Tehran Trivia
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43 free Tehran trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Tehran trivia quiz covers the Iranian capital from the ancient city of Rhages to the sprawling metropolis of nine million people at the foot of the Alborz. The easy questions are ones any traveller could get: the mountain range above the city, the marble tower at its western gate, the 435-metre Milad Tower, the palace complex that UNESCO listed in 2013 and the two football clubs that share the Azadi Stadium. The harder end is for history readers and people who know the city well: the Qajar ruler who made Tehran the capital in 1786, the shah assassinated at a shrine in Rey, the 1943 conference of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill, the 444-day embassy hostage crisis, the 1971 celebrations that gave the city its most famous monument, the year the metro finally opened, the museum whose Western art sat in a vault after 1979, and the ski resort that is the closest in the world to a national capital. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the city, its landmarks, its clubs and its history before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Iran, Baghdad and Istanbul quizzes next.
30 of 43 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which mountain range rises directly north of Tehran?
Alborz
Alborz: Tehran's higher northern districts, with a more moderate climate, grew into the wealthiest part of the city.
Q 02Which castrated ruler made Tehran Iran's capital?
Agha Mohammad Khan
Agha Mohammad Khan: crowned shah of shahs in 1796, he was assassinated the next year by two of his own servants.
Q 03Which CIA operation helped topple Iran's prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in Tehran in 1953?
Operation Ajax
Operation Ajax: coup organisers paid gangs to stage pro-Shah riots through Tehran, and CIA documents released in 2013 confirmed the agency's role.
Q 04Which ancient city, now part of Greater Tehran, appears in old sources as Rhages?
Ray
Ray: after Mongol invaders ruined the city and massacred its people, survivors of the massacre moved to nearby Tehran.
Q 05Tehran's Azadi Tower marked 2,500 years since which king founded Persia's empire?
Cyrus
Cyrus: the 1971 celebration honoured the monarchy he founded, but within eight years a revolution swept that monarchy away.
Q 06What was Tehran's Azadi Tower originally called before the 1979 revolution?
Shahyad
Shahyad: the 'Shah's Memorial' became the symbol of the revolution that drove him into exile, and was renamed Azadi, 'Freedom'.
Q 07Which material completely clads the exterior of the Azadi Tower?
Cut marble
Cut marble: after the 1979 revolution the tower's architect, Hossein Amanat, a member of the persecuted Baha'i faith, was forced into exile.
Q 08Which Tehran-set Asghar Farhadi film became the first Iranian film to win an Oscar?
A Separation
A Separation: Farhadi won again five years later with The Salesman, but refused to attend that ceremony in protest at Trump's visa ban.
Q 09Which sea's humid air does a mountain range keep from reaching Tehran?
The Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea: with that moist wind held back, Tehran's polluted air is often trapped over the city instead of clearing.
Q 10Which Iranian president had been Tehran's mayor until his election in 2005?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: as mayor he scaled back the reforms of his moderate predecessors, then won the presidency in 2005.
Q 11Which Tehran palace complex was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013?
Golestan
Golestan: much of the old royal compound was torn down and replaced in the 1930s as Tehran was remade into a modern city.
Q 12Who was crowned in Tehran in 1926, the first Pahlavi coronation?
Reza Shah
Reza Shah: he had seized power in a 1921 coup, and in 1925 an assembly deposed the absent Qajar king and made him shah.
Q 13Which Qajar ruler of Tehran was assassinated in 1896?
Naser al-Din Shah
Naser al-Din Shah: his assassin was a follower of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, a campaigner who had urged Iranians to resist the shah.
Q 21Which Iranian director made Taxi, shot on Tehran's streets despite a government ban on his filmmaking?
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi: Taxi won Berlin's Golden Bear, and because he could not leave Iran, his niece collected the prize for him.
Q 22Which Tehran avenue is said to be the longest street in the Middle East?
Valiasr
Valiasr: it was first named for the Shah's royal dynasty, and after the 1979 revolution it was eventually renamed for a revered Shia figure.
Q 23Which volcanic peak, visible from Tehran on clear days, is Iran's highest mountain?
Damavand
Damavand: fumaroles and hot springs vent volcanic heat on its slopes, though its last eruption was about 7,300 years ago.
Q 14Which three Allied leaders met in Tehran in late 1943?
Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill
Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill: there the British and Americans finally committed to invading northern France by May 1944, the plan called Overlord.
Q 15At the 1943 Tehran Conference, Britain presented a jewelled sword honouring which Soviet city's defenders?
Stalingrad
Stalingrad: before it was handed over in Tehran, the sword went on public display in cities around the UK, including London.
Q 16Which Ben Affleck film tells how the CIA smuggled six Americans out of revolutionary Tehran?
Argo
Argo: the CIA passed the six off as a Canadian crew scouting locations for a fake science-fiction film of that name.
Q 17Tehran's US embassy hostages were freed minutes after whose inauguration?
Reagan
Reagan: Algerian diplomats brokered the release, after Iran's demands centred on its assets frozen in the United States.
Q 18Which airport handles Tehran's international flights?
Imam Khomeini
Imam Khomeini: its namesake returned from exile near Paris in February 1979 and was acclaimed leader of the revolution.
Q 19Which 1963 reform programme, opposed in Tehran by clerics and bazaar merchants, gave Iranian women the vote?
The White Revolution
The White Revolution: its land reform broke up big landlords' estates and handed plots to the sharecroppers who farmed them.
Q 20Which country's state firm built the Tehran Metro's first line, opened in 1999?
China
China: state firm NORINCO built that line to Karaj, and Chinese firms went on to supply carriages for later lines.
Q 24Which two football clubs contest the Tehran derby?
Esteghlal and Persepolis
Esteghlal and Persepolis: Persepolis's fans traditionally came from the working classes, unlike Esteghlal's, a class divide that sharpens the rivalry.
Q 25Which American painter's Mural on Indian Red Ground is held by the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art?
Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock: the museum amassed its Western masterpieces in the 1970s, paid for by Iran's oil wealth.
Q 26Which multi-sport event did Tehran host in 1974?
Asian Games
Asian Games: the next year Tehran formally applied to host the 1984 Summer Olympics as well.
Q 27What was Tehran's Azadi Stadium called when it opened in 1971?
Aryamehr
Aryamehr: it was named after one of the Shah's titles, and after the 1979 revolution the stadium was renamed Azadi, 'Freedom'.
Q 28Which Iranian empress inaugurated the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in 1977?
Farah Pahlavi
Farah Pahlavi: she commissioned her cousin, the architect Kamran Diba, to design the museum, and he became its first director.
Q 29After the 1979 revolution, where did the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art store its Western masterpieces?
In its own basement vault
In its own basement vault: museum staff moved the works there, and no Western art was shown again until a 1999 exhibition.
Q 30Which US president was a guest at Tehran's Niavaran Palace on 31 December 1977?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter: in his toast that night he called Iran 'an island of stability', just over a year before the revolution toppled the Shah.