Turkey
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145 free Turkey trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Turkey trivia questions with answers. Straddling two continents, Turkey is a land where ancient empires, stunning landscapes, and rich traditions collide. From the domes of Istanbul to the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, how well do you know this extraordinary country?
30 of 145 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital city of Turkey?
Ankara
Ankara was chosen in 1923 because Atatürk had run the independence war from it, far from the old imperial court; long before, as Ancyra, it was a tribal capital of the Celtic Galatians.
Q 02Which strait separates the European and Asian sides of Istanbul?
Bosphorus
The Bosphorus runs through the middle of Istanbul, so many of its people commute between continents every day, by ferry, across its bridges or through tunnels under the strait.
Q 03Which region, shared with Greece and Bulgaria, forms Turkey's European part?
Thrace
Thrace's eastern corner is all that is left of the Ottomans' once-vast European lands; it is only about 3% of Turkey's area, yet it holds the historic heart of Istanbul.
Q 04Which Turkish port city was known for most of its history as Smyrna?
Izmir
Izmir was still Smyrna to the outside world until about 1930, when Turkey pressed for the Turkish name to be used abroad; a huge fire in 1922 had already devastated the old port.
Q 05Cappadocia's fairy chimneys were formed by erosion of what type of rock?
Volcanic tuff
Volcanic tuff is ash from ancient eruptions hardened into soft rock; a cap of tougher stone shields each column from the rain, and the tuff is soft enough that people carved homes and churches into it.
Q 06Pamukkale, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Turkey, is famous for white terraces made of what?
Travertine
Travertine is limestone laid down by calcium-rich hot springs; the same warm water drew Hellenistic kings, who founded the spa town of Hierapolis right on top of the terraces.
Q 07Which sea borders Turkey to the north?
Black Sea
The Black Sea washes Turkey's whole northern coast, and its only way out to the oceans runs through the Turkish straits, so every ship leaving it sails through the middle of Istanbul.
Q 08Mount Ararat, the highest peak in Turkey, is traditionally associated with which biblical event?
Noah's Ark coming to rest
Noah's Ark coming to rest here is a later tradition: Genesis says only 'the mountains of Ararat', meaning the ancient kingdom of Urartu, and this peak took on the name and the story in the Middle Ages.
Q 09The Dardanelles strait connects the Aegean Sea to which body of water?
Sea of Marmara
The Sea of Marmara is reached through the Dardanelles, the ancient Hellespont, a strait narrow enough that Xerxes crossed it on a bridge of boats in 480 BC and Lord Byron swam it in 1810.
Q 10Which alphabet did Turkey adopt in 1928 in place of the Arabic script used under the Ottomans?
Latin
Latin letters replaced the Arabic script by a law of November 1928; Atatürk toured the country explaining the new alphabet himself, and from 1 January 1929 it was compulsory in all public writing.
Q 11Which Ottoman sultan conquered Constantinople in 1453?
Mehmed II
Mehmed II was 21 when he took the city; to get past the chain that barred the Golden Horn, he had his ships hauled overland on a greased wooden track and launched behind the defenders.
Q 12Who became Turkey's second president after Atatürk died in 1938?
İsmet İnönü
İsmet İnönü, Atatürk's long-serving prime minister, was elected president the day after Atatürk died, and under him Turkey stayed out of the fighting throughout the Second World War.
Q 13Who began excavating the mound of Hisarlık, identified as Troy, in 1871?
Heinrich Schliemann
Heinrich Schliemann, a self-made merchant, dug at Hisarlık from 1871 with Frank Calvert's guidance and in 1873 announced 'Priam's Treasure', a hoard he smuggled out of the Ottoman Empire.
Q 21The blue glass nazar boncuğu, seen across Turkey, is meant to protect against what?
The evil eye
The evil eye is a curse thought to be cast by an envious glare; around the Aegean, where blue eyes are rare, they were the ones suspected of casting it, which is why the charm is an eye staring back.
Q 22What is the longest river lying entirely within Turkey?
Kızılırmak
The Kızılırmak, or 'Red River', loops through central Turkey to the sea without ever leaving the country; the Euphrates is longer overall, but it flows on into Syria and Iraq.
Q 23What layered Turkish dessert is made with phyllo dough, nuts and honey or syrup?
Baklava
Baklava stacks 30 or 40 paper-thin sheets of filo, each brushed with butter, over chopped nuts; its Turkish form was probably perfected in the sultans' palace kitchens, and trays of it went to the troops every Ramadan.
Q 14The Gallipoli Campaign, fought for control of the Dardanelles, was part of which war?
World War I
World War I's Gallipoli campaign saw Ottoman troops hold the Dardanelles against Allied landings in 1915; a divisional commander there, Mustafa Kemal, came home a national hero and later led Turkey as Atatürk.
Q 15Which Ottoman sultan of the 16th-century golden age was known in the West as 'the Magnificent'?
Suleiman I
Suleiman I (r. 1520-1566) took Belgrade and Rhodes, crushed Hungary at Mohács in 1526 and besieged Vienna in 1529; his legal reforms earned him the Turkish title Kanuni, 'the Lawgiver'.
Q 16Which ancient city beside modern Selçuk was home to the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders?
Ephesus
Ephesus was a great seaport until its river silted up the harbour and left the city stranded inland; the re-erected two-storey façade of its Library of Celsus stands among the ruins.
Q 17Constantinople was the capital of which empire for more than a millennium before the Ottoman conquest of 1453?
Byzantium
Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire, was ruled from Constantinople from 330 to 1453; its people never used that name, which was coined after the fall, and called themselves Romans to the end.
Q 18Which religious title did the Ottoman dynasty keep after the sultanate's abolition in 1922?
Caliph
Caliph: the assembly elected Abdülmecid II, a cousin of the last sultan, to the title in November 1922, then abolished it in March 1924 and sent him into exile the next day.
Q 19In a traditional Turkish hammam, what is the göbek taşı at the centre of the hot room?
A heated marble slab
A heated marble slab: hot air from a hidden furnace warms it from below, a system inherited from Roman baths, and bathers lie on this 'navel stone' to sweat before they are scrubbed.
Q 20The whirling dervishes of Turkey follow which tradition within Islam?
Sufism
Sufism is Islam's mystical path, and the Mevlevi dervishes whirl as a form of prayer; Turkey closed every Sufi lodge in 1925 and in the 1950s let the ceremony return only as a public performance.
Q 24What do Turks call the starch-and-sugar sweet the English know as 'Turkish delight'?
Lokum
Lokum won fame abroad after an English traveller took some home in the 1830s as 'Turkish delight'; C. S. Lewis later made it the sweet the White Witch uses to tempt Edmund in Narnia.
Q 25Which Turkish drink is made from yoghurt whisked with cold water and salt?
Ayran
Ayran was hailed as the Turks' 'national drink' in 2013 by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then prime minister, who was speaking at a conference on alcohol policy.
Q 26What is the name of Istanbul's historic covered market, one of the largest and oldest in the world?
Grand Bazaar
The Grand Bazaar began as a covered trading hall started in 1455, soon after the Ottoman conquest, with its income pledged to the upkeep of Hagia Sophia; it now spreads over 61 covered streets and some 4,000 shops.
Q 27Which southeastern Turkish city is considered the world capital of baklava?
Gaziantep
Gaziantep owes its fame to Çelebi Güllü, who brought the recipe home from Damascus in 1871; the city's pistachio baklava became the first Turkish product with EU protected status in 2013.
Q 28Turkish coffee is traditionally brewed in what small long-handled pot?
Cezve
The cezve is heated slowly so the coffee builds its prized foam, traditionally by nestling the pot in a pan of hot sand; a demlik is a teapot and a fincan the small cup the coffee is served in.
Q 29What was Istanbul's Hagia Sophia originally built as?
Cathedral
Cathedral: Hagia Sophia went up in under six years after rioters burned the church that stood before it, and for almost a thousand years it was the largest cathedral in Christendom.
Q 30What gives Istanbul's Blue Mosque its nickname?
Its interior tiles
Its interior tiles: thousands of İznik tiles and painted patterns, mostly in blue, line the Sultan Ahmed Mosque; a much-repeated but doubtful legend says its six minarets, as many as Mecca's, obliged the sultan to add a seventh there.