Winter Solstice Trivia
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This winter solstice trivia quiz has 47 free questions with answers and covers the shortest day of the year, from the astronomy behind it to the festivals people have held to mark it for thousands of years. It takes in Earth's axial tilt and why the seasons happen, the December and June solstices, the ancient monuments aligned to the solstice sun (Stonehenge, Newgrange), and the traditions around the world: Yule, Saturnalia, China's Dongzhi, Iran's Yalda Night, the Hopi Soyal and the Inca Inti Raymi. Early questions suit anyone who knows the solstice is the shortest day. Later ones reward people who know which monument is older than the pyramids and why Earth is actually closest to the Sun in January. Use it for a seasonal trivia night, a science-class starter or a holiday quiz. Every answer has been checked against a documented source shown under the explanation.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The winter solstice is the day with what?
The shortest daylight
It also has the longest night of the year for that hemisphere.
Q 02In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice falls on or about which date?
December 21
December 21 or 22: the Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice almost always falls on one of those dates, drifting slightly year to year as leap years catch the calendar up with Earth's orbit.
Q 03Astronomically, the winter solstice is the moment one of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt in which direction relative to the Sun?
Away from the Sun
Away from the Sun is the losing pole's direction; the other pole is tilted toward it and has its summer solstice at that same instant.
Q 04What actually causes the seasons on our planet?
The tilt of its axis
The tilt of its axis, about 23.4 degrees, is what drives the seasons; Earth is actually closest to the Sun in early January.
Q 05Earth's axis is tilted by roughly how many degrees?
23.4
23.4 degrees is Earth's current obliquity, and that lean alone, not distance from the Sun, is what makes winter and summer.
Q 06Surprisingly, Earth is actually closest to the Sun in which month?
January
January: Earth reaches perihelion, its closest point to the Sun, around January 3 each year, so distance cannot be what makes the Northern Hemisphere's winter.
Q 07Stonehenge, in England, is aligned to the sunset on which day?
The winter solstice
It is aligned to the summer solstice sunrise in the other direction.
Q 08The Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland is older than Stonehenge and older than what else?
The Egyptian pyramids
The Egyptian pyramids: Newgrange was built around 3200 BC, centuries before the Great Pyramid of Giza, whereas Gobekli Tepe, Catalhoyuk and Lascaux are all thousands of years older than Newgrange.
Q 09At Newgrange, the winter solstice sunrise shines into the inner chamber through what feature?
A roofbox above the entrance
A roofbox above the entrance: at winter solstice sunrise, light passes through this opening above the doorway and travels about 19 metres up the passage to light the chamber for roughly 17 minutes.
Q 10Which Germanic midwinter festival, observed by heathen peoples around the solstice, was later merged with Christmas?
Yule
Yule was the heathen Germanic festival that Christmas absorbed; the old texts describe two Yule-months wrapped around the solstice.
Q 11Which Roman midwinter festival began on 17 December with feasting and gift-giving?
Saturnalia
Saturnalia, honouring the god Saturn, opened on 17 December and ran for up to a week of feasting, gambling and gift-giving before the solstice.
Q 12What is the name of China's traditional winter-solstice festival?
Dongzhi
The name means the extreme, or summit, of winter.
Q 13At the Chinese winter festival, families make and eat balls of glutinous rice called what?
Tangyuan
The round shape symbolises reunion.
Q 14Iran's ancient winter-solstice celebration, Yalda, marks what?
Q 21The name 'Jolnir', or 'Yule man', is also a name for which Norse god?
Odin
Odin: Jolnir, 'the Yule one', is one of the many names of Odin recorded in Old Norse poetry, tying the god to the midwinter feast.
Q 22The day of the year with the most daylight is known as what?
The summer solstice
The summer solstice is the day with the most daylight, when a hemisphere's pole leans closest to the Sun; at that same instant the opposite hemisphere has its winter solstice.
Q 23In the far north or south, what is it called when the Sun stays below the horizon for more than 24 hours?
Polar night
Polar night is the winter mirror of the midnight sun: one is a Sun that will not rise for over a day, the other a Sun that will not set.
The longest, darkest night
The longest, darkest night: Shab-e Yalda falls on the night of the winter solstice, and families stay up until dawn eating, talking and sharing poetry to see the darkness through.
Q 15Which two red fruits are especially significant at Yalda Night?
Pomegranates and watermelons
Pomegranates and watermelons: both red fruits are set out on Yalda Night, their colour standing for the crimson of dawn and the glow of life, beside nuts and dried fruit.
Q 16The Soyal ceremony is the winter-solstice ritual of which Native American peoples?
The Hopi and Zuni
It opens the sacred underground kiva chambers and the Kachina season.
Q 17The Inca sun festival Inti Raymi was centred on which city?
Cusco
Cusco, the Inca capital, hosted Inti Raymi, the festival of the sun god Inti; a modern re-enactment has been staged at Sacsayhuaman above the city since 1944.
Q 18Which Japanese sun goddess hid in a cave, plunging the world into darkness?
Amaterasu
Amaterasu: in the Kojiki the sun goddess shut herself in the Heavenly Rock Cave after her brother Susanoo's rampage, and the gods lured her out with a mirror and dancing, restoring light.
Q 19In the Southern Hemisphere, the winter solstice falls in which month?
June
The seasons are reversed from the Northern Hemisphere.
Q 20In Sweden, which saint is honoured with candle-crowned processions on 13 December?
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia: Swedish Luciadagen on 13 December features a girl in a white gown and a crown of candles; under the old Julian calendar the date fell within days of the winter solstice.
Q 24The midnight sun, when the Sun never sets, happens north of which line?
The Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle, at about 66.5 degrees north, is the line beyond which the Sun stays above the horizon for at least one full day each summer; the Antarctic Circle mirrors it.
Q 25Macrobius noted that at the solstice the Egyptians brought an idol of what out of a shrine?
A child Sun god
He wrote that the Sun appears small on the shortest day.
Q 26Which Mississippian site in Illinois had a 'Woodhenge' of posts aligned to the solstice sunrises?
Cahokia
Cahokia, near present-day St Louis, had several timber circles dubbed Woodhenge; from a central post, marker posts line up with the solstice and equinox sunrises.
Q 27The word 'Yalda' comes from a Syriac word meaning what?
Birth
Birth: 'Yalda' is a Syriac word for birth, taken into Persian for the solstice night after which the Sun is seen as reborn and the days begin to lengthen.
Q 28Newgrange stands overlooking which Irish river?
The Boyne
The Boyne: Newgrange sits on a ridge above a bend of the River Boyne in County Meath, the centrepiece of the Bru na Boinne World Heritage Site.
Q 29Which Persian poet's verse is traditionally read aloud on Yalda Night?
Hafez
Hafez: on Yalda Night families open the Divan of Hafez at random and read the ghazal on that page as a fortune, a custom called fal-e Hafez.
Q 30Which cycles link slow changes in Earth's tilt and orbit to the timing of ice ages?
Milankovitch cycles
Milankovitch cycles: Milutin Milankovitch showed in the 1920s that the roughly 41,000-year swing in Earth's tilt, together with changes in orbital shape and precession, paces the ice ages.