Culture Trivia
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155 free Culture trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
99 free culture trivia questions with answers. Why is a kimono never worn right-over-left unless you are dead? Which number do East Asian buildings skip? Who chases a cheese down an English hill every spring? These culture trivia questions roam the world's customs: Diwali and Holi, Day of the Dead, Songkran and Loy Krathong, Oktoberfest, La Tomatina, Nowruz, Eid, Kwanzaa, Krampus and La Befana, along with dress (kimono, sari, kilt, hanbok), greetings (namaste, hongi, the samurai bow), art forms (flamenco, kabuki, capoeira, haka, throat singing) and everyday habits from chopsticks to hongbao envelopes. The set is built for pub quizzes, classrooms, and anyone who likes knowing why people do what they do. About a third of the questions are gentle, a third need some travel or reading, and the rest will stump most tables. Every answer is checked against a cited source shown under the question, so you can settle the argument with evidence rather than a listicle.
30 of 155 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Diwali is best known as the Hindu festival of what?
Lights
Lights: families set out rows of clay oil lamps called diyas, which in one tradition recall the lamps that welcomed Rama home to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile.
Q 02Which Hindu spring festival celebrates the love of Radha and Krishna with thrown coloured powders?
Holi
Holi, the festival of colours, opens with the Holika bonfire and recalls Vishnu's victory as Narasimha over the demon king Hiranyakashipu.
Q 03Which skeleton lady in a fancy hat, etched by José Guadalupe Posada, became an icon of Mexico's Day of the Dead?
La Catrina
La Catrina began as satire: Posada drew a skeleton in a fancy French-style hat to mock wealthy Mexicans who copied European fashions, and Diego Rivera later painted her full-length in a mural.
Q 04In the Hanukkah story, a one-day supply of what kept the Temple menorah burning for eight days?
Olive oil
Olive oil: the Talmud tells of one sealed jar keeping the Temple lamps lit for eight days after the Maccabees won it back, which is why Hanukkah foods such as latkes and doughnuts are fried in oil.
Q 05Chinese New Year celebrations end on the 15th day of the first lunar month with which festival?
The Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival falls on the year's first full moon; children carry paper lanterns through the streets at night and people try to solve riddles pasted on them.
Q 06Despite its name, Munich's Oktoberfest takes place mostly in which month?
September
September: the festival opens on a Saturday that month, when Munich's mayor taps the first keg and cries 'O'zapft is!', and it ends on the first Sunday in October.
Q 07La Tomatina, said to be the world's biggest food fight, is held in which Spanish town?
Buñol
Buñol, a town of about 9,000 people, was so overrun by tomato-throwers that since 2013 only ticket-holders, around 20,000 of them, may join in.
Q 08A kimono is worn left side over right, unless the wearer is what?
Deceased
Deceased: only the dead are dressed right side over left, for burial, so wrapping a kimono that way on the living is considered very bad luck.
Q 09Which garment is a single unstitched length of cloth, wrapped around the waist with one end draped over the shoulder?
Sari
The sari is usually five to seven yards long, though some run to nine; it is folded and tucked into a petticoat at the waist to form a long skirt and worn over a short blouse.
Q 10Scotland's modern kilt is essentially the lower half of which older garment?
The belted plaid
The belted plaid, or great kilt, was a full-length cloth whose top half served as a cloak; after the Jacobite rising, the Dress Act of 1746 outlawed both it and the small kilt as Highland dress.
Q 11What does the word 'hanbok' literally mean?
Korean clothing
Korean clothing: han is Korea and bok is clothing; once everyday wear, it is now kept mostly for weddings, holidays and family celebrations.
Q 12Flamenco developed within the gitano subculture of which Spanish region?
Andalusia
Andalusia is the heartland of flamenco, where Gitano (Roma) families shaped its song, dance and guitar and still hand it down through family dynasties.
Q 13Kabuki theatre, traditionally an all-male art, is thought to have been founded by whom?
A female dancer, Izumo no Okuni
A female dancer, Izumo no Okuni, began kabuki in Kyoto with a troupe of women; the shogunate later banned women from its stage, so men have played every role since.
Q 21A Latin American girl's coming-of-age celebration marks which birthday?
15th
The quinceañera marks a girl's 15th birthday; in one ritual her father swaps her flat shoes for her first high heels, a sign she is stepping into womanhood.
Q 22Japan's hanami custom is the enjoyment of what?
Cherry blossoms
Cherry blossoms last only a week or two, so forecasters track the 'cherry blossom front' as it moves north, from Kyushu in late March to Hokkaido in May.
Q 23Eid al-Fitr marks the end of what?
Ramadan's month of fasting
Ramadan's month of fasting ends with Eid al-Fitr, a day when fasting is in fact forbidden; before the morning prayer, Muslims give food or money to the poor so that everyone can celebrate.
Q 14Capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art, was classed as what under a Brazilian law of 1890?
A criminal activity
A criminal activity: Brazil's 1890 penal code punished practising capoeira in the street with prison, and the ban ended only in the Vargas era, after Mestre Bimba's school won it acceptance.
Q 15What is a Māori community's meeting ground, home to its carved meeting house, called?
Marae
A marae belongs to an iwi or hapū; visitors wait at its edge until a woman's call, the karanga, invites them on, and the pōwhiri welcome begins.
Q 16In medieval Japan, etiquette schools such as the Ogasawara taught which social class the proper way to bow?
The samurai
The samurai: the Ogasawara school taught warrior houses how to bow, alongside archery and mounted archery, and it still gives lessons in that etiquette today.
Q 17The Māori hongi greeting involves doing what?
Pressing noses together
The hongi is done by pressing noses together, often with foreheads touching, to share the breath of life; it is exchanged at pōwhiri welcome ceremonies.
Q 18What does the Sanskrit greeting namaste literally mean?
I bow to you
'I bow to you' joins the Sanskrit namas, a bow, and te, to you; for Hindi speakers today it is simply a polite hello, used most with elders and strangers.
Q 19The word 'sauna' comes from which language?
Finnish
Finnish gave English the word; the sauna was once the cleanest room on a Finnish farm, so women traditionally gave birth there.
Q 20Henna body art, or mehndi, uses a dye made from what?
Dried leaves of a shrub
Dried leaves of a shrub, the henna plant, are ground into a paste and painted on the skin, most famously on a bride's hands and feet before her wedding.
Q 24Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is timed to what?
The spring equinox
The spring equinox: Nowruz begins at the exact moment the equinox arrives, so families gather to await a time that changes every year.
Q 25Cinco de Mayo commemorates a Mexican victory over which country's army in 1862?
France
France: General Ignacio Zaragoza's outnumbered Mexican army beat the French at Puebla on 5 May 1862, but France came back a year later, won there and occupied Mexico City.
Q 26For roughly how long have chopsticks been used in the Sinosphere?
Over 3,000 years
Chopsticks have been used for over 3,000 years: bronze pairs from the Shang capital at Yinxu date to about 1200 BC. They began in China and spread to Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
Q 27What are the red envelopes of cash given at Chinese New Year called in Mandarin?
Hongbao
Hongbao is the Mandarin name, lai see the Cantonese and ang pau the Hokkien; elders give the envelopes to children, and they are red because the colour stands for good luck.
Q 28Boxing Day, 26 December, originated where?
The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom gave the day its name, most likely from the 'Christmas boxes' of money or gifts that tradespeople and servants collected the day after Christmas.
Q 29Guy Fawkes Night marks the foiling of a 1605 plot to blow up what?
The House of Lords
The Gunpowder Plot targeted the House of Lords at the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605; Fawkes was caught guarding the explosives beneath it.
Q 30Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by whom?
Maulana Karenga
Maulana Karenga, a Black nationalist professor, created Kwanzaa in 1966 after the Watts riots, building on African harvest-festival traditions; it runs December 26 to January 1.