60 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 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Rio de Janeiro is the second-largest city in Brazil after which city?
São Paulo
About 6 million people live in the city proper and 13 million in the metro area, making it the sixth most populous city in the Americas.
Q 02Rio de Janeiro's name comes from the date Europeans first sighted Guanabara Bay, in which year?
1502
The Portuguese mistook the bay for a river mouth; the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci is said to have been aboard as an observer.
Q 03Which European power landed 500 colonists on an island in Guanabara Bay in 1555, before the Portuguese expelled them?
France
Admiral Villegagnon's 500 colonists built Fort Coligny; Mem de Sá and his nephew finally drove them out in 1567.
Q 04The city was founded on 1 March 1565 by a Portuguese force led by whom?
Estácio de Sá
He was the nephew of Governor General Mem de Sá and named the settlement São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro after the king's patron saint.
Q 05The city's full founding name honours which saint, still its patron?
Sebastian
He was also the namesake of the reigning Portuguese king Sebastião; the modern conical cathedral downtown carries the same dedication.
Q 06In 1808 the Portuguese royal court moved to Rio, fleeing whose invasion of Portugal?
Napoleon's
Rio thus became the only European capital ever located outside Europe; 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
The old Federal District briefly became its own state, Guanabara, until a 1975 decree known as 'The 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
Many dismissed the pledge as rhetoric, but Brasília was built at great cost within five years.
Q 09Which city was capital of Rio de Janeiro state before 1975, while Rio was a separate federal territory?
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
The word is also the name of the local dialect and of the Carioca River, whose springs King João VI protected by decree in 1817.
Q 11Rio's official civic anthem, a favourite at Carnival, is titled 'Cidade Maravilhosa', which means what?
Marvelous City
It was written by André Filho and is played endlessly during the February festivities.
Q 12The statue of Christ the Redeemer stands on the summit of which mountain?
Corcovado
The 700-metre peak sits inside the Tijuca National Park, and a cog railway built in the 1880s still carries visitors up.
Q 13Which French-Polish sculptor created Christ the Redeemer?
Paul Landowski
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 the 220-metre hill and the second continues to the top; the whole ascent takes about three minutes.
Q 22To which country did Brazil lose the deciding 1950 World Cup match before a record Maracanã crowd?
Uruguay
Brazil needed only a draw; the 2–1 defeat is still remembered as the Maracanaço.
Q 23The Maracanã is officially named after Mário Filho, who was what by profession?
A sports journalist
Filho, brother of playwright Nelson Rodrigues, had championed the stadium's construction; the popular name comes from a nearby 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 outstretched arms span 28 metres and the whole thing weighs 635 tonnes; it is 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
Bad weather spoiled the stunt across 9,200 km, and the lights had to be turned 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
The open-armed design was chosen instead as a symbol of peace, funded largely by donations from Brazilian Catholics.
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
It is a bornhardt, a steep-sided granite and quartz dome, and its 270-plus climbing routes make it one of the largest urban climbing areas anywhere.
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
The Maracanã River rises in the wooded hills to the west and reaches Guanabara Bay through a concrete drainage canal.
Q 25Which two clubs share management of the Maracanã and set the club attendance record of 194,603 in their 1963 derby?
Flamengo and Fluminense
The Fla–Flu is one of football's oldest rivalries; the stadium now seats 73,139 after Olympic-era renovations.
Q 26The 2014 World Cup final at the Maracanã saw Germany beat which team 1–0?
Argentina
Rio's ground hosted seven matches that tournament, and it also staged the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics two years later.
Q 27Rio de Janeiro hosted the Summer Olympics in which year, the first South American city to do so?
2016
It beat Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid in the 2009 vote; the city had first bid for the 1936 Games without success.
Q 28Rio's first-ever Olympic bid, for the 1936 Games, lost out to which city?
Berlin
Later attempts for 2004 and 2012 did not even make the candidate shortlist before the bid that finally succeeded.
Q 29The Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix was held at which Rio circuit from 1978 to 1989?
Jacarepaguá
The track later hosted MotoGP and Champ Car races before the Grand Prix moved permanently to Interlagos.
Q 30Which locally invented beach sport combines football and volleyball?
Footvolley
Circles of players fill Ipanema's sand daily; frescobol, a kind of beach tennis, is the other homegrown favourite.