South Africa Trivia
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97 free South Africa trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
49 free South Africa trivia questions with answers. South Africa has three capital cities, twelve official languages, a flag with six colours and a rugby team with four World Cups, and this quiz covers all of it. The geography questions take in Table Mountain, the Cape of Good Hope (not the southern tip, whatever the postcards say), the Drakensberg, the Blyde River Canyon, Kruger National Park, the Big Five and the two oceans that meet off the coast. The history questions run from the Cradle of Humankind and Bartolomeu Dias to the Dutch at the Cape, the Boer wars, apartheid, Nelson Mandela's 27 years in prison, the 1994 election and Desmond Tutu's Rainbow Nation. There are also rounds on culture and everyday life: braai and boerewors, bunny chow, rooibos, the vuvuzela, Miriam Makeba, Trevor Noah and Charlize Theron, the Krugerrand, the world's first heart transplant, and the 1995 Rugby World Cup and 2010 FIFA World Cup. Easy questions open each theme and harder ones follow. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the country, its people and its landmarks, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which of South Africa's three capital cities is its administrative capital?
Pretoria
Pretoria became the administrative capital in 1910, and in 1899 it held a young Winston Churchill as a prisoner of war until he escaped by stowing aboard freight trains.
Q 02Which is South Africa's most populous city?
Johannesburg
Johannesburg includes Soweto, where the 1976 student uprising began against a rule making Afrikaans a medium of instruction in Black schools.
Q 03What became South Africa's 12th official language in 2023?
Sign language
Sign language became official in July 2023, yet it is not one uniform language, since signers in different regions of South Africa use different dialects.
Q 04Which language is spoken by the largest share of South Africans as a first language?
Zulu
Zulu is the home language of 24.4% of South Africans, yet it became a national official language only in 1994.
Q 05Afrikaans developed mainly from which European language?
Dutch
Afrikaans grew from a 17th-century Dutch dialect, and a 1925 Act made it an official language in its own right rather than a mere Dutch vernacular.
Q 06Which South African province is the smallest but most populous?
Gauteng
Gauteng is the smallest province yet home to about a quarter of South Africans, and it draws more migrants from other provinces than anywhere else.
Q 07Which country is completely surrounded by South Africa?
Lesotho
Lesotho's founder, King Moshoeshoe I, made his base on the mountain plateau of Thaba Bosiu, which attacking armies repeatedly failed to storm.
Q 08Which two oceans meet off the South African coast?
The Atlantic and the Indian
The Atlantic and the Indian bring contrasting currents, and the cold, plankton-rich Atlantic water off the west coast is why South Africa's fishing industry centres there.
Q 09What is the actual southernmost point of Africa?
Cape Agulhas
Cape Agulhas, not the Cape of Good Hope, is Africa's southern tip, and its reef has wrecked so many ships that nearby Bredasdorp keeps a Shipwreck Museum.
Q 10Which Portuguese explorer first sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, in 1488?
Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias wanted to press on to India, but his weary crew refused, so he turned back and only saw the cape itself on the voyage home.
Q 11Who founded Cape Town's 1652 refreshment station?
Jan van Riebeeck
Jan van Riebeeck later had a hedge of wild almond planted as a barrier around the young colony, and sections of it still survive in Kirstenbosch.
Q 12What is the cloud that often spills over the flat top of Cape Town's best-known mountain called?
The tablecloth
The tablecloth forms when wind forces moist air up the mountain's slopes into colder air, where the moisture condenses into cloud.
Q 13Which two peaks flank the flat-topped mountain above Cape Town?
Devil's Peak and Lion's Head
Q 21Which president released Mandela in 1990 and later shared the Nobel Peace Prize with him?
F. W. de Klerk
F. W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC in a speech to Parliament on 2 February 1990, and Mandela walked free nine days later.
Q 22What does the name of Robben Island, where Mandela was held for 18 years, mean?
Seals
Robben Island is named after the seals once plentiful around it, and the Xhosa leader Makana drowned there while leading an escape from its prison.
Q 23Who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu wanted a medical career but could not afford the training, so he became a schoolteacher and later an Anglican priest.
Devil's Peak and Lion's Head flank the plateau, and hiking up Lion's Head on full-moon nights has become a popular Cape Town tradition.
Q 14Which mountain range holds South Africa's highest peaks?
Drakensberg
The Drakensberg is a World Heritage Site for its culture as well as its nature, because its caves and rock shelters hold thousands of San rock paintings.
Q 15South Africa's first national park is named after which man?
Paul Kruger, a Boer president
Paul Kruger, a Boer president, had his government protect the area in 1898 to curb overhunting, and it became a national park in 1926.
Q 16Which five animals make up Africa's "Big Five"?
Lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo
Lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo became the Big Five as a hunters' term for the animals most difficult and dangerous to hunt on foot.
Q 17What is South Africa's national bird?
Blue crane
Blue crane feathers once adorned notable warriors, and the ANC based its highest honour, Isitwalandwe, on the wearing of a crane feather.
Q 18What is South Africa's national animal?
Springbok
The springbok once travelled in herds of up to millions, but confinement to farms and game reserves has made such mass treks rare.
Q 19What is Mandela's Xhosa clan name, by which South Africans affectionately call him?
Madiba
Madiba is his clan name, while his English name, Nelson, was given by his first schoolteacher, Miss Mdingane, following the custom of the time.
Q 20Which holiday marks South Africa's first democratic election in 1994?
Freedom Day
Freedom Day marks the 1994 vote, when nine new provinces replaced the four old provinces and the black homelands.
Q 24On becoming a republic in 1961, South Africa left which body?
Commonwealth
South Africa withdrew its bid to stay in the Commonwealth in 1961, after other members criticised apartheid, and rejoined only in 1994.
Q 25Colonel Robert Baden-Powell became a British hero by defending which town through a 217-day Boer War siege?
Mafeking
The relief of Mafeking in 1900 set off such wild celebrations in Britain that 'to maffick' became a word for celebrating boisterously.
Q 26The discovery of which two minerals, in 1867 and 1886, set off South Africa's Mineral Revolution?
Diamonds and gold
Diamonds and gold transformed the economy, and voting rights for foreign workers on the new goldfields became Britain's pretext for war in 1899.
Q 27What is South Africa's currency?
The rand
The rand was Botswana's national currency too until 1976, when Botswana left the rand zone and launched its own currency, the pula.
Q 28Which famous fantasy author was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892?
J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien never grew up in South Africa, because his father died there in 1896 and the family stayed on in England.
Q 29Who became South Africa's first Black Test rugby captain in 2018?
Siya Kolisi
Siya Kolisi grew up in the township of Zwide, often going hungry, and went on to lift the Rugby World Cup in 2019 and 2023.
Q 30Whom did South Africa beat 15-12 in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final at Ellis Park?
New Zealand
New Zealand fell to Joel Stransky's extra-time drop goal, and Mandela, wearing the home team's jersey, handed over the trophy.