Transylvania Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
49 free Transylvania trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Transylvania is a real place with a fictional reputation, and this quiz gives both their due. It starts with the geography and the names: 'beyond the forest' in medieval Latin, Erdély to Hungarians, Siebenbürgen to the Saxons who built its seven walled towns, the Carpathian arc that hems it in and the brown bears that live there. Then the cities: Cluj and the 'Napoca' the communists bolted on, Brașov's Black Church and its decade as Stalin City, Sibiu's year as European Capital of Culture, Sighișoara's clock tower and Alba Iulia's coronation cathedral. The history runs from Trajan's Dacia and King Stephen's conquest through the Saxons and Székelys, the Edict of Torda, Ottoman vassalage, Michael the Brave's short-lived union, the 1867 Compromise, the 1918 assembly at Alba Iulia, Trianon and the Second Vienna Award. Dracula gets a fair hearing: where Vlad was actually born, which principality he ruled, and why he never lived at Bran. The quiz ends with the region's oddities: a salt mine turned theme park, an underground glacier, Roman gold at Roșia Montană, chimney cake and the road Top Gear called the best in the world. Easy questions suit anyone who has heard the name; the expert tier reaches Géza II, Countess Mikes and the Sun and Moon of the Székelys. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the region, its towns and its history, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. For the vampire side of things, see the separate Dracula and Vlad the Impaler quizzes.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The name Transylvania comes from medieval Latin and means what?
Beyond the forest
Beyond the forest: medieval Latin joined trans, 'across', to silva, 'forest', because thickly wooded mountains ring the region; the earliest documents spell it ultra silvam.
Q 02The German name for Transylvania, Siebenbürgen, is usually said to refer to what?
Seven Saxon fortified towns
Seven Saxon fortified towns is the usual reading of Siebenbürgen, literally 'seven fortresses', though the origin is debated; the seven towers on Transylvania's coat of arms stand for those towns.
Q 03What is the Hungarian name for Transylvania?
Erdély
Erdély grew out of the Old Hungarian Erdő-elü; Romanians borrowed it as Ardeal, and the region's medieval Latin name is thought to be a straight translation of the Hungarian one rather than the other way round.
Q 04Which mountain range forms Transylvania's natural border to the east and south?
The Carpathians
The Carpathians curve around Transylvania's east and south like a wall, which is why castles such as Bran were built to guard the few passes through them.
Q 05The mountains ringing Transylvania hold Europe's largest population outside Russia of which large animal?
Brown bears
Brown bears: Romania holds several thousand, the most in Europe outside Russia, and bears raiding farms and wandering into towns have made hunting quotas a running national argument.
Q 06Which city, Romania's second largest at the 2021 census, is Transylvania's biggest?
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca counted 286,598 residents in 2021, about 38,000 fewer than in 2011, yet it still ranked second only to Bucharest and is widely called Transylvania's unofficial capital.
Q 07Why did the communist authorities add 'Napoca' to Cluj's name in 1974?
To emphasise the city's pre-Roman roots
To emphasise the city's pre-Roman roots: Napoca was the settlement's ancient name, which the Romans kept for their town, and Ceaușescu's regime revived it to claim an unbroken line from antiquity to modern Romania.
Q 08Which king of Hungary, patron of the Renaissance and founder of the Black Army, was born in Cluj in 1443?
Matthias Corvinus
Matthias Corvinus, born in 1443, ruled Hungary from 1458 to 1490; the name Corvinus comes from the Latin for raven, the bird on his family crest.
Q 09Which electronic music festival began in 2015 in the football stadium of Transylvania's largest city?
Untold
Untold launched in 2015, the year its host city was European Youth Capital, and after that single edition it was voted Best Major Festival at the European Festival Awards, ahead of the continent's giants.
Q 10Which Transylvanian city was European Capital of Culture in 2007, sharing the title with Luxembourg City?
Sibiu
Sibiu's 2007 partner was apt: many of the German settlers who built the city came from the Luxembourg region, and their dialect resembles Luxembourgish.
Q 11Brașov's Black Church is claimed to be the largest Gothic church in which region?
Southeastern Europe
Southeastern Europe is the region usually named in the Black Church's billing; the town's German merchants donated Anatolian carpets to it over the centuries, and it now holds one of the largest such collections.
Q 12Between 1950 and 1960 the city of Brașov was renamed in honour of whom?
Stalin
Stalin: a 1950 decree renamed Brașov Orașul Stalin, 'Stalin City', in his honour, and the old name came back only in 1960, seven years after the dictator's death.
Q 13Brașov's Strada Sforii, or Rope Street, is billed as one of Europe's what?
Narrowest streets
Q 21Corvin Castle, one of the largest castles in Europe, stands in which Transylvanian town?
Hunedoara
Corvin Castle stands in Hunedoara; legend says three Turkish prisoners spent 15 years digging its courtyard well through rock after being promised their freedom for reaching water.
Q 22In a legend retold by the Brothers Grimm, the vanished children of which German town are said to resurface in Transylvania?
Hamelin
Hamelin: the Grimms record the tale that the Pied Piper's lost children came out of a cave in Transylvania, and one leading theory makes the piper a recruiter who led the town's young off to settle in the east.
Q 23Which Transylvanian-born physics teacher won Romania's presidency in a 2014 upset?
Klaus Iohannis
Narrowest streets: little more than a metre wide along its 80 metres, Rope Street was laid out as a corridor so that firefighters could cut between two parallel streets.
Q 14Bran Castle was built by Saxons in 1377 under a privilege from which king?
Louis I of Hungary
Louis I of Hungary granted the Saxons of Brașov the privilege to build Bran Castle in 1377, guarding the pass between Transylvania and Wallachia.
Q 15Bran Castle houses a museum devoted largely to the art and furniture of which royal?
Queen Marie of Romania
The town of Brașov gave the castle to Queen Marie of Romania in 1920 and it became her favourite retreat; the communists seized it in 1948, and in 2006 it was handed back to her grandchildren.
Q 16Did Vlad the Impaler ever live at Bran Castle, according to most historians?
No, he never lived there
No, he never lived there: Vlad only passed through the Bran pass, once leading his army through it to raid Brașov; the castle's Dracula label is marketing.
Q 17While exiled in Sighișoara, Vlad the Impaler's father did what, breaking a royal monopoly?
Minted his own coins
Vlad II minted his own coins at Sighișoara although coinage belonged to Hungary's kings; King Sigismund had recognised the exile as Wallachia's lawful ruler and let him wait in Transylvania for his throne.
Q 18Vlad the Impaler's father was inducted in 1431 into which knightly society?
The Order of the Dragon
The Order of the Dragon, founded by King Sigismund, admitted Vlad II in 1431, earning him the byname Dracul, 'the Dragon'; Dracula means 'son of Dracul'.
Q 19Which Irish author wrote the 1897 novel that fixed Transylvania's association with vampires?
Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker, born in Dublin, published Dracula in 1897 without ever visiting Transylvania, relying on travel books and library research.
Q 20Sighișoara's 64-metre medieval landmark is what kind of structure?
A clock tower
A clock tower: it guards the main gate of Sighișoara's citadel, and among its carved figures the angels of Day and Night marked the start and end of the craftsmen's working day, at 6 am and 6 pm.
Klaus Iohannis, a Transylvanian Saxon and long-serving city mayor, beat the sitting prime minister in 2014, even though most of Romania's Saxons had emigrated to Germany after 1989.
Q 24The Székelys, a Hungarian-speaking people of eastern Transylvania, traditionally claim descent from whom?
Attila's Huns
The Székelys traditionally claim descent from Attila's Huns, a legend recorded in medieval Hungarian chronicles; in the Middle Ages they guarded the kingdom's eastern frontier as free border warriors.
Q 25On Transylvania's coat of arms, which two heavenly bodies represent the Székelys?
The Sun and the Moon
The Sun and the Moon are the Székelys' own old emblems and stand for the Székely Land on the arms; because Romania's state coat of arms includes Transylvania's, the pair still appears on the national emblem today.
Q 26Which spit-baked Székely pastry is known in English as chimney cake?
Kürtőskalács
Kürtőskalács takes its name from kürtő, Hungarian for a flue or chimney, because the steaming hollow cone pulled off the spit looks like one; the oldest known recipe comes from a Transylvanian countess's cookbook.
Q 27The 1568 Edict of Torda is celebrated as Christian Europe's first legal guarantee of what?
Freedom of religion
The Edict of Torda, issued under John Sigismund in 1568, guaranteed freedom of religion for Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and Unitarians, while the Orthodox were merely tolerated.
Q 28Which Transylvanian prince also became King of Poland?
Stephen Báthory
Stephen Báthory left Transylvania to his brother and was crowned King of Poland in 1576; he then beat Ivan the Terrible in the Livonian War and forced Russia to hand over Livonia.
Q 29For most of the 16th and 17th centuries, Transylvania was a vassal principality of which power?
The Ottomans
The Ottomans were overlords of a principality that stayed self-governing: its princes played the sultan off against the Habsburg emperor until the Treaty of Karlowitz passed Transylvania to the Habsburgs in 1699.
Q 30Which Wallachian voivode briefly united Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania under his rule in 1600?
Michael the Brave
Michael the Brave ruled all three principalities for only a few months in 1600; he lost Transylvania that September and was murdered in August 1601 on the orders of General Giorgio Basta.