Tunisia Trivia
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48 free Tunisia trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Tunisia is where Africa reaches furthest north, where Carthage rose and fell, and where the Arab Spring began, and this quiz covers all of it: Dido and the Phoenicians, Hannibal and three Punic Wars, Roman Africa and the amphitheatre at El Jem, the Vandals and Belisarius, Kairouan's Great Mosque, the Aghlabids and Hafsids, Barbarossa and the beys, the French protectorate of 1881, Bourguiba's republic, Ben Ali's 23 years and the street vendor whose death in Sidi Bouzid toppled him. Easy questions ask for the capital, the neighbours, the sea and the desert; the harder ones want the goddess on the film festival prize, the highest peak, the salt lake below sea level, the island with a 2,600-year-old Jewish community, the beach town that inspired Luke Skywalker's home planet and the four groups that shared the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize. There is also harissa, brik and couscous, Sidi Bou Said's blue doors, the Eagles of Carthage, Oussama Mellouli's golds and Ons Jabeur's Wimbledon finals. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its cities and its history, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which port city is Tunisia's second-largest city by population?
Sfax
Sfax owes its size to trade: phosphates from the Gafsa mines arrive by rail for export, and its harbour is a major fishing port. Its old town still sits inside 9th-century walls.
Q 02Tunisia is bordered by Libya and which other country?
Algeria
Algeria lies to the west. France, which already ruled it, invaded Tunisia in 1881 on the pretext that Tunisian tribesmen had raided across that border.
Q 03The ruins of which Phoenician-founded ancient city lie just outside the Tunisian capital?
Carthage
Carthage's legendary founder, Queen Dido of Tyre, was offered only as much land as an oxhide could cover, so she cut the hide into thin strips and ringed a whole hill with them.
Q 04Which general marched war elephants over the Alps to attack Rome in 218 BC?
Hannibal
Hannibal ravaged Roman territory for some 15 years yet could not take Rome itself; recalled to defend his homeland, he was beaten at Zama, in today's Tunisia, in 202 BC.
Q 05What name is given to Rome's three wars against a North African rival, the last ending in 146 BC?
Punic Wars
The Punic Wars take their name from Punicus, the Romans' word for their Phoenician-descended rival. After the third, Rome turned the conquered land into a province it called Africa.
Q 06Which Roman site in Tunisia has an amphitheatre that could hold some 35,000 spectators?
El Jem
El Jem was Roman Thysdrus, a small town that grew rich enough to raise, around AD 238, a free-standing stone arena modelled on Rome's Colosseum.
Q 07Which Germanic people ruled what is now Tunisia for about a century until Belisarius defeated them in 533?
The Vandals
The Vandals crossed into North Africa in 429 and, from their new base, sailed to sack Rome in 455, which is why their name became a word for wanton destruction.
Q 08Which Tunisian city, founded around 670 AD, has a Great Mosque with one of the world's oldest minarets?
Kairouan
Kairouan began as the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi's army camp. It later lost its rank as capital to Tunis, yet remained the Maghreb's principal holy city.
Q 09Which Ottoman corsair captured Tunis in 1534, only to lose it to Emperor Charles V the next year?
Barbarossa Hayreddin
Barbarossa Hayreddin, newly made the sultan's admiral, took Tunis as a base for his raiding fleet. Charles V's crusade drove him out in 1535, and the Ottomans won the city for good only in 1574.
Q 10The 1881 treaty that made Tunisia a French protectorate is named after which Tunis suburb, home of a famous mosaic museum?
Bardo
Bardo was where the beys held court, and the treaty was signed there at Ksar Saïd palace. France left the bey on his throne but took over Tunisia's foreign affairs and finances.
Q 11Which other French protectorate won independence within weeks of Tunisia in March 1956?
Morocco
Morocco's French protectorate ended on 2 March 1956 and Tunisia's on 20 March. Morocco's sultan stayed on as king, while Tunisia deposed its bey the next year and became a republic.
Q 12Who was Tunisia's first president, known as the 'Supreme Combatant'?
Habib Bourguiba
Habib Bourguiba led the independence movement and served as president for thirty years until his prime minister had doctors declare him unfit in November 1987; his Code of Personal Status banned polygamy and abolished repudiation.
Q 13Which president fled Tunisia on 14 January 2011 after 23 years in power?
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
Q 21Tunisia's highest peak, Jebel ech Chambi, belongs to which mountain range?
Atlas
The Atlas Mountains run across north-west Africa and end in Tunisia, where Jebel ech Chambi reaches 1,544 m. Its pine-clad slopes are protected as one of the last refuges of Cuvier's gazelle.
Q 22Chott el Djerid in southern Tunisia is what kind of geographic feature?
A salt lake
A salt lake in name, Chott el Djerid is a vast crust of salt for most of the year and holds water only after heavy rain, so a road now runs across its bed between the oases on either side.
Q 23Underground Berber homes in which Tunisian town served as Luke Skywalker's home in Star Wars?
Matmata
Matmata's Hotel Sidi Driss, a pit dwelling dug around an open courtyard, played the inside of Luke's home on Tatooine. The planet itself was named after a different Tunisian town, Tataouine.
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had taken power in 1987 by having his ageing predecessor declared unfit to rule. After 23 years he flew to Saudi Arabia as protests spread, and he died in exile in Jeddah in 2019.
Q 14Tunisia's 2011 revolution was sparked when street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in which town?
Sidi Bouzid
Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight outside the governor's office in Sidi Bouzid on 17 December 2010 after an official confiscated his produce cart; his death on 4 January 2011 fuelled the protests that toppled the regime.
Q 15The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize went to which Tunisian body for helping to build a pluralistic democracy?
The National Dialogue Quartet
The National Dialogue Quartet united the main labour union, the employers' federation, the human rights league and the lawyers' order in 2013, when political assassinations had brought the transition close to collapse.
Q 16Which president suspended Tunisia's parliament and dismissed the prime minister on 25 July 2021?
Kais Saied
Kais Saied, a law professor elected in 2019, invoked an emergency article of the constitution to freeze parliament and sack the prime minister, then ruled by decree and pushed through a new constitution in 2022.
Q 17The June 2015 gun attack that killed 38 tourists on a beach took place just outside which Tunisian city?
Sousse
Sousse is the city beside the resort of Port El Kantaoui, where a gunman killed 38 holidaymakers, 30 of them British. Within two weeks Britain told its tourists to come home and advised against travel to Tunisia.
Q 18Tunisia's 2011 uprising became known abroad by the name of which flower?
Jasmine
Jasmine was the media's name for the uprising, in the style of Georgia's Rose and Kyrgyzstan's Tulip revolutions. Its success set off a wave of protests across the Middle East and North Africa.
Q 19Which currency name does Tunisia share with Kuwait, Jordan and Serbia?
Dinar
Dinar comes from the Roman denarius. Tunisia's is a closed currency: taking it out of the country is an offence, so travellers change their leftover notes back before flying home.
Q 20Cape Angela in Tunisia holds what geographic distinction?
Africa's northernmost point
Africa's northernmost point was long listed as nearby Cape Blanc, until Tunisia's tourism ministry declared Cape Angela the true tip in December 2014.
Q 24Which Tunisian chilli paste joined UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2022?
Harissa
Harissa is made by drying red chillies in the sun, then pounding them with garlic and coriander. Families and neighbours usually gather to prepare a big batch together, which is the custom UNESCO listed.
Q 25The clifftop village of Sidi Bou Said near Tunis is famous for buildings painted in which two colours?
Blue and white
Blue and white is the look a 1915 decree set out to protect, a rule often credited to Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger, a painter who built a palace there. The palace now houses a centre for Arab and Mediterranean music.
Q 26The El Ghriba synagogue, which draws pilgrims every spring, stands on which Tunisian island?
Djerba
Djerba is home to one of the world's oldest Jewish communities. Legend says El Ghriba was built around a stone or a door saved from the Temple in Jerusalem.
Q 27The Tanit d'or is the top prize at a Tunisian festival, founded in 1966, devoted to which art?
Film
Film. The critic Tahar Cheriaa founded the festival to give African and Arab cinema a screen of its own, and its golden trophy is named after Tanit, a goddess of ancient North Africa.
Q 28Tunisia beat Mexico for Africa's first World Cup finals win at the 1978 tournament in which country?
Argentina
Argentina hosted the 1978 World Cup, where Tunisia trailed Mexico at half-time before scoring three times. They then held the reigning champions, West Germany, to a goalless draw.
Q 29Tunisia's 2004 Africa Cup of Nations top scorer, Francileudo Santos, was born in which country?
Brazil
Brazil-born Santos spent two seasons with the Tunisian club Étoile du Sahel and later chose to play for Tunisia. He struck after five minutes of the 2004 final, which brought Tunisia its first African title.
Q 30Tunisia's Oussama Mellouli won Olympic gold in the 1500m freestyle in 2008 and in which event in 2012?
The 10 km marathon swim
The 10 km marathon swim in Hyde Park's Serpentine came days after Mellouli lost his 1500 m title and took bronze. It made him the first swimmer with Olympic golds in both pool and open water.