Watermelon
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
5correct to beat the crowd
49 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 49 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
The image is in an Egyptian tomb, and watermelon seeds were also found in Tutankhamun's tomb. 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 introduced the watermelon to the Iberian Peninsula?
The Moors
The Moors brought the watermelon to Iberia; cultivation is recorded in Córdoba in 961 and Seville in 1158, and it 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
Captain James Cook's voyages of the late 1770s carried watermelons to Hawaii and other Pacific islands; the fruit's high water content made it valuable on long voyages.
Q 10Which country produced about 64% of the world's watermelons in 2023?
China
China grew about 64% of the roughly 105 million tonnes of watermelon produced worldwide in 2023, far ahead of every other country.
Q 11Which US state made the watermelon its official state vegetable in 2007?
Oklahoma
Oklahoma declared the watermelon its official state vegetable in 2007, reasoning that it belongs to the cucumber and gourd family; Rush Springs hosts the state's annual watermelon festival.
Q 12Seedless watermelons were first developed in 1939 by scientists from which country?
Japan
Japanese geneticist Hitoshi Kihara's team bred the first triploid seedless watermelons in 1939; they lacked disease resistance at first, but by 2014 seedless types made up about 85% of US watermelon sales.
Q 13Because seedless watermelons have sterile pollen, growers must plant what alongside them?
Rows of a seeded pollinizer variety
Q 21The red pigment in watermelon flesh, also responsible for the colour of tomatoes, is which carotenoid?
Lycopene
Lycopene, named after Lycopersicon, a former genus name for the tomato, gives watermelon flesh its red colour and is also found in pink grapefruit and red guava.
Q 22Which amino acid was first isolated from watermelon in 1914?
Citrulline
Citrulline takes its name from Citrullus, the watermelon genus; Japanese researchers Koga and Ōtake isolated it from watermelon in 1914, and the body also makes it while producing nitric oxide.
Q 23The gourd family Cucurbitaceae, which includes watermelon, has roughly how many species?
About 965
Cucurbitaceae holds about 965 species in 101 genera, including cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, zucchini and the calabash gourd.
Seedless triploids set fruit only with pollen from a seeded diploid, so growers interplant rows of a seeded pollinizer variety among the seedless plants and rely on bees to carry the pollen.
Q 14Roughly how many watermelon cultivars exist?
More than 1,200
More than 1,200 watermelon cultivars are grown worldwide, with flesh that can be red, pink, orange, yellow or white and fruit ranging from under 2 kg to well over 100 kg.
Q 15The 'Densuke' watermelon, with its round fruit and near-black rind, is grown where?
Hokkaido, Japan
Densuke watermelons are grown only around Tōma on Hokkaido, Japan's northern island; the first fruit of each season is auctioned for hundreds of thousands of yen and given as a luxury gift.
Q 16Cube-shaped watermelons, grown inside boxes, were invented in 1978 in Japan by whom?
A graphic designer
Graphic designer Tomoyuki Ono grew the first cube watermelons in 1978 and showed them at a gallery in Ginza, Tokyo; grown inside boxes, they sell as ornamental gifts for high prices.
Q 17Why are Japanese cube watermelons generally inedible?
They must be harvested before they ripen
To hold the cube shape the melons must be harvested before they ripen, so they serve as decoration; in 2001 they sold for about 10,000 yen, two to three times the price of ordinary melons.
Q 18Hope, 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 19The 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 20Which Georgia city calls itself the 'watermelon capital of the world'?
Cordele
Cordele, the seat of Crisp County in south Georgia, bills itself as the Watermelon Capital of the World and holds the Watermelon Days festival every summer.
Q 24Which naturalist first formally described the watermelon, as Cucurbita citrullus?
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus described the watermelon as Cucurbita citrullus in Species Plantarum in 1753; German botanist Heinrich Schrader moved it to the genus Citrullus in 1836.
Q 25The wild tsamma melon was a vital water source for travellers in which desert?
The Kalahari
The tsamma melon grows wild in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, where San people and travellers relied on it for water; David Livingstone described its abundance there in the 1850s.
Q 26What is the bitter wild watermelon relative treated as a pest in Western Australia known as locally?
Pig melon
The bitter wild watermelon Citrullus amarus is called the pig melon in Western Australia, where it spreads as a paddock weed; the species has naturalised in semi-arid regions on several continents.
Q 27'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 28Harry Styles' first US number one, 'Watermelon Sugar', takes its title from a 1968 novel by whom?
Richard Brautigan
The title comes from Richard Brautigan's 1968 novel In Watermelon Sugar; the song, from Styles's album Fine Line, topped the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2020.
Q 29'Watermelon Sugar' won which award at the 2021 Grammys?
Best Pop Solo Performance
At the 63rd Grammy Awards in March 2021, Watermelon Sugar won Best Pop Solo Performance, Harry Styles's first Grammy; it had topped the Billboard Hot 100 the previous summer.
Q 30The jazz standard 'Watermelon Man' was written in 1962 by which pianist for his debut album Takin' Off?
Herbie Hancock
Mongo Santamaría's cover reached number 10 on the Hot 100 in 1963 and paid Hancock's bills for years; he re-cut it as funk on Head Hunters in 1973.