The Suez Canal Trivia
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50 free The Suez Canal trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Suez Canal trivia quiz covers the 193-kilometre cut through the Isthmus of Suez, from the pharaohs who dug the first Nile-to-Red-Sea channel to the container ship that wedged itself sideways in 2021. The easy questions ask which two seas it links, which country it runs through, which continents it divides, which Frenchman built it and which president nationalised it. From there it moves through the ancient precursors, the ten-year construction, the lavish opening, the British share purchase and the 1956 crisis that ended a prime minister's career. The hard end is for people who know their Port Said from their Port Tewfik: the survey error that made Napoleon give up, the empress whose yacht led the opening convoy, the opera commissioned for the celebrations, the statue meant for the entrance that ended up in New York, the eight-year closure and the fleet trapped inside it, the fish invasion named after de Lesseps and the exact days the Ever Given blocked world trade. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Suez Canal Company, the Suez Crisis, the Yellow Fleet, the 2021 obstruction, the Ever Given, Aida, the Great Bitter Lake and the Convention of Constantinople before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Panama Canal, Egypt and famous ships quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea to which other body of water?
The Red Sea
It runs 193.3 km through the Isthmus of Suez from Port Said to Port Tewfik at Suez.
Q 02The canal forms the border between which two continents?
Africa and Asia
It cuts the Sinai Peninsula off from the rest of Egypt.
Q 03Which French diplomat formed the company that built the canal in 1858?
Ferdinand de Lesseps
He later tried to repeat the trick at Panama, where malaria, yellow fever and money troubles wrecked the project.
Q 04The canal officially opened in which year?
1869
Construction had begun on the shore of the future Port Said on 25 April 1859.
Q 05Which Egyptian president nationalised the canal in July 1956, triggering the Suez Crisis?
Gamal Abdel Nasser
He announced it in a speech in Alexandria, citing 120,000 deaths during the canal's construction.
Q 06Roughly how long is the Suez Canal?
193 km
It cuts the Arabian Sea to London journey by about 8,900 km compared with going round Africa.
Q 07How many locks does the Suez Canal have?
None
It is a sea-level waterway following Alois Negrelli's plans, with seawater flowing freely through it.
Q 08The canal's northern terminus is Port Said. What is the city at its southern end?
Suez
The southern harbour is Port Tewfik; Ismailia sits near the midpoint by Lake Timsah.
Q 09Ancient canals linking the Nile to the Red Sea are recorded, but which Persian king engineered the only fully functional one?
Darius I
Herodotus said it was wide enough for two triremes to pass with oars extended; Darius set up granite stelae to boast of it.
Q 10According to Herodotus, which pharaoh abandoned his canal after an oracle warned that others would benefit from it?
Necho II
Herodotus was told 120,000 men died on the project, a figure historians consider exaggerated.
Q 11Napoleon abandoned plans for a canal because of the mistaken belief that the Red Sea was how much higher than the Mediterranean?
8.5 metres
Fragmentary wartime surveys were to blame; an 1846 survey finally proved there was no practical difference.
Q 12Which Italian city, ruined as a spice middleman after Dias rounded Africa in 1488, contemplated digging a Suez canal 400 years early?
Venice
Talks with the Mamluks ended when the Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517.
Q 13De Lesseps obtained his concession from which ruler of Egypt, whom he had befriended as a young diplomat?
Sa'id Pasha
The company was to run the canal for 99 years from opening.
Q 21Nasser's nationalisation speech gave what figure for deaths during the canal's construction?
120,000
The company's own chief medical officer had reported a far lower toll; the true number is disputed.
Q 22Which British prime minister resigned in January 1957 after being accused of misleading Parliament over the Suez Crisis?
Anthony Eden
US pressure and a run on sterling forced Britain, France and Israel to withdraw.
Q 23The 1956 crisis began when which country invaded Egypt on 29 October, in secret collusion with Britain and France?
Israel
Ben-Gurion agreed to withdraw from Sinai only once a UN force was arranged for the canal zone.
Q 14Which British statesman was the canal project's 'most unwavering foe', fearing it would end Britain's exclusive advantages?
Lord Palmerston
Britain preferred a railway from Alexandria via Cairo to Suez, which Robert Stephenson built.
Q 15Which empress sailed her yacht L'Aigle at the head of the opening procession in November 1869?
Eugénie
Emperor Franz Joseph and the Crown Prince of Prussia were also among the guests.
Q 16Which Verdi opera, set in ancient Egypt, was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and premiered there in December 1871?
Aida
It is often wrongly said to have been written for the canal's opening; the opera house had opened with Rigoletto in 1869.
Q 17Sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi's rejected design for a torch-bearing colossus at the canal entrance was recycled as what?
The Statue of Liberty
'Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia' became 'Liberty Enlightening the World' in New York Harbor in 1886.
Q 18In 1875 the debt-ridden Isma'il Pasha sold his 44% share in the canal to which government?
The United Kingdom
Disraeli borrowed £4 million from Lionel de Rothschild to buy the 177,000 shares.
Q 19Which banker lent Disraeli the £4 million to buy Egypt's canal shares?
Lionel de Rothschild
Isma'il, who had declared 'we are now part of Europe', got about £4,000,000 for a stake worth vastly more.
Q 20The 1888 Convention of Constantinople declared the canal open to every vessel 'in time of war as in time of peace' and put it under whose protection?
The British Empire
Britain had occupied Egypt in 1882 after the Urabi Revolt, though the country nominally remained Ottoman.
Q 24Egypt closed the canal at the start of which war in June 1967, and kept it shut for eight years?
The Six-Day War
It reopened on 5 June 1975, exactly eight years after closing.
Q 25The fifteen cargo ships trapped in the canal from 1967 to 1975 were nicknamed what?
The Yellow Fleet
Desert sand coated them; their crews issued their own postage stamps, now collectors' items.
Q 26The ships stranded in the canal from 1967 to 1975 belonged to how many countries?
Eight
They included West Germany, Sweden, France, the UK, the US, Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.
Q 27Which container ship blocked the canal in both directions in March 2021?
Ever Given
The 400-metre, 20,000-TEU vessel was buffeted by strong winds and wedged diagonally across the channel.
Q 28For how many days did the 2021 grounding block the Suez Canal?
Six
It ran aground on 23 March 2021 and was refloated on 29 March, holding up an estimated $9 billion of trade a day.
Q 29The ship that blocked the canal in 2021 is operated by which Taiwanese shipping line?
Evergreen Marine
It is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha, a subsidiary of Japan's Imabari Shipbuilding, and chartered to Evergreen.
Q 30Roughly how long is the ship that blocked the canal in 2021?
400 metres
At 224,000 tons it is one of 13 ships built to Imabari's 20000 design.