Seville
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Seville trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Seville packs an unusual amount of story into one city. Romans, Islamic rulers and Castilian kings all left their mark on it, treasure fleets once unloaded on its quays, and today film crews, opera lovers and football fans each know it for different reasons. This quiz turns the best fun facts about Seville into questions: the cathedral and its famous bell tower, the royal palace, the river, the spring festivals, local food and drink, and the surprising places the city turns up on screen and on stage. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn the story behind the fact. It suits travellers planning a trip to southern Spain, students of Spanish history and culture, and anyone who likes a pub quiz round with a sunny setting.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Seville's Plaza de España doubled as a royal city on the planet Naboo in which film series?
Star Wars
Star Wars used the plaza in Attack of the Clones for exterior shots of Theed, the capital of Naboo. The half-circle of tiled buildings had been built for a 1929 world's fair.
Q 02Seville's Alcázar palace and gardens stood in for the land of Dorne in which fantasy television series?
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones filmed part of its fifth season there, in a palace complex that began life as an Islamic citadel in the 10th century.
Q 03Which explorer's tomb has stood in Seville Cathedral since 1899, after earlier burials in Santo Domingo and Havana?
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid in 1506, and his remains crossed the sea twice before researchers used DNA to tie the Seville bones to him.
Q 04Seville's bitter oranges are shipped once a year to which country, where they are made into marmalade?
Britain
Britain's marmalade makers prize Seville oranges because they hold more pectin than sweet ones, so the preserve sets better and goes further.
Q 05Which hero of Greek and Roman myth is said to have founded Seville after sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar?
Hercules
Hercules tops a Roman column in Seville's Alameda promenade beside one of Julius Caesar, who is honoured as the city's restorer.
Q 06Which opera heroine works at Seville's Royal Tobacco Factory, a vast building that now houses the city's university?
Carmen
Carmen is one of more than 150 operas set in Seville, a total counted by experts in 2012. Bizet made her a cigarette maker at the factory.
Q 07Seville's giant wooden Metropol Parasol is better known to locals as Las Setas, which means what in English?
The Mushrooms
The Mushrooms became the official name after the city learned the architect had trademarked Metropol Parasol and would charge for its use.
Q 08Which art of song, guitar and dance does Seville celebrate with La Bienal, a festival lasting nearly a month?
Flamenco
Flamenco joined UNESCO's list of humanity's intangible heritage in 2010, and Seville's festival bills itself as the biggest event of its kind.
Q 09Which 1990s dance hit by Los del Río shares its name with a Seville district and its revered Virgin of Hope?
Macarena
Macarena topped the US Hot 100 for fourteen weeks in 1996, and the duo behind it come from Dos Hermanas, a town just south of Seville.
Q 10Saint Isidore of Seville, a bishop who compiled an encyclopedia of all knowledge, is a proposed patron saint of what?
The internet
The internet reminded admirers of his Etymologiae, a 7th-century attempt to gather everything known into one work that saved many ancient texts.
Q 11Seville is the capital and largest city of which autonomous community in the far south of Spain?
Andalusia
Andalusia's high court sits in Granada, but its parliament meets in Seville in the old Hospital of the Five Holy Wounds.
Q 12Ships leaving the inland Port of Seville sail about 80 kilometres down the Guadalquivir to reach which body of water?
The Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is close enough to give Seville the only river harbour in Spain, on the country's only major navigable river.
Q 13Which explorer's fleet of five ships left Seville in 1519 on the first voyage to sail around the world?
Ferdinand Magellan
Q 21Spain's first high-speed rail line opened in April 1992, in time for Seville's Expo, linking Seville with which city?
Madrid
Madrid is 476 km away, yet by 1994 the AVE trains were making the trip in 2 hours 20 minutes at speeds of up to 300 km/h.
Q 22The Guadalquivir Valley around Seville holds Spain's hottest cities, which has earned it what kitchen nickname?
The frying pan
The frying pan of Spain earns its name: Seville's summer highs average above 36 °C, and its airport recorded 46.6 °C in July 1995.
Q 23Which disaster struck Seville in 1649, made worse by flooding of the Guadalquivir, and devastated its population?
A plague epidemic
Ferdinand Magellan died in the Philippines, and only one of his ships, the Victoria, made it home, with 18 of the original 270 men.
Q 14Seville Cathedral's completion ended which church's thousand-year reign as the largest cathedral in the world?
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia lost the title in the early 16th century. Local tradition says Seville's clergy vowed to build so grandly that people would think them mad.
Q 15Seville Cathedral, built over the city's main mosque, is the world's largest cathedral in which architectural style?
Gothic
Gothic builders kept the mosque's courtyard, and its fountain and orange trees still stand beside the cathedral as the Patio de los Naranjos.
Q 16Seville's Giralda was first built in the 12th century as which part of the city's great mosque?
The minaret
The minaret was modelled on the Koutoubia in Marrakesh and has a sister in Rabat's unfinished Hassan Tower, all three raised by the Almohads.
Q 17Seville's Giralda tower is named after the Giraldillo, a bronze statue on its summit that serves as what?
A weather vane
A weather vane since 1568, the figure crowns a tower climbed by 35 ramps that were built wide enough for beasts of burden.
Q 18Which composer wrote The Barber of Seville, the 1816 comic opera about the scheming barber Figaro?
Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Rossini based it on the first of Beaumarchais's three Figaro plays. Mozart had already turned the second into The Marriage of Figaro.
Q 19Which painter of Las Meninas was born in Seville in 1599 and trained there under the artist Francisco Pacheco?
Diego Velázquez
Diego Velázquez married his teacher's daughter in 1618 before becoming the leading artist at the court of King Philip IV.
Q 20Seville's riverside Torre del Oro, a watchtower built by the Almohads around 1220, has a name meaning what?
Tower of Gold
Tower of Gold refers to the golden shine it cast on the water, and it anchored a great chain that could close the Guadalquivir to enemy ships.
A plague epidemic emptied the city so badly that its population did not recover until the early 19th century.
Q 24A riverside castle in Seville served from 1481 to 1785 as the seat of which powerful institution?
The Spanish Inquisition
The Spanish Inquisition took over the Castle of San Jorge, once the area's first Christian church. Its foundations now hold a museum about the tribunal.
Q 25Which Seville neighbourhood on the west bank of the Guadalquivir is famed for its pottery workshops and seafaring past?
Triana
Triana keeps a pottery museum in the old Santa Ana tile factory, and a school there once trained seamen bound for the Americas.
Q 26Seville's Santa Cruz quarter, beside the Alcázar and now the main tourist district, housed which medieval community?
Jewish families
Jewish families were gathered there after the Castilian conquest, and one former synagogue survives as the church of Santa María la Blanca.
Q 27The tiled alcoves lining the curve of Seville's Plaza de España each represent a different what?
Spanish province
Spanish province by province, the alcoves have become photo spots where visitors pose in front of the tiles for their home region.
Q 28Seville's April Fair, now a week of dancing in rows of decorated tents, began in 1846 as a market for what?
Livestock
Livestock traders came first, but within a year the first three party tents had appeared, and by 2012 the fairground held more than a thousand.
Q 29Rebujito, a typical drink at Seville's April Fair, mixes lemon-lime soda with which fortified wine?
Sherry
Sherry in a rebujito is usually a dry fino or manzanilla, fuel for fairground dancing that runs from nine at night until morning.
Q 30During Seville's Holy Week processions, what do the robed penitents wear so they can repent without being recognised?
Tall pointed hoods
Tall pointed hoods called capirotes hide every face as nearly 70 brotherhoods walk from their home churches to the cathedral and back.