30 metres
The figure stands 30 metres tall on its 8-metre pedestal, with arms spanning 28 metres and a weight of 635 tonnes; it is often called the world's largest Art Deco sculpture.
Q 16At the statue's 1931 opening, which inventor was supposed to switch on the floodlights remotely from Rome?
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was to trigger the floodlights by radio from Rome, 9,200 km away, but bad weather spoiled the stunt and the lights were switched on at the site instead.
Q 17The original 1920s plan for the Christ statue would have shown Jesus holding what?
A globe and a cross
Early designs had Christ holding a globe and a cross, but the open-armed pose was chosen as a symbol of peace; Brazilian Catholics funded much of the work.
Q 18Sugarloaf Mountain got its name because its shape reminded the Portuguese of what?
The clay moulds used for sugar
During the sugarcane boom, blocks of sugar were packed in conical clay moulds; the name has since become a generic term for peaks of that shape.
Q 19How high does Sugarloaf Mountain rise above the harbour?
396 metres
Sugarloaf rises 396 metres straight from the water's edge; it is a bornhardt, a steep-sided granite and quartz dome, whose 270-plus climbing routes make it one of the world's largest urban climbing areas.
Q 20Sugarloaf's cableway, opened in 1912, was the first in Brazil and which number in the world?
Third
Engineer Augusto Ferreira Ramos dreamed it up in 1907; the original coated-wood cars stayed in service for 61 years.
Q 24The word 'Maracanã' comes from a Tupi term for what kind of animal?
A parrot
Maracanã is Tupi for a parrot, a type of small macaw once common in the area; the Maracanã River, named for the birds, rises in the western hills and reaches Guanabara Bay through a concrete canal.
Q 25The 2014 World Cup final at the Maracanã saw Germany beat which team 1–0?
Argentina
Germany beat Argentina 1–0 after extra time, Mario Götze scoring in the 113th minute; the Maracanã hosted seven matches that tournament and the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies two years later.
Q 26Rio de Janeiro hosted the Summer Olympics in which year, the first South American city to do so?
2016
Rio won the 2016 Games in the 2009 IOC vote over Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid, becoming the first South American host; the city had first bid for the 1936 Games without success.
Q 27Rio's first-ever Olympic bid, for the 1936 Games, lost out to which city?
Berlin
Berlin won the 1931 vote for the 1936 Games, with Rio among the also-rans; later attempts for 2004 and 2012 did not even make the candidate shortlist before the bid that finally succeeded.
Q 28Which circuit hosted the Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix in 1978 and from 1981 to 1989?
Jacarepaguá
Jacarepaguá, later named for Nelson Piquet, hosted the race in 1978 and from 1981 to 1989; after Formula One returned permanently to Interlagos in 1990, the track staged MotoGP and Champ Car events.
Q 29Which beach sport was invented on Copacabana in 1965 after beach football was banned there?
Footvolley
Footvolley was born on Copacabana in 1965 when beach football was banned, so players volleyed the football over a net using only feet, chest and head; frescobol, a paddle game, is Rio's other homegrown favourite.
Q 30What did a Scottish textile worker have his wife bring from home for Brazil's first football match in 1894?
A ball
Thomas Donohoe's five-a-side game among British workers came six months before Charles Miller's better-known match elsewhere in Brazil.