50 free Salt trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Salt is the only rock we eat, and it has been worth fighting wars over. This salt trivia quiz covers the chemistry (why it dissolves, why it lowers water's freezing point, why table salt is iodised), the history (Neolithic saltworks in Romania, Roman salt roads, Venice's salt wars, the French gabelle and Gandhi's march to Dandi), and the geography of the great salt places: Hallstatt, Wieliczka, Goderich, Khewra, the Salar de Uyuni and the Dead Sea. There is also room for the words and customs salt gave us (salary, salad, 'salt of the earth', throwing a pinch over your shoulder), the myths that turned out to be false, and the numbers behind the 300 million tonnes produced each year. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer is verified and cited to its reference page. If you enjoy this quiz, try our other food, science and history quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the chemical formula of common salt?
NaCl
Sodium chloride is the source of two essential dietary minerals, sodium and chlorine.
Q 02What is the mineral name for natural crystalline salt?
Halite
Its crystals are translucent cubes; impurities can tint them blue or purple.
Q 03Around when does some of the earliest evidence of salt processing, in present-day Romania, date from?
6000 BC
Neolithic people at Poiana Slatinei boiled spring water; a saltworks at Xiechi Lake in China is about as old.
Q 04Which Bulgarian salt-mining settlement is thought to be Europe's first city?
Solnitsata
It supplied the Balkans with salt from about 5400 BC.
Q 05Roughly how much salt is produced worldwide each year?
300 million tonnes
Only a small share is eaten; most goes to make chemicals such as caustic soda and chlorine.
Q 06What is the single greatest use of salt?
Feedstock for chemical production
It yields caustic soda and chlorine for PVC, plastics and paper pulp; food is only 17.5% of world use.
Q 07How much salt per day does the WHO say adults should stay under?
5 grams
That equals 2,000 mg of sodium; typical Western intake is about 10 g of salt a day.
Q 08Which Austrian town was the site of the world's first salt mine?
Hallstatt
The Hallstatt culture began mining there around 800 BC; Salzburg means 'salt castle' and Salzach 'salt river'.
Q 09From which Latin root does 'salary' derive?
Salt
The popular claim that Roman legionaries were paid in salt is baseless; nobody knows the true reason.
Q 10What does the word 'salad' literally mean?
Salted
It comes from the ancient Roman habit of salting leaf vegetables.
Q 11Which city fought Padua in the Salt War of 1304?
Venice
Venice fought the War of Ferrara in 1482-84 for the same reason: control of the salt supply.
Q 12Which English port flourished on exporting salt from Cheshire's mines?
Liverpool
Cities on overland salt routes likewise grew rich by levying duties.
Q 13When was France's salt tax, reimposed by Napoleon, finally abolished?
1946
The hated gabelle was one of the causes of the French Revolution.
Q 14How long was Gandhi's 1930 Salt March from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi?
Q 21How much salt dissolves in a litre of water?
359 grams
In solution the compound splits into Na+ and Cl- ions.
Q 22To what temperature can salt lower water's freezing point at 23.31% concentration?
-21.12 °C
That is why salt de-ices roads; a saturated brine boils at about 108.7 °C.
Q 23What is added to iodised salt to prevent iodine deficiency?
Potassium iodide
Iodised salt has been used since 1924; iodine deficiency affects some two billion people.
Q 24Since what year has iodised salt been used to correct iodine deficiency?
387 km (240 miles)
The 24-day walk began with 78 volunteers and ended with Gandhi illegally making salt from seawater on 6 April.
Q 15How many days did the Salt March last?
24
It ran from 12 March to 6 April 1930; over 60,000 Indians were jailed in the wider salt satyagraha.
Q 16Which nineteenth-century Texas conflict was triggered by access to salt flats?
The El Paso War
The San Elizario Salt War of the late 1860s and 1870s was fought over access to salt flats.
Q 17Which general supposedly sowed Carthage with salt in 146 BC, a story now regarded as apocryphal?
Scipio Aemilianus
The Bible has King Abimelech salting Shechem; the Carthage tale seems to be a later invention.
Q 18Which desert people run the Azalai salt caravans across the Sahara?
The Tuareg
Camels still cross from southern Niger to Bilma, returning laden with salt pillars and dates.
Q 19In which African land were slabs of rock salt used as coins?
Abyssinia
South of the Sahara, salt itself served as currency; Gabon's coast peoples traded sea salt inland.
Q 20What did the Egyptians export to the Phoenicians from about 2800 BC in exchange for cedar and Tyrian purple?
Salt fish
Salt and salted birds were also placed in Egyptian tombs of the third millennium BC.
1924
Deficiency causes goitre and is the leading preventable cause of intellectual disability.
Q 25Which additive gives fortified table salt a yellow colour?
Folic acid
Vitamin B9 helps prevent neural tube defects; 'doubly fortified' salt carries iodide and iron.
Q 26What share of table salt sold in France contains added fluoride?
35%
Fluoridated salt is used where water is not fluoridated, to fight tooth decay.
Q 27Which sea salt is skimmed from the surface of evaporating brine in salt pans?
Fleur de sel
Korean bamboo salt is roasted in bamboo plugged with mud; kosher salt is prized for brining.
Q 28Roughly what percentage of table salt is sodium by weight?
Just under 40%
So a 6 g teaspoon carries about 2,400 mg of sodium.
Q 29In the US, what share of dietary sodium comes from processed and restaurant foods?
75%
Only 11% comes from cooking and table use; the rest is naturally present in food.
Q 30Which country was the world's largest salt producer in 2018?
China
China made 68 million tonnes, the US 42 million and India 29 million.