50 free United Nations trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free United Nations trivia questions with answers. The United Nations was named by Franklin Roosevelt, signed into being in San Francisco and given a Manhattan home by a Rockefeller cheque. This quiz covers the organisation from the failed League of Nations to today's 193 members: the Atlantic Charter and the Declaration by United Nations, the six principal organs, the five permanent members and their veto, why the ICJ sits in The Hague, the six official languages, the blue helmets and their 1988 Nobel Prize, the secretaries-general from Trygve Lie to António Guterres, the flag's olive branches, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNICEF, WHO, the World Food Programme, the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals, and the funding rows of the 2020s. Easy questions ask where the headquarters is and what colour the helmets are. Medium ones cover the founding dates, the agencies and the Nobel laureates. Hard ones want the man who coined the name, the interim secretary-general, the year Indonesia walked out, the peacekeeping mission that has run since 1948, and who wrote the words to the Hymn to the United Nations. Every answer has been checked against reference articles on the UN and its bodies, and each question shows its citation once you have answered. Good for Model UN prep, a civics class or a pub quiz round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945 in which city?
San Francisco
Fifty nations attended the conference that opened on 25 April 1945; the Charter was signed on 26 June and the UN came into existence on 24 October.
Q 02Which US president is credited with coining the term 'United Nations' to describe the wartime Allies?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Churchill accepted the name, noting that Lord Byron had used it; the Declaration by United Nations was signed on New Year's Day 1942.
Q 03The United Nations officially came into existence on which date, now marked as United Nations Day?
24 October 1945
That was when the five permanent Security Council members and a majority of the other 46 signatories had ratified the Charter.
Q 04How many member states does the United Nations have?
193
The Holy See and Palestine are the two non-member observer states.
Q 05Which country joined the UN in July 2011, becoming its 193rd member state?
South Sudan
It joined five days after declaring independence from Sudan.
Q 06Where is the headquarters of the United Nations?
New York City
Construction began in September 1948 and the complex was completed in October 1952; other major offices are in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna and The Hague.
Q 07Which family donated the money to buy the East River site for the UN headquarters?
The Rockefellers
John D. Rockefeller Jr. put up $8.5 million; Philadelphia had offered land in Fairmount Park and elsewhere.
Q 08Which Midtown Manhattan neighbourhood is sometimes used as a nickname for the UN itself?
Turtle Bay
Before the UN arrived the site held slaughterhouses, tenements and a pencil factory.
Q 09Which two famous architects developed the final designs for the UN headquarters complex?
Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier
A board of architects led by Wallace Harrison oversaw the project, built by Harrison & Abramovitz.
Q 10How many principal organs did the UN Charter establish?
Six
One of them suspended operations in 1994 after the last trust territory became independent.
Q 11Which principal organ suspended its operations in 1994 after Palau gained independence?
The Trusteeship Council
Palau was the last remaining UN trust territory.
Q 12Which UN principal organ is the only one NOT based in New York?
The International Court of Justice
The 'World Court' sits in the Peace Palace in The Hague and has 15 judges serving nine-year terms, each from a different nation.
Q 13Which of these is NOT one of the six official languages of the United Nations?
German
Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
Q 21Which country vetoed a second term for Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1996?
America
His successor Kofi Annan pushed further management reforms under US threats to withhold dues.
Q 22In 1981 which country cast a record 16 vetoes to block a third term for Kurt Waldheim?
China
Since then no incumbent has sought a third term.
Q 23António Guterres, who became UN secretary-general in 2017, is from which country?
Portugal
He had previously led the UN's refugee agency and became the ninth person to hold the job.
Q 24Which country is the only one ever to attempt to withdraw from the United Nations?
Q 14How many members sit on the UN Security Council?
Fifteen
Five are permanent and ten are elected for two-year terms, five each year on a regional basis.
Q 15Which of these is NOT one of the five permanent, veto-holding members of the Security Council?
Germany
The five are China, France, Russia, the UK and the US; a permanent member can block adoption of a resolution but not debate.
Q 16How many affirmative votes does a Security Council resolution need to pass?
Nine
That means all five permanent members plus at least four elected members.
Q 17In 1971 the PRC took the Chinese Security Council seat from the government based where?
Taiwan
The vote passed over US opposition and was seen as a sign of waning American influence at the UN.
Q 18Where did the first session of the General Assembly convene in January 1946?
London
It met at the Methodist Central Hall with 51 nations represented; British diplomat Gladwyn Jebb was interim secretary-general.
Q 19Who was the first elected secretary-general of the United Nations?
Trygve Lie
The Norwegian foreign minister took the post in 1946.
Q 20Which secretary-general died in a 1961 plane crash in Africa, winning a posthumous Nobel?
Dag Hammarskjöld
He was flying to meet Katanga rebel leader Moise Tshombe during the Congo operation.
Indonesia
It left in 1965 in protest at Malaysia's election to the Security Council, set up a short-lived rival called CONEFO, and returned in 1966.
Q 25UN peacekeepers are nicknamed after the colour of their helmets. What colour?
Blue
The UN has no army of its own; troops are volunteered by member states, and the peacekeeping forces won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.
Q 26The first UN peacekeeping force was created in November 1956 in response to what?
The Suez Crisis
Canada's Lester Pearson won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for organising it; the UN could not act on the simultaneous Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Q 27The longest-running active UN peacekeeping mission has been stationed since 1948 in which region?
The Middle East
The UN Truce Supervision Organization; the Cyprus force deployed by U Thant in 1964 is another of the longest-running.
Q 28The 1950 resolution authorising a US-led force in Korea passed only because which member was absent?
The Soviet Union
Cold War paralysis otherwise limited the UN to conflicts far from the superpower rivalry.
Q 29Who chaired the committee that drafted the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Eleanor Roosevelt
French lawyer René Cassin, another member of the committee, later won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Q 30How many nations sit on the Human Rights Council that replaced the Commission on Human Rights in 2006?
47
The same year the General Assembly passed a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.