United Nations Trivia
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99 free United Nations trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 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 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945 in which city?
San Francisco
Delegates from 50 nations signed the Charter in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, closing a conference that had opened in the city on 25 April.
Q 02Which US president is credited with coining the term 'United Nations' to describe the wartime Allies?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the name, which Churchill accepted; the Declaration by United Nations was signed by 26 Allied governments on 1 January 1942.
Q 03The United Nations officially came into existence on which date, now marked as United Nations Day?
24 October 1945
The Charter entered into force on 24 October 1945, once the five permanent Security Council members and a majority of the other signatories had ratified it.
Q 04Which UN organ appoints the Secretary-General on the Security Council's recommendation?
The General Assembly
Under Article 97 of the Charter the General Assembly appoints the Secretary-General on the recommendation of the Security Council, usually for a five-year term.
Q 05Which country joined the UN in July 2011, becoming its 193rd member state?
South Sudan
South Sudan joined on 14 July 2011, five days after declaring independence from Sudan on 9 July 2011.
Q 06Where is the headquarters of the United Nations?
New York City
The United Nations headquarters stands on the East River in New York City; construction began in 1948 and the complex was completed in 1952.
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 neighbourhood's name is sometimes used as a nickname for the UN itself?
Turtle Bay
Turtle Bay, the neighbourhood surrounding the UN headquarters, is often used as shorthand for the organisation; slaughterhouses occupied the site before it was bought in 1946.
Q 09Which two famous architects developed the final designs for the UN headquarters complex?
Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier
Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier produced the merged scheme, known as 23-32, that a design board chaired by Wallace Harrison adopted for the headquarters in 1947.
Q 10How many principal organs did the UN Charter establish?
Six
The Charter's Chapter III established six principal organs, among them the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretariat.
Q 11Which principal organ suspended its operations in 1994 after Palau gained independence?
The Trusteeship Council
The Trusteeship Council suspended operations on 1 November 1994, a month after Palau, the last remaining trust territory, became independent.
Q 12Which principal organ of the UN is the only one not based at its headquarters?
The International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice sits in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, and settles legal disputes between states.
Q 13Which of these is NOT one of the six official languages of the United Nations?
German
Q 21Which country vetoed a second term for Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1996?
America
America (the United States) cast the lone veto against a second term for Boutros-Ghali in November 1996, with the other 14 Council members supporting him.
Q 22In 1981 which country cast 16 vetoes to block a third term for Kurt Waldheim?
China
China cast 16 successive vetoes against Kurt Waldheim in 1981, backing Tanzania's Salim Ahmed Salim; the deadlock ended with the choice of Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.
Q 23António Guterres, who became UN secretary-general in 2017, is from which country?
Portugal
António Guterres, Portugal's prime minister from 1995 to 2002, took office as Secretary-General on 1 January 2017.
German is not an official UN language; the official languages are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
Q 14How many members sit on the UN Security Council?
Fifteen
The Security Council has fifteen members: five permanent and ten elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, five each year.
Q 15Which of these is NOT one of the five permanent, veto-holding members of the Security Council?
Germany
Germany, an Axis power in 1945, was never given a permanent seat; the five permanent members are the principal Second World War Allies named in the Charter.
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 Nationalist government had retreated to Taiwan in 1949; General Assembly Resolution 2758 of October 1971 transferred the seat to the PRC.
Q 18Where did the first session of the General Assembly convene in January 1946?
London
The first General Assembly met in London at the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, on 10 January 1946, with 51 nations represented.
Q 19Who was the first elected secretary-general of the United Nations?
Trygve Lie
Trygve Lie, Norway's foreign minister, was elected the first Secretary-General on 1 February 1946 and announced his resignation in November 1952.
Q 20Which secretary-general died in a 1961 plane crash in Africa, winning a posthumous Nobel?
Dag Hammarskjöld
Dag Hammarskjöld died on 18 September 1961 when his plane crashed near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, en route to ceasefire talks with Katanga's leader Moïse Tshombe.
Q 24Which country is the only one ever to attempt to withdraw from the United Nations?
Indonesia
Indonesia withdrew in January 1965 in protest at Malaysia's election to the Security Council, founded the short-lived CONEFO, and resumed its seat in September 1966.
Q 25What colour are the helmets that give UN peacekeepers their nickname?
Blue
UN peacekeepers wear blue helmets or berets, giving them the nickname 'Blue Helmets'; 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
The UN Emergency Force was sent to Egypt after the Suez Crisis, when Britain, France and Israel invaded in October 1956; Lester Pearson won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for proposing it.
Q 27The longest-running active UN peacekeeping mission has been stationed since 1948 in which region?
The Middle East
UNTSO, the UN Truce Supervision Organization, has observed ceasefires in the Middle East since May 1948, initially between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
Q 28The 1950 resolution authorising a US-led force in Korea passed only because which member was absent?
The Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was boycotting the Council over the PRC's exclusion, so it could not veto the June 1950 resolution that authorised force in Korea.
Q 29Who chaired the committee that drafted the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the Commission on Human Rights drafting committee; the Declaration was adopted in Paris on 10 December 1948.
Q 30How many nations sit on the Human Rights Council that replaced the Commission on Human Rights in 2006?
47
The Human Rights Council has 47 member states, elected by the General Assembly for three-year terms and distributed among regional groups.