50 hard trivia questions for serious quiz fans
Quick answer: These 50 hard trivia questions test detailed knowledge of geography, history, science, art and language. Most players get fewer than half right.
How hard are they?
These questions go beyond the usual quiz staples. Many have surprising answers, such as capitals that are not the largest city. If you enjoy them, you will like our guide to capital cities people get wrong and the timed challenge of naming every country.
Round 1: Hard geography
Many of these come up in our capital cities guide and landlocked countries list.
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is the capital of Kazakhstan? | Astana |
| 2 | Which country has the most time zones, including its territories? | France (12) |
| 3 | What is the deepest lake in the world? | Lake Baikal |
| 4 | Which African country avoided colonisation apart from a short Italian occupation? | Ethiopia |
| 5 | What is the capital of Bhutan? | Thimphu |
| 6 | Which river carries the most water? | The Amazon |
| 7 | What is Bolivia’s constitutional capital? | Sucre |
| 8 | Which country has the longest coastline? | Canada |
| 9 | What is the capital of Myanmar? | Naypyidaw |
| 10 | Which two countries are double-landlocked? | Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan |
Round 2: Hard history
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | In which year did the Ottomans capture Constantinople? | 1453 |
| 12 | Who founded al-Qarawiyyin in Fez? | Fatima al-Fihri |
| 13 | Which 1648 treaty ended the Thirty Years’ War? | The Peace of Westphalia |
| 14 | Which Mongol leader sacked Baghdad in 1258? | Hulagu Khan |
| 15 | Which city did the Abbasids found as their capital in 762? | Baghdad |
| 16 | Which Carthaginian general crossed the Alps with elephants? | Hannibal |
| 17 | In which year did the Suez Canal open? | 1869 |
| 18 | Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize? | Marie Curie |
| 19 | Which empire was ruled by Mansa Musa? | The Mali Empire |
| 20 | In which year was the Battle of Hastings? | 1066 |
Round 3: Hard science
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 21 | What is the most abundant gas in Earth’s atmosphere? | Nitrogen |
| 22 | What is the chemical symbol for tungsten? | W |
| 23 | Which planet has the most known moons? | Saturn |
| 24 | Roughly how fast does light travel? | About 300,000 km per second |
| 25 | Who wrote the Book of Optics and is called a father of optics? | Ibn al-Haytham |
| 26 | Which metal is liquid at room temperature? | Mercury |
| 27 | How many chromosomes do humans usually have? | 46 |
| 28 | Which particle in an atom has a positive charge? | The proton |
| 29 | Whose name gave us the word “algorithm”? | Al-Khwarizmi |
| 30 | Which mineral is 9 on the Mohs hardness scale? | Corundum |
Round 4: Hard art and literature
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | Who painted Las Meninas? | Diego Velázquez |
| 32 | Who wrote the Muqaddimah? | Ibn Khaldun |
| 33 | Who painted the Arnolfini Portrait? | Jan van Eyck |
| 34 | Who wrote Season of Migration to the North? | Tayeb Salih |
| 35 | In which city is the Prado Museum? | Madrid |
| 36 | Who painted The Garden of Earthly Delights? | Hieronymus Bosch |
| 37 | Which poet wrote “Identity Card” (Bitaqat Hawiyya)? | Mahmoud Darwish |
| 38 | Who sculpted The Thinker? | Auguste Rodin |
| 39 | Who painted Girl with a Pearl Earring? | Johannes Vermeer |
| 40 | Who wrote Crime and Punishment? | Fyodor Dostoevsky |
Round 5: Hard mixed
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 41 | What is the longest river in Europe? | The Volga |
| 42 | What is the national animal of Scotland? | The unicorn |
| 43 | Which language is official in the most countries? | English |
| 44 | What does “carpe diem” mean? | Seize the day |
| 45 | What is a group of crows called? | A murder |
| 46 | Where was paper money first used? | China |
| 47 | How many squares are on a chessboard? | 64 |
| 48 | What is the currency of Switzerland? | The Swiss franc |
| 49 | Which city is called the city of a thousand minarets? | Cairo |
| 50 | What is the fear of long words called? | Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia |
Frequently asked questions
What makes a trivia question hard?
It needs detailed knowledge or has a surprising answer, such as a capital that is not the biggest city.
How many hard questions should a quiz include?
About a third of the questions, so everyone still enjoys the quiz.