Christ the Redeemer Trivia
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59 free Christ the Redeemer trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Christ the Redeemer trivia quiz covers the open-armed statue above Rio de Janeiro from a priest's proposal in the 1850s to the restorations of the 21st century. The easy questions are ones any traveller can attempt: which city and country it watches over, which mountain it stands on, what it is made of, how tall it is and which famous list of seven it joined in 2007. From there it moves into how it was built: the Catholic Circle's Monument Week, the rejected globe-and-cross design, the French sculptor, the Brazilian engineer, the Romanian who carved the face and the Frenchman who made the concrete work. The harder end is for Rio regulars and engineering buffs: the concrete shipped from Sweden, the cost in 1931 dollars, Marconi's radio switch, the rack railway that Dom Pedro II opened in 1884, the 223 steps, the chapel under the statue, the 2008 and 2014 lightning strikes, the 60,000 replacement stones, the paint-sprayed arm, the Ronaldo tyre advert and the family of Christ statues from Cochabamba to Almada and the Ozarks that it inspired. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the statue, its makers and its setting before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Brazil, world landmarks and Seven Wonders quizzes next.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does Corcovado, the name of the statue's mountain, mean in Portuguese?
Hunchback
Corcovado means 'hunchback' in Portuguese, from the peak's humped granite profile as seen from the city below.
Q 02In which artistic style is Christ the Redeemer built?
Art Deco
Art Deco was the height of fashion when the statue was designed in the 1920s; the style takes its name from a 1925 Paris exhibition of modern decorative arts.
Q 03Which famous figure, about 46 metres tall without its pedestal, stands half as tall again as Christ the Redeemer?
The Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty rises about 46 metres from base to torch, against 30 for the Redeemer, yet weighs less than half as much: its skin is copper sheet only as thick as two pennies, hung on a metal frame.
Q 04Christ the Redeemer is 30 metres tall; its outstretched arms span about the length of which of these?
A basketball court
A basketball court is about 28 metres long, the same as the statue from fingertip to fingertip; arms that wide needed an immensely strong frame, so its Brazilian designer travelled to Europe to enlist a leading French engineer.
Q 05What two materials is the statue made of?
Reinforced concrete and soapstone
Reinforced concrete and soapstone: the engineer thought bare concrete too crude, so the figure was skinned in small soapstone tiles, a stone that is easy to cut yet weathers well.
Q 06Which direction does the statue face?
East
East: its designer wanted the figure to face the rising sun, so that it would be the first thing in the city to catch the light each morning.
Q 07Who is allowed to climb the stairs inside Christ the Redeemer?
Only maintenance workers
Only maintenance workers may go in: stairs climb through the hollow body, and hatches in the shoulders and head let crews out to inspect the surface.
Q 08Before Corcovado was chosen, which Rio landmark was first proposed as the site for the Christ monument?
Sugarloaf Mountain
Sugarloaf Mountain was the first idea, for a bronze Christ at the mouth of the bay, but the organisers switched to Corcovado, the higher peak behind the city.
Q 09When Christ the Redeemer was dedicated in 1931, what was Rio's status in Brazil?
The national capital
The national capital: Rio held that role until Brasília replaced it in 1960, and Brazil's head of government stood beside Rio's archbishop at the statue's dedication.
Q 10Which French sculptor made the four-metre model from which Christ the Redeemer was scaled up?
Paul Landowski
Paul Landowski made the model in his studio at Boulogne, in France; full-size sections were then shipped to Rio and reproduced in concrete.
Q 11Which Brazilian engineer designed and built the monument after winning the design competition?
Heitor da Silva Costa
Heitor da Silva Costa won the competition, then spent years in Europe from 1924 settling the final design with a French sculptor and engineer before building it.
Q 12A sculptor from which country is credited with modelling Christ the Redeemer's face?
Romania
Romania's Gheorghe Leonida had moved to France when the statue's sculptor hired him to model the face; he died in 1942 after falling from his roof while picking linden flowers.
Q 13Who glued Christ the Redeemer's small mosaic tiles onto strips of cloth before they were fixed to the figure?
Women volunteers
Q 21Which skydiver parachuted from the arm of Christ the Redeemer in 1999?
Felix Baumgartner
Felix Baumgartner hid at the statue's base overnight, shot a line over its right arm with a crossbow before dawn, climbed out to the hand and jumped, steering down to a waiting getaway car.
Q 22What natural hazard had cracked pieces off Christ the Redeemer's head and eyebrows before its 2010 restoration?
Lightning
Lightning hits the statue several times a year, mostly at its extremities, so a conductor runs over the head like a crown of thorns and out along each arm.
Q 23What did vandals do to the statue during its 2010 renovation?
Sprayed paint along the arm
Women volunteers in Rio stuck the tiny stone triangles onto cloth, and some wrote wishes or sweethearts' names on the backs, which are still sealed inside the statue's skin.
Q 14Who first suggested a monument on Corcovado, back in the 1850s?
A Catholic priest
A Catholic priest, the Vincentian Pedro Maria Boss, took the idea to Brazil's imperial family in the 1850s, but it went nowhere and lay dormant for more than sixty years.
Q 15Why was the 1850s proposal for a monument on Corcovado finally dropped after 1889?
The new republic separated church and state
The new republic separated church and state, which ruled out a state-backed religious monument; Rio's Catholics later revived the idea and paid for it themselves.
Q 16In the early 1920s, before Christ the Redeemer was built, what did the electrical company Westinghouse put up on top of Corcovado?
A radio tower
A radio tower stood on the peak while the statue's engineer was rethinking his design, and the figure he settled on, like the tower, took the shape of a cross.
Q 17What was Christ holding in early designs?
A globe in one hand and a cross in the other
The first design showed Christ holding a globe in one hand and a cross in the other, but the open-armed figure, read as a symbol of peace, was chosen instead.
Q 18From which country was the concrete for the base supplied?
Sweden
The concrete for the base was shipped from Limhamn, the cement-making district of Malmö in southern Sweden.
Q 19Which inventor was meant to switch on the statue's floodlights by radio from Rome at the 1931 opening?
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was to trigger the floodlights by a radio signal sent from Italy, but bad weather interfered and the lights were switched on at the site.
Q 20Which was the first reigning pope to visit Christ the Redeemer?
John Paul II
John Paul II came to the statue in July 1980 and blessed the city from it, on the first journey any reigning pope had made to Brazil; the monument was cleaned and repaired for the occasion.
Sprayed paint along the arm: with the statue under scaffolding and its access roads cut by landslides, graffiti writers reached the right arm in April 2010, and the city began cleaning it at once.
Q 24Which 2009 disaster film shows Christ the Redeemer crumbling as the world ends?
2012
2012, Roland Emmerich's end-of-the-world blockbuster, topples the statue in an earthquake; the director dropped a similar scene at Mecca's Kaaba for fear of a fatwa.
Q 25Why are replacement stones on the statue getting darker over time?
The original pale stone is running out
The original pale stone is running out: the architect who led the 2010 restoration said finding stone of the right colour was the hardest part of the job.
Q 26When Christ the Redeemer emerged from its 2010 restoration, it was lit green and yellow to mark what?
Brazil playing at the World Cup
Brazil playing at the World Cup: the statue came out of four months under scaffolding while the team was playing in South Africa, days before the Netherlands knocked them out.
Q 27Which footballer took Christ the Redeemer's place, arms outstretched, in a 1998 Pirelli tyre advert?
Ronaldo
Ronaldo stood in for the statue in the tyre maker's 'Power is nothing without control' campaign; Pirelli was then the shirt sponsor of Inter Milan, the club he had joined a year earlier.
Q 28Which of these was voted a New 7 Wonder of the World alongside Christ the Redeemer in 2007?
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu made the final seven in the 2007 public vote, while the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge and the Statue of Liberty were all finalists that missed out.
Q 29The statue stands within which national park?
Tijuca
Tijuca National Park surrounds the peak; its forest is largely a 19th-century replanting, ordered after coffee farms stripped the hills and the city's water supply began to fail.
Q 30Which emperor opened the Corcovado Rack Railway in October 1884?
Pedro II
Pedro II opened the line in October 1884, which makes the railway 47 years older than the statue, and its trains later hauled the statue's pieces up the mountain.