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50 free Aztecs trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Aztecs trivia for history students, Mexico travellers and anyone who has stood in the National Anthropology Museum staring at the sun stone. The quiz starts with the basics that trip people up: the Aztecs did not call themselves Aztecs, their capital sat on an island in a lake, and their empire was a three-city alliance that ruled by taxes and marriages rather than garrisons. From there it covers the migration from Aztlan and the eagle on the cactus, the founding of Tenochtitlan in 1325, the rulers from Acamapichtli through Itzcoatl, Moctezuma I, Ahuitzotl and Moctezuma II, the Great Temple with its twin shrines to Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, chinampa farming, the Tlatelolco market and its cacao-bean prices, the pochteca merchants, the 260-day and 365-day calendars and the New Fire ceremony, the writing system, featherwork, poetry, and the debate over human sacrifice. Later rounds turn to Cortés, Tlaxcala, smallpox, the fall of the city on 13 August 1521, Cuauhtémoc's death, and how the eagle ended up on Mexico's flag and 'chocolate' and 'avocado' in every language. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Maya, Inca, Mexico and Spanish conquistadors quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which modern metropolis stands on the ruins of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan?
Mexico City
The Spanish founded it on the site after the city fell in 1521.
Q 02On which body of water was Tenochtitlan built?
Lake Texcoco
The city rose on unpromising swampy islets and grew to perhaps 200,000 people.
Q 03What did the people usually called Aztecs call themselves?
Mexica
Their god Huitzilopochtli told them on the migration that they were no longer Azteca.
Q 04The word 'Aztec' means 'people from' which mythical place?
Aztlan
It was a legendary homeland to the north claimed by several central Mexican peoples.
Q 05Which language did the Aztecs speak?
Nahuatl
About 1.5 million people still speak it today, mostly in central Mexico's mountains.
Q 06Who first used 'Aztec' in its modern sense in 1810?
Alexander von Humboldt
Prescott's 1843 history of the conquest spread the term worldwide.
Q 07According to legend, what vision showed the wandering tribe where to found their city?
An eagle on a cactus eating a snake
The image is now Mexico's national coat of arms.
Q 08In what year is Tenochtitlan usually said to have been founded?
1325
The royal dynasty followed in 1376 with the election of Acamapichtli.
Q 09Who was elected the first ruler of the Tenochtitlan royal dynasty in 1376?
Acamapichtli
For its first fifty years the dynasty paid tribute to the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco.
Q 10The Aztec Empire was a Triple Alliance formed in 1427 between Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and which city?
Tlacopan
The three joined to defeat the Tepanec state of Azcapotzalco, which had dominated the valley.
Q 11Which ruler of Tenochtitlan forged the Triple Alliance and defeated Azcapotzalco?
Itzcoatl
He then conquered the chinampa cities of the southern lake, including Xochimilco.
Q 12Which Texcocan ruler, remembered as a poet, allied with Tenochtitlan against Azcapotzalco?
Nezahualcoyotl
Poems are attributed to him, though whether he really wrote them is debated.
Q 13What title did the Aztec emperor hold?
Huey Tlatoani
It means 'Great Speaker'; the second-ranking office was the Cihuacoatl.
Which state defeated Axayacatl's army in 1478-79 and was never conquered by the Aztecs?
Q 21What did the Aztecs fear might devour the earth during the New Fire Ceremony's fireless night?
Star demons called tzitzimimeh
The fear was that the fifth sun, the current age, would end.
Q 22According to the Legend of the Suns, which sun or age were the Aztecs living in?
The fifth
Each earlier age had ended in cataclysm as Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl destroyed each other's creations.
Q 23What were chinampas?
Artificial farming islands built in the lake
The raised beds yielded on average seven crops a year and were tended by canoe.
The Tarascans
The Purépecha of Michoacán also supplied the Aztecs with bronze tools through trade.
Q 15How many prisoners were reportedly sacrificed at the Great Temple's 1487 rededication, a figure scholars doubt?
80,400
Ahuitzotl invited subject rulers to watch; not enough skulls have ever been found to support even conservative counts.
Q 16The two shrines atop the Great Temple were dedicated to the rain god Tlaloc and which other deity?
Huitzilopochtli
One represented the Hill of Sustenance, the other Coatepec, the Serpent Mountain.
Q 17Tezcatlipoca was the deity of what?
Night, magic, prophecy and fate
The four principal gods were Tlaloc, Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca.
Q 18Quetzalcoatl was the deity of what?
Wind, sky and stars
His name means 'feathered serpent'; Tezcatlipoca was his mythic adversary.
Q 19How many days were in the Aztec ritual calendar, the tonalpohualli?
260
It combined 20 day-signs with the numbers 1 to 13 and was used mainly for divination.
Q 20How often did the two Aztec calendars realign, prompting the New Fire Ceremony?
Every 52 years
All fires were put out, pottery smashed, and a new fire drilled on the breast of a sacrificial victim.
Q 24What was used as money for small purchases in Aztec markets?
Cacao beans
A small rabbit cost 30 beans, a turkey egg three, and a tamal just one; cotton cloths served for big buys.
Q 25Cortés reported that the great market of which city was visited by 60,000 people a day?
Tlatelolco
Tenochtitlan's sister city on the northern part of the island had been conquered by Axayacatl.
Q 26Who were the pochteca?
Long-distance merchant guilds
They also served as judges and supervisors of the Tlatelolco market.
Q 27What were the Aztec nobility called?
Pipiltin
Nobles made up about five percent of the population; commoners were the macehualtin.
Q 28What did a commoner have to do to win privileges similar to a noble's?
Take captives in war
Each captive brought the right to new emblems, weapons and garments.
Q 29Which document lists subject towns alongside the goods they paid in tax?
Codex Mendoza
Its place-name glyphs also demonstrate the phonetic side of Aztec writing.
Q 30Which Franciscan friar compiled the bilingual Florentine Codex with Aztec informants?
Bernardino de Sahagún
It remains one of the richest sources on Aztec life, in Spanish and Nahuatl.