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50 free Baghdad trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Baghdad trivia quiz covers the Iraqi capital from al-Mansur's Round City of 762 to the metropolis of eight million on the Tigris today. The easy questions are ones any traveller or history reader can answer: the river, the caliphate that founded the city, the great library of the Islamic Golden Age, the collection of tales set at Harun al-Rashid's court, and the square where a statue came down in 2003. The harder end is for history and Middle East buffs: what the name Baghdad may mean, the astrologers who fixed the founding date, the gates of the Round City, the caliph who turned the House of Wisdom into a public academy, the Mongol prince who sacked the city in 1258, Timur's grim order in 1401, the Ottoman sultan who retook it in 1638, the pact signed there in 1955, the sculptor behind the split turquoise dome of the Martyr's Memorial, the tower with the revolving restaurant, and the street of bookshops named for a poet. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the city, its monuments and its rulers before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Iraq, Tehran and Ancient Mesopotamia quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which river does Baghdad stand?
Tigris
The river splits the city into Rusafa on the east bank and Karkh on the west.
Q 02Which caliph founded Baghdad in 762 AD?
Al-Mansur
He was the second caliph of his dynasty and named his new city Madinat as-Salam, the City of Peace.
Q 03Which caliphate made Baghdad its capital in the 8th century?
Abbasid
The Abbasids had overthrown the Umayyads, whose capital was Damascus.
Q 04What did the founding caliph officially name his new capital?
City of Peace
By the 11th century Baghdad had become almost the exclusive name for the metropolis.
Q 05What is the most favoured meaning of the pre-Islamic name Baghdad?
Bestowed by God
The name Mithridates, Given by Mithra, uses the same Persian element.
Q 06What shape was the original core city of 762?
A circle
The design echoed the Sasanian city of Gur rather than the grid plans of Greece and Rome.
Q 07Under which zodiac sign did the astrologers Naubakht and Mashallah time the founding?
Leo
Naubakht was a Zoroastrian and Mashallah a Jew from Khorasan.
Q 08Roughly how many workers built Baghdad between 764 and 768?
Over 100,000
The bricks were 18 inches square and their production was supervised by the jurist Abu Hanifa.
Q 09Which four destinations gave their names to the Round City's gates?
Kufa, Basra, Khurasan and Syria
The caliph's Golden Gate Palace at the centre had a 48-metre green dome.
Q 10Which great library and academy made Baghdad the 'Center of Learning'?
House of Wisdom
Scholars there included the mathematician al-Khwarizmi and the philosopher al-Kindi.
Q 11Which caliph turned Baghdad's great library into a public academy in the 9th century?
Al-Ma'mun
Al-Ma'mun championed the rationalist Mu'tazili theology and imprisoned Ahmad ibn Hanbal for opposing it.
Q 12Which collection of tales is largely set in medieval Baghdad?
One Thousand and One Nights
Professional storytellers called al-Qaskhun entertained crowds in the streets.
Q 13Which caliph, a character in the Arabian Nights, exchanged gifts with Charlemagne?
Harun al-Rashid
He was the fifth Abbasid caliph, ruling from 786 to 809.
Q 21Which Persian dynasty took Baghdad in 1509 under Shah Ismail I?
Safavid
Ottoman-Safavid enmity kept the city changing hands through the 17th century.
Q 22Which Ottoman governor began Baghdad's Tanzimat-era reforms in 1869?
Midhat Pasha
The city's municipality had been established a year earlier, with Ibrahim al-Daftari as first mayor.
Q 23Roughly what share of Baghdad's population was Jewish by 1900?
Over a quarter
The 1941 Farhud pogrom killed more than 180 Jews and most of the community left by the early 1950s.
Q 14Which Chinese city did Baghdad rival as the world's largest in its golden age?
Chang'an
By the 930s it was tied with Córdoba as the largest city on Earth.
Q 15To which city did the caliphs twice move their capital from Baghdad in the 9th century?
Samarra
Domination by the Buyids and then the Seljuks followed in the 10th and 11th centuries.
Q 16Which Seljuk leader took over Baghdad in 1055?
Tughril Beg
The Seljuks ruled as sultans in the name of the Abbasid caliphs, whom they claimed to protect.
Q 17Which Mongol prince captured Baghdad in February 1258?
Hulegu
The sack ended the Abbasid Caliphate and, many argue, the Islamic Golden Age.
Q 18Which caliph was killed when the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258?
Al-Musta'sim
He was executed with his whole family and court on 20 February, after Hulegu had moved camp to escape the stench.
Q 19What did Timur order each of his soldiers to bring back after taking Baghdad in 1401?
Two severed human heads
Timur had marched from Shiraz to Baghdad in only eight days in 1393.
Q 20Which Ottoman sultan recaptured Baghdad from the Safavids in 1638?
Murad IV
The city had first fallen to the Ottomans in 1534 and became the capital of Ottoman Iraq.
Q 24Which city was the western terminus of the railway begun towards Baghdad in 1903?
Berlin
The first train from Istanbul did not reach Baghdad until 1940.
Q 25In which year did the British capture Baghdad from the Ottomans?
1917
Baghdad became the capital of the British-protected monarchy in 1921 and of an independent Iraq in 1932.
Q 26Which 1955 Cold War alliance was named after the city where it was signed?
Baghdad Pact
It was later renamed CENTO after Iraq withdrew following the 1958 revolution.
Q 27Whose 1957 plan for Baghdad included a cultural island and a 300-foot caliph statue?
Frank Lloyd Wright
Le Corbusier's Baghdad gymnasium is another modernist relic of the same era.
Q 28Where in Baghdad was Saddam Hussein's statue toppled in April 2003?
Firdos Square
A green abstract sculpture by Bassem Hamad al-Dawiri was commissioned to replace it.
Q 29What is the official name of Baghdad's Victory Arch, the pair of crossed blades?
Swords of Qadisiyah
They opened in August 1989 to mark the Iran-Iraq War.
Q 30Which colour is the 40-metre split dome of Baghdad's Al-Shaheed Monument?
Turquoise
Sculptor Ismail Fatah al-Turk designed it to honour the dead of the Iran-Iraq War; it opened in 1983.