50 free Watermelon trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free watermelon trivia questions with answers. The watermelon is technically a berry, botanically a pepo, and 91 per cent water. It was domesticated in Sudan, painted on an Egyptian tomb wall four thousand years ago, carried to Spain by the Moors and to Florida by Spanish settlers, and today two thirds of the world's crop is grown in China. This quiz covers the fruit from every angle: the plant family and its cousins, the wild seeds in a Libyan cave, the bitter white-fleshed originals, how seedless melons are bred and why they need extra beehives, the Carolina Cross that set a 159 kg world record, Japan's ornamental cube melons, Hope, Arkansas and its giant-melon champions, the Luling Watermelon Thump, lycopene and citrulline, watermelon snow, the stereotype and its history, plus watermelons in music from Herbie Hancock to Harry Styles and Gallagher's Sledge-O-Matic. Easy openers for a summer picnic, harder ones for the fruit obsessives. Every answer was checked against a documented source and the citation sits under each explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Botanically, the watermelon fruit is a type of berry with a hard rind. What is that kind of fruit called?
A pepo
The same term covers cucumbers, pumpkins and squash, all in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae.
Q 02Watermelon fruit is roughly what percentage water?
91%
About 6% is sugars, with almost no fat or protein; early farmers stored the fruit as a water source for dry seasons.
Q 03The modern watermelon was first domesticated in which country?
Sudan
Kordofan melons from Sudan are its closest relatives and share the loss of the bitterness gene; it may have been cultivated in the Nile Valley by 2340 BC.
Q 04Wild watermelon seeds about 5,000 years old were found at Uan Muhuggiag, in which country?
Libya
A 2022 study traced 6,000-year-old seeds from the Libyan desert to the egusi seeds of Nigeria.
Q 05A 4,000-year-old tomb image of an apparent watermelon was found in which civilisation?
Egypt
Those early melons were not sweet; dessert watermelons spread across the Mediterranean in Roman times.
Q 06Early watermelons differed from today's in taste and colour. What were they like?
Bitter with yellowish-white flesh
They were also hard to open; sweetness and a softer rind came from centuries of selective breeding.
Q 07Which people brought the watermelon to Iberia, with cultivation recorded in Córdoba in 961?
The Moors
It reached India by the 7th century and East Asia by the 10th, and appeared in European herbals by 1600.
Q 08Spanish settlers were growing watermelons in which future US state as early as 1576?
Florida
It reached Massachusetts by 1629, and Native Americans were growing it in the Mississippi valley around the same time.
Q 09Which explorer is credited with introducing watermelons to Hawaii and other Pacific islands?
James Cook
The fruit's high water content made it valuable on long voyages.
Q 10Which country produces about 64% of the world's watermelons?
China
World production in 2023 was 105 million tonnes; India, Turkey, Algeria and Brazil follow.
Q 11Which US state, one of about four dozen growing the crop commercially, produces the most watermelon?
Florida
Georgia, Texas, California and Arizona round out the top five, and about 44 states grow the crop commercially.
Q 12Seedless watermelons were first developed in 1939 by scientists from which country?
Japan
The triploid hybrids lacked disease resistance at first; by 2014 seedless types made up nearly 85% of US watermelon sales.
Q 13Because seedless watermelons have sterile pollen, growers must plant what alongside them?
Rows of a seeded pollinizer variety
The USDA recommends three beehives per acre for seedless crops instead of one; poor pollination causes 'hollow heart'.
Q 21Which Georgia city calls itself the 'watermelon capital of the world'?
Cordele
It is the seat of Crisp County, which in 1930 also had the first county-owned electric system.
Q 22The red pigment in watermelon flesh, also responsible for the colour of tomatoes, is which carotenoid?
Lycopene
Its name comes from a former genus name for the tomato, and it is also found in pink grapefruit and red guava.
Q 23Citrulline, named from the Latin for watermelon, was first isolated in 1914 from which part of the fruit?
The rind
Japanese researchers Koga and Ōtake isolated it; the body also makes it as a byproduct of producing nitric oxide.
Q 14The heaviest recorded watermelon, a 2013 Carolina Cross from Tennessee, weighed about how much?
159 kg (350 lb)
The variety typically produces fruit of 30 to 70 kg; the record is held by Guinness World Records.
Q 15Roughly how many watermelon cultivars exist?
More than 1,200
Flesh can be red, pink, orange, yellow or white, and 'Moon and Stars' with its speckled rind dates from 1926.
Q 16The 'Densuke' watermelon, with its round fruit and near-black rind, is grown where?
Hokkaido, Japan
The 'Melitopolski' is the small round melon piled high by Moscow vendors in summer, and 'Cream of Saskatchewan' has white flesh.
Q 17Cube-shaped watermelons, grown inside boxes, were invented in 1978 in Japan by whom?
A graphic designer
Tomoyuki Ono's melons must be picked unripe to hold their shape, so they are ornamental; prices have reached $200.
Q 18Why are Japanese cube watermelons generally inedible?
They must be harvested before they ripen
They appeal to wealthy or fashionable buyers as gifts and were selling for two to three times the price of ordinary melons in 2001.
Q 19Hope, Arkansas, birthplace of Bill Clinton, is also famous for what watermelon-related feat?
Growing record-breaking giant melons
Lloyd Bright set the town's last record with a 268.8-pound melon in 2005; the town slogan is 'A Slice of the Good Life'.
Q 20The Watermelon Thump, with its famous seed-spitting contest, is held each June in which Texas town?
Luling
The festival takes place over the last full weekend of June.
Q 24The gourd family Cucurbitaceae, which includes watermelon, has roughly how many species?
About 965
Its 101 genera include cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, zucchini and the calabash gourd.
Q 25Which naturalist first described the watermelon in 1753, calling it Cucurbita citrullus?
Carl Linnaeus
German botanist Heinrich Schrader moved it to the genus Citrullus in 1836; the current name Citrullus lanatus was formally conserved only in 2017.
Q 26The wild tsamma melon was a vital water source for travellers in which desert?
The Kalahari
Watermelons remain an important water source for people and animals in southern and eastern Africa.
Q 27What is the bitter wild watermelon relative treated as a pest in Western Australia known as locally?
Pig melon
Citrullus amarus has spread across semi-arid regions on several continents.
Q 28'Watermelon snow', the pink-tinged snow seen in the Sierra Nevada and polar regions, is caused by what?
A cold-loving alga with a red pigment
Chlamydomonas nivalis carries the red carotenoid astaxanthin alongside its chlorophyll and thrives in freezing water.
Q 29Harry Styles' first US number one, 'Watermelon Sugar', takes its title from a 1968 novel by whom?
Richard Brautigan
The song from Fine Line won the 2021 Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance and a Brit for Song of the Year.
Q 30'Watermelon Sugar' won which award at the 2021 Grammys?
Best Pop Solo Performance
It reached the top ten in more than 20 countries and topped the Billboard Hot 100.