World Records
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
123 free World Records trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
43 free world records trivia questions with answers. Records trivia is the original pub argument: who is the tallest, what is the fastest, where is the hottest? This quiz covers 43 world records, from the Guinness book's own origin story on a 1951 shooting party to Robert Wadlow's 8 ft 11 in frame, Usain Bolt's 9.58 seconds, the blue whale, Angel Falls, Death Valley and the deepest lake on Earth. It works for a quick solo challenge or a round at your next trivia night, and it mixes easy warm-ups with genuinely hard ones about record-holders most people have never heard of. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and where a famous record is disputed (like Death Valley's 1913 reading) the explanation says so.
30 of 123 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which skyscraper did the Burj Khalifa overtake to become the world's tallest building?
Taipei 101
Taipei 101 held the title from 2004 until the Burj Khalifa passed it; a 660-tonne steel ball hung near its top sways to offset the tower's movement in strong winds.
Q 02Who holds the record for the oldest person ever whose age has been fully authenticated?
Jeanne Calment
Jeanne Calment of France lived 122 years and 164 days; a notary who agreed in 1965 to pay her monthly for her flat until she died paid for 30 years, then died before she did.
Q 03What is the fastest land animal?
Cheetah
Cheetahs have been reliably timed at just over 100 km/h (about 65 mph), the fastest of any land animal, but only for a few hundred metres; the pronghorn can hold its top speed far longer.
Q 04Which athlete holds the record for the most Olympic medals won by an individual?
Michael Phelps
Michael Phelps won 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold; he retired after London 2012, where he passed Larisa Latynina's record of 18, then came back to win five more golds in Rio.
Q 05What is generally considered the longest river in the world?
Nile
The Nile drains a basin that spans eleven countries on its way north to the Mediterranean, though it carries far less water than several shorter rivers.
Q 06What is the smallest independent state by area in the world?
Vatican City
Vatican City, an enclave inside Rome, became a state only in 1929, when the Lateran Treaty ended 59 years in which popes refused to leave the Vatican rather than accept Italian rule over Rome.
Q 07Who reached the summit of Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953, in the first confirmed ascent?
Edmund Hillary
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top on 29 May 1953; a coded message carried the news to London in time to be announced on the morning of Elizabeth II's coronation.
Q 08What is the deepest known oceanic trench on Earth?
Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench reaches nearly 11 km down at its Challenger Deep, where the Pacific Plate is thrust beneath the smaller Mariana Plate.
Q 09Which music group holds the record for the most record sales worldwide?
The Beatles
The Beatles are the best-selling music act of all time by estimated sales, yet Decca Records turned them down after a New Year's Day audition in 1962.
Q 10In 2004, five million people formed a record 1,050 km human chain running the length of which country?
Bangladesh
Bangladesh's chain ran from Teknaf in the far south to Tentulia in the far north on 11 December 2004; opposition parties staged it to demand fresh elections.
Q 11Which breed, a hybrid of domestic cats and African servals, produced the tallest domestic cat Guinness has measured?
Savannah
Savannah cats inherit the serval's tall, lean build and large ears; an early-generation male named Arcturus set the tallest-cat record in 2016 at 48.4 cm (19 in).
Q 12Which snake is considered the most venomous land snake based on the toxicity of its venom?
Inland Taipan
The inland taipan has the most toxic venom of any land snake, yet it is shy, placid and rarely met in its remote homeland; most documented bites were to people handling captive snakes.
Q 13Egyptian Ahmed Gabr set Guinness's deepest scuba dive record, 332 metres, in which sea?
Red Sea
Q 21Which temple complex does Guinness list as the largest religious structure ever built?
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat in Cambodia covers 162.6 hectares; King Suryavarman II built it in the 12th century as a Hindu temple to Vishnu, and it was gradually turned into a Buddhist one.
Q 22How were the first thousand copies of The Guinness Book of Records distributed?
Given away free to pubs
Given away free to pubs as a promotion for the brewery; they proved so popular that a retail edition was commissioned, and it topped the UK bestseller list by Christmas 1955.
Q 23The 8 ft 11 in Robert Wadlow toured America in 1938 for a company that supplied him free with what?
Shoes
The Red Sea off Dahab, Egypt, is where Guinness measured Ahmed Gabr's 2014 dive at 332.35 m; he sank to that depth in 12 to 15 minutes, then needed 14 to 15 hours to climb safely back to the surface.
Q 14Which large rodent is known as the biggest in the world?
Capybara
Capybaras, the world's largest rodents, can weigh over 60 kg; they take to the water to escape predators and can stay submerged for up to five minutes.
Q 15How long were the longest fingernails ever recorded on a pair of female hands, combined?
About 43 feet
About 43 feet in total: Diana Armstrong's nails measured 1,306.58 cm for Guinness in 2022; she last cut them in 1997, the year her daughter, who used to do her nails, died.
Q 16In NBA history, who holds the record for the most points scored in a single game?
Wilt Chamberlain
Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks in 1962; normally a poor free-throw shooter, he made 28 of 32 that night shooting underhand.
Q 17What colour is the 59.6-carat diamond that set an auction record for any gemstone at $71.2 million in 2017?
Pink
Pink: the CTF Pink Star sold at Sotheby's in Hong Kong for $71.2 million in 2017; a 2013 sale at $83 million had fallen through when the buyer failed to pay.
Q 18In 1989, about two million people joined hands in a 675 km human chain across which region's three countries?
Baltic States
The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania formed the 'Baltic Way' on the 50th anniversary of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Nazi–Soviet deal that led to their occupation.
Q 19Which mountain is the tallest on Earth when measured from base to summit?
Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea, a dormant Hawaiian volcano, rises about 10,200 metres from its base on the sea floor, though only 4,207 metres of that stand above sea level.
Q 20The Guinness Book of Records grew out of a 1951 argument over which was Europe's fastest what?
Game bird
Game bird: Guinness's managing director missed a shot at a golden plover and fell into an argument over whether it or the red grouse was faster; no reference book could settle it, which gave him the idea.
Shoes: the International Shoe Company made his size 37AA pairs at no charge; on tour he wore ordinary street clothes, seeing himself as an advertiser rather than a sideshow exhibit.
Q 24Chandra Bahadur Dangi, the shortest adult human ever recorded, came from which country?
Nepal
Nepal's Chandra Bahadur Dangi stood 54.6 cm (21.5 in); he had never left his remote village until a timber contractor noticed him and Guinness measured him in 2012, when he was 72.
Q 25Usain Bolt's 100 m world record of 9.58 seconds was set at the 2009 World Championships in which city?
Berlin
Berlin's Olympiastadion hosted the 2009 World Championships, where Bolt ran 9.58 on 16 August; the city's mayor later presented him with a section of the Berlin Wall.
Q 26Which American holds the record for the most Guinness World Records, having set more than 700 since 1979?
Ashrita Furman
Ashrita Furman, a health-food store manager from Queens, New York, failed at his first record attempt, then did 27,000 jumping jacks in 1979; he has since pogo-sticked up Mount Fuji.
Q 27Which species is the largest animal ever known to have lived?
Blue whale
The blue whale, the largest animal known to have lived, feeds almost exclusively on tiny krill, straining them from huge gulps of seawater through its baleen plates.
Q 28Angel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall, is in which country?
Venezuela
Venezuela's Angel Falls drops 979 m from the flat-topped Auyán-tepui; it is named for US pilot Jimmie Angel, whose plane got stuck on the summit in 1937, forcing an 11-day trek down.
Q 29Jonathan, a giant tortoise named the oldest living land animal in 2022, has lived since 1882 on which South Atlantic island?
Saint Helena
Saint Helena took Jonathan in from the Seychelles in 1882; his age is an estimate resting on the fact that he was already fully grown, and so at least 50, when he landed, which means he may well be older.
Q 30Which lake is both the world's deepest and its largest freshwater lake by volume?
Baikal
Baikal, in Siberia, is 1,642 m deep because it fills a rift valley where the Earth's crust is slowly pulling apart; it holds more water than all the North American Great Lakes combined.