Sydney Trivia
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48 free Sydney trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Sydney began as a place to put convicts nobody wanted, on a harbour Arthur Phillip called the finest in the world. This quiz follows the city from the Gadigal and the First Fleet's 11 ships through the Rum Rebellion, Governor Macquarie's stone buildings and Francis Greenway's pardon, the gold rush, the Depression-era Harbour Bridge and the ribbon a New Guard officer slashed with a sabre before the premier could cut it, to the Japanese submarines of 1942 and the postwar migration that made 40 percent of Sydneysiders overseas-born. The landmarks get proper attention: why the Bridge is the Coathanger and how many rivets hold it, Utzon's competition win and resignation, the million tiles on the Opera House shells, the Sydney Tower, Taronga's 'beautiful view', Bondi's world-first lifesavers, Luna Park's face, and the Blue Mountains' actual blueness. There are questions on the 2000 Olympics and Cathy Freeman, the Sydney to Hobart race, Mardi Gras, the New Year's Eve fireworks, rugby league's nine Sydney clubs and the Swans. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Sydney and its landmarks and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Australia quiz covers the rest of the country.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sydney is the capital of which Australian state?
New South Wales
New South Wales began in 1788 covering most of eastern Australia, and was later cut down as Queensland and other colonies split away.
Q 02Sydney Cove honours Thomas Townshend, whose department planned the 1788 convict colony; which British office did he hold?
Home Secretary
Home Secretary Thomas Townshend had been made Baron Sydney in 1783, which is why the cove, and the city, took the name Sydney rather than Townshend.
Q 03Which Aboriginal clan traditionally owned the land where the British settlement was first established?
The Gadigal
The Gadigal were set to name a new city metro station until a minister pushed for Reginald Saunders in 2022, but a new government confirmed Gadigal in 2023.
Q 04Where did James Cook first land on Australia's east coast on 29 April 1770?
Botany Bay
Botany Bay was named for the great quantity of plants Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander found there; Cook had first called it Stingray Harbour.
Q 05Before Sydney's 1788 founding, where did Britain transport most of its convicts?
America
America was Britain's main convict destination until the American Revolution ended transportation there, so Britain needed a new penal colony.
Q 06What is 26 January, the day of the 1788 British landing at Sydney Cove, now officially called?
Australia Day
Australia Day marks the First Fleet's 1788 landing at Sydney Cove, but some Indigenous Australians and others observe it as Invasion Day or Survival Day.
Q 07Which harbourside Sydney district, settled soon after 1788, is the city's oldest neighbourhood?
The Rocks
The Rocks survived because the Builders Labourers Federation imposed green bans in the 1970s, refusing to demolish its old buildings for office towers.
Q 08What killed about half of the Sydney region's Indigenous population in April 1789?
A smallpox epidemic
A smallpox epidemic is the usual diagnosis, but experts have long debated how the disease arrived and whether it was really chickenpox.
Q 09The Rum Rebellion of 1808 deposed which governor?
William Bligh
William Bligh, once set adrift by the Bounty mutineers, faced another uprising in 1808, when 400 soldiers of the colony's military corps marched on Government House to arrest him.
Q 10Which convict architect earned a pardon from Governor Macquarie for designing Macquarie Lighthouse?
Francis Greenway
Francis Greenway had been transported for forging a document, yet his portrait later appeared on Australia's first decimal ten-dollar note.
Q 11Hyde Park in Sydney, dedicated by Macquarie in 1810, holds what distinction?
Oldest public parkland in Australia
Oldest public parkland in Australia, Hyde Park was set aside by Macquarie for the townspeople's recreation and as an exercise field for his troops.
Q 12Which Sydney shopping landmark, opened in 1898 as a marketplace, fills a whole city block on George Street?
Queen Victoria Building
The Queen Victoria Building was nearly demolished in the 1950s and 1960s, before a Malaysian company restored it and reopened it in 1986.
Q 13Who upstaged Premier Jack Lang at the 1932 Harbour Bridge opening by cutting the ribbon with a sabre?
Q 21The Opera House stands on which headland of Sydney Harbour?
Bennelong Point
Bennelong Point won out because conductor Eugene Goossens insisted on it, although Premier Cahill had wanted the Opera House near Wynyard station.
Q 22What is the official name of Sydney Harbour?
Port Jackson
Port Jackson was named by Cook, who saw it from offshore in 1770 and sailed on without entering; the First Fleet settled there eighteen years later.
Q 23Bondi Surf Bathers' Life Saving Club, founded in 1907, claims to be what?
The world's first of its kind
The world's first of its kind is the club's claim, though Bronte's surf club, which dates itself to 1903, says the same of itself.
Francis de Groot
Francis de Groot, a member of the far-right New Guard, rode up on horseback to slash the ribbon before Premier Jack Lang could open the bridge.
Q 14Why is the Sydney Harbour Bridge nicknamed 'the Coathanger'?
Its arch-based design
British firm Dorman Long built it under John Bradfield's direction, borrowing from its own Tyne Bridge in Newcastle.
Q 15How many rivets hold the Sydney Harbour Bridge together?
Six million
Six million rivets hold the bridge together, because riveting was then the proven, accepted way to join a steel structure of that scale.
Q 16The Harbour Bridge's arch rises 134 m above the water; on hot days it can grow taller by how much?
18 cm
18 cm of extra height comes from the steel expanding, and the arch rests on hinged main bearings built to rotate slightly as it expands and contracts.
Q 17What structural role do the four granite-faced pylons of the Harbour Bridge play?
None; they are decorative
None; they are decorative: the granite pylons were added partly to give the bridge better visual balance.
Q 18Which Danish architect won the 1957 competition to design the Sydney Opera House?
Jorn Utzon
Jorn Utzon resigned in 1966 amid rows over costs and design and never returned to Australia, dying without seeing the finished building.
Q 19Roughly how many tiles cover the Opera House shells?
Just over one million
They come in glossy white and matte cream in a chevron pattern, made by Swedish firm Hoganas.
Q 20Who formally opened the Sydney Opera House on 20 October 1973?
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II opened a building made possible by treating every roof shell as a section of one sphere, so its ribs could be cast in a common mould.
Q 24Which Sydney beach doubles as Summer Bay in the long-running soap Home and Away?
Palm Beach
Palm Beach has played Summer Bay since 1988, and fans can take tours of the show's exterior filming sets there.
Q 25Sydney was attacked in May and June 1942 by what?
Japanese submarines
Japanese submarines slipped into the harbour on the night of 31 May 1942, and a torpedo meant for USS Chicago sank the converted ferry HMAS Kuttabul instead.
Q 26Sydney beat which city in the final round of voting to host the 2000 Olympics?
Beijing
Beijing lost the final round 45 votes to 43 in Monte Carlo in 1993, then went on to host the Olympics itself in 2008.
Q 27Who lit the Olympic cauldron at the Sydney 2000 opening ceremony?
Cathy Freeman
Cathy Freeman lit the flame, and ten days later she won the 400 m and ran her victory lap carrying both the Aboriginal and Australian flags.
Q 28Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden grows on the site of the colony's first what?
A farm
A farm planted there in 1788 failed but left its name on Farm Cove, and Macquarie founded the garden on the site in 1816.
Q 29What was Sydney Tower, the city's tallest structure, originally called?
Centrepoint Tower
Centrepoint Tower was its original name, and its golden turret was assembled at the base of the shaft, then raised to the top as the tower grew.
Q 30The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race starts on which day each year?
Boxing Day
Boxing Day brings the start each year, and in 1998 a storm sank five boats and killed six sailors, prompting stricter crew rules.