Chengdu
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40 free Chengdu trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Chengdu is one of China's oldest cities and one of its most relaxed. The capital of Sichuan is known for giant pandas, tongue-tingling food and teahouses where an afternoon can disappear, yet it is also a fast-growing tech and transport hub of more than 20 million people. These fun facts about Chengdu are written as quiz questions. They cover the dishes the city gave the world, the poets and strategists who lived there, the ancient engineering that still waters its plain, wartime history, and the pop culture, sport and science fiction that come out of the city today. The quiz is pitched for curious travellers, students of China and anyone planning a trip to see the pandas. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn the story behind the fact.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Jiaozi, first issued in Song-dynasty Chengdu, are regarded as the world's earliest what?
Paper money
Paper money grew out of notes issued by Sichuan merchant houses, and when several of them went bankrupt the Song government took over the printing in 1023.
Q 02Sichuan opera, a staple of Chengdu teahouses, is famous for bian lian, the instant changing of what?
Masks
Masks vanish with the swipe of a fan or a turn of the head, a secret that performers traditionally passed down only within their own families.
Q 03Chengdu's New Century Global Center, one of Earth's largest structures, houses which indoor attraction?
An artificial beach
An artificial beach of 5,000 square metres sits inside the water park, facing a 150-metre screen that plays sunrises and sunsets along a fake horizon.
Q 04Chengdu has one of China's lowest yearly totals of what, getting less than much of Northern Europe?
Sunshine
Sunshine reaches Chengdu for only about 1,000 hours a year, because the mountains ringing the Sichuan Basin hold fog and haze over the city.
Q 05Which fiery Chengdu dish is named after the pockmarked old woman said to have created it?
Mapo tofu
Mapo tofu joins 'ma', for pockmarks, with 'po', for an old woman, and records tie the dish to the Chen family's eatery beside a Chengdu bridge.
Q 06Besides tea and massage, which grooming service do Chengdu's teahouses famously offer at the table?
Ear cleaning
Ear cleaning is offered right at the table in Chengdu's teahouses, where regulars settle into bamboo chairs over jasmine tea for hours.
Q 07Which Chinese novel was first serialised in Chengdu's Science Fiction World magazine in 2006?
The Three-Body Problem
The Three-Body Problem ran in the monthly in 2006, two years before it came out as a book, and the magazine has been based in Chengdu since 1979.
Q 08The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding began in 1987 with six pandas obtained in which way?
Rescued from the wild
Rescued from the wild, the six founders started a breeding programme that had recorded 124 panda births by 2008.
Q 09Which Nationalist leader flew from Chengdu to Taiwan in December 1949 as Communist troops closed in?
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek had directed the defence from a military academy in Chengdu, the last major mainland city his government held, before leaving with his son.
Q 10Chengdu's cooking relies on chilli peppers, which reached China only in the 1500s and are native to where?
The Americas
The Americas are the chilli's home, so the heat now tied to Sichuan cooking is a late arrival, while the tingling Sichuan peppercorn had been used there for centuries.
Q 11Which tile game fills Chengdu's teahouses and sunny pavements, played by simpler rules than in Canton?
Mahjong
Mahjong is so woven into Chengdu life that business deals are often negotiated over the tiles.
Q 12Which medieval traveller wrote about a Chengdu bridge that stood where the covered Anshun Bridge is today?
Marco Polo
Marco Polo described an earlier bridge on the site; floods destroyed several successors, and the covered span finished in 2003 holds a large restaurant.
Q 13A giant Cultural Revolution-era statue of which leader overlooks Tianfu Square in central Chengdu?
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong's statue went up around 1968, when the last buildings of a Ming princely palace on the site were torn down to make way for an exhibition hall.
Q 21Chengdu's nickname Rongcheng recalls which flower, planted along the city walls by a 10th-century king?
Hibiscus
Hibiscus was planted on the walls by order of Meng Chang, last king of Later Shu, and the nickname lives on in the name of the football club Chengdu Rongcheng.
Q 22Chengdu is often called the only major Chinese city to have kept which thing unchanged for over 2,000 years?
Its name
Its name is attested as far back as the Warring States period, though the meaning is unclear; one old tale reads the two characters as 'become a capital'.
Q 23The Sun and Immortal Birds ornament, found at Chengdu's Jinsha site in 2001 and now the city's logo, is made of what?
Gold
Q 14Which neighbouring megacity was governed from Chengdu as part of Sichuan until it was split off in 1997?
Chongqing
Chongqing became a municipality answering directly to the central government, a change meant to speed the development of China's poorer western regions.
Q 15UNESCO's Creative Cities Network lists Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, as a City of which creative field?
Gastronomy
Gastronomy won Chengdu the title for a food culture built on chillies and tingling peppercorns, served everywhere from street stalls to hot pot halls.
Q 16Sichuan pepper, which gives Chengdu food its tingle, is not a true pepper but shares a plant family with which fruits?
Citrus
Citrus plants share the rue family with Sichuan pepper, whose husks carry a compound that makes the lips buzz and go numb rather than burn.
Q 17Which peanut-studded stir-fry is believed to be named after Ding Baozhen, a 19th-century governor of Sichuan?
Kung Pao chicken
Kung Pao chicken borrows his court title, Gongbao, which is why the dish was renamed during the Cultural Revolution to cut its link with the imperial system.
Q 18Dan dan noodles, a Chengdu street-food classic, take their name from which item used by the vendors who sold them?
A carrying pole
A carrying pole rested on the vendor's shoulder, with baskets of noodles and sauce hanging from either end.
Q 19Fuqi feipian, a cold Chengdu dish of thinly sliced beef and offal, is named after which pair who sold it?
A husband and wife
A husband and wife, Guo Zhaohua and Zhang Tianzheng, made the dish famous in the 1930s, and despite the 'lung' in its name it rarely contains any.
Q 20Which Tang dynasty poet wrote some 240 poems while living in a thatched cottage beside a Chengdu stream?
Du Fu
Du Fu arrived in 759 as a refugee from rebellion in the north, and the site of his hut is now a 24-acre park and museum.
Gold foil, beaten wafer-thin some 3,000 years ago, forms a ring of four birds circling a sun, a design also used as the symbol of China's cultural heritage.
Q 24Chengdu's Wuhou Shrine honours which chancellor of Shu Han, a byword in China for brilliant strategy?
Zhuge Liang
Zhuge Liang's temple stands beside the tomb of the emperor he served, so ruler and minister are honoured in one shrine, a rarity in China.
Q 25Which warlord, a hero of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, ruled the state of Shu Han from Chengdu as its first emperor?
Liu Bei
Liu Bei declared himself emperor in 221, saying he meant to keep the Han dynasty's line alive, and his tomb still lies in Chengdu.
Q 26Which irrigation system near Chengdu, built around 256 BC and still in use, controls the Min River without a dam?
Dujiangyan
Dujiangyan splits the river with a levee and a channel cut through a mountain; a dam was ruled out because Qin wanted the waterway kept open for its military boats.
Q 27The J-20 'Mighty Dragon', developed by Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, is which type of military aircraft?
A stealth fighter
A stealth fighter built in Chengdu, the J-20 entered service in 2017 and made China the second country to field an operational stealth aircraft.
Q 28The Chengdu Hunters esports team played from 2019 to 2022 in the professional league of which video game?
Overwatch
Overwatch's city-based league brought in the Hunters among eight expansion teams for 2019, as one of four Chinese sides in the competition.
Q 29Chengdu hosted Worldcon in October 2023, the convention whose members vote for which science fiction prizes?
The Hugo Awards
The Hugo Awards came to Chengdu after the city beat Winnipeg in the 2021 vote on where to hold the convention's 81st edition.
Q 30China ordered the US consulate in Chengdu to close in 2020 after Washington shut the Chinese consulate in which city?
Houston
Houston's closure was answered within days, ending a US mission that had operated in Chengdu since 1985.