United Arab Emirates Trivia
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49 free United Arab Emirates trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The United Arab Emirates went from pearl-diving sheikhdoms to skyscrapers and a Mars probe in one lifetime, and this quiz covers the whole story: the Portuguese forts, the pirate coast and the British truces, the collapse of pearling, the first oil at Umm Shaif in 1958, Britain's withdrawal, the union of 2 December 1971 under Sheikh Zayed, the seventh emirate that joined a month late, and the modern federation of Abu Dhabi's oil and Dubai's towers. Easy questions ask for the capital, the biggest city, the number of emirates and the tallest building on Earth; the harder ones want the smallest emirate, the Omani exclave inside Sharjah, the 19-year-old who designed the flag, the islands seized by Iran on the eve of independence, the year VAT arrived, the Grand Prix that starts in daylight and ends at night, and the probe named Hope. There is also falconry, robot camel jockeys, the dirham's peg, the world's biggest hand-knotted carpet, City Football Group and the day the UAE quit OPEC. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its emirates and its history, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many emirates make up the United Arab Emirates?
Seven
Seven. Only six signed up when the federation was founded; the last one held out and joined ten weeks later.
Q 02Emirates flies from Dubai, but which national airline has its home in Abu Dhabi?
Etihad Airways
Etihad Airways. It was created by royal decree in 2003 as Abu Dhabi's own airline, and the emirate soon pulled out of Gulf Air, the carrier it had shared with its neighbours.
Q 03Which emirate was the last to join the UAE, in February 1972?
Ras Al Khaimah
Ras Al Khaimah. Its ruler stayed out for ten weeks, joining only once the new federation promised to back his claim to islands that Iran had just seized.
Q 04Before independence the emirates were a British protectorate known collectively as what?
The Trucial States
The Trucial States. The name came from the truces the coastal sheikhs signed with Britain from 1820, ending the sea raids that had earned the shore the label Pirate Coast.
Q 05Which Paris museum has had an Abu Dhabi outpost bearing its name since 2017?
The Louvre
The Louvre. Under a 2007 deal between the two governments, Abu Dhabi is paying France hundreds of millions of euros to use the museum's name for decades.
Q 06Before oil, which industry sustained the Gulf sheikhdoms until it collapsed in the 1930s?
Pearling
Pearling. The Depression and Japan's cultured pearls wiped out the trade in the 1930s, three decades before the first oil exports.
Q 07Dubai's Burj Al Arab hotel, standing on its own artificial island, was shaped to resemble what?
A ship's sail
A ship's sail. Architect Tom Wright was asked for a landmark to rival the Eiffel Tower, and modelled it on the billowing sail of a dhow, an Arabian trading boat.
Q 08Which ocean explorer led an undersea oil survey off Abu Dhabi for BP in 1954?
Jacques Cousteau
Jacques Cousteau. BP approached him after reading his book The Silent World, and his divers hammered rock samples off the seabed by hand, with a cage to retreat into when sharks came close.
Q 09On the eve of independence in 1971, Iran seized which islands claimed by the emirates?
The Tunbs and Abu Musa
The Tunbs and Abu Musa. Iranian troops landed just as Britain's protection treaties ran out, two days before the UAE was founded, and the dispute has never been settled.
Q 10Most UAE residents come from which part of the world?
South Asia
South Asia. Oil wealth set off decades of building that the small local population could not staff, so the country recruited workers from abroad, who now far outnumber its own citizens.
Q 11Which skyscraper did the Burj Khalifa replace as the world's tallest building?
Taipei 101
Taipei 101. The Dubai tower was called Burj Dubai until its opening day in 2010, when it was renamed after Abu Dhabi's ruler, whose emirate had just handed Dubai $10 billion to pay its debts.
Q 12In February 2021 the UAE became the first Arab country to reach Mars with a probe named what?
Hope
Hope. Its backers chose the name to inspire young Arabs across the region, and the probe spent more than half a year on the journey from Earth.
Q 13A 19-year-old's contest entry in 1971 became which UAE national symbol?
The flag
The flag. Abdullah Al Maainah beat more than a thousand entries, but nobody told him: he found out by peering over a palace fence at the flag flying on its pole.
Q 21Abu Dhabi's Grand Prix was the first Formula One race to do what?
Start in daylight and finish at night
Start in daylight and finish at night. The first race in 2009 began at 5pm with sunset 43 minutes away, so the floodlights were lit from the start to make the slide into darkness seamless.
Q 22To end the use of children riding racing camels, what did UAE camel races adopt instead?
Robot jockeys
Robot jockeys. After an outcry over child riders the UAE banned them, and operators now race alongside the track in SUVs, working the robots' whips by remote control.
Q 23Which traditional Emirati sport is on UNESCO's list of humanity's intangible cultural heritage?
Q 14The UAE's currency, the dirham, is pegged to what?
The US dollar
The US dollar. The peg has held at 3.6725 dirhams since 1997, so the currency rises and falls with America's rather than with the price of the UAE's own oil.
Q 15Which tax did the UAE introduce in 2018, at 5%?
Value-added tax
Value-added tax. It arrived on New Year's Day under an agreement among the Gulf states, and has given a federal budget long reliant on oil a steady new stream of revenue.
Q 16Which is the smallest emirate in the UAE by area?
Ajman
Ajman. At about 260 square kilometres it is easily the smallest emirate, yet around half a million people live there, several times the population of its bigger neighbour Umm Al Quwain.
Q 17Which emirate is the only one with its coast on the Gulf of Oman rather than the Persian Gulf?
Fujairah
Fujairah. Because it faces the open ocean, a pipeline opened in 2012 carries Abu Dhabi's crude to its port, so tankers can load without entering the Gulf at all.
Q 18Wadi Madha, an exclave surrounded by the UAE and itself containing the UAE exclave Nahwa, belongs to which country?
Oman
Oman. Asked around 1940 to pick a ruler, Madha's elders are said to have chosen the distant sultan, trusting him to guard their water, while every village around them sided with local sheikhs.
Q 19Which two countries share a land border with the UAE?
Oman and Saudi Arabia
Oman and Saudi Arabia. Until a 1974 treaty redrew the frontier, the UAE also touched a third neighbour, and Emirati leaders reopened that deal in 2004.
Q 20The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi holds which world record?
Largest hand-knotted carpet
Largest hand-knotted carpet. Woven in Iran in nine pieces, it was shipped to Abu Dhabi and joined together inside the prayer hall, where it covers more than 5,600 square metres.
Falconry
Falconry. It began as a way of catching food in the desert, and the birds are now so prized that Abu Dhabi runs a public hospital just for them.
Q 24The UAE's only World Cup finals appearance came at the 1990 tournament in which host country?
Italy
Italy. The UAE lost all three group games, yet Khalid Ismail still scored against West Germany, the team that went on to lift the trophy.
Q 25Which Premier League club is owned by a group controlled by Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed?
Manchester City
Manchester City. Sheikh Mansour's group bought the club in 2008, and four years later it won the league for the first time since 1968.
Q 26Which world sporting body moved its headquarters from London to Dubai in 2005?
The International Cricket Council
The International Cricket Council. It left its old home at Lord's after the British government refused it tax concessions, and is now based at Dubai Sports City.
Q 27In August 2020 the UAE normalised relations with Israel under which US-brokered agreement?
The Abraham Accords
The Abraham Accords. The name nods to the patriarch shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and Abu Dhabi has since opened a mosque, a church and a synagogue on a single site.
Q 28In April 2026 the UAE announced it was quitting which organisation after almost six decades as a member?
OPEC
OPEC. Abu Dhabi had joined in 1967, before the UAE even existed, and leaving on 1 May 2026 freed the country to pump more oil than its quota allowed.
Q 29Barakah, opened in the UAE, is the first facility of what kind on the Arabian Peninsula?
Nuclear power plant
Nuclear power plant. Built by a South Korean consortium, its four reactors now supply about a quarter of the electricity in a country far better known for its oil.
Q 30Which vast sand desert of southern Arabia reaches into the south of the UAE?
The Empty Quarter
The Empty Quarter. Explorer Wilfred Thesiger crossed its dunes by camel with Bedouin guides in the 1940s and told the story in his book Arabian Sands.