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50 free Emerald trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This emerald trivia quiz covers the green variety of beryl that has been prized for at least 4,000 years, from Cleopatra's Egyptian mines to the Colombian valleys that still supply most of the world's finest stones. The easy questions cover the colour, the birthstone month, the country most associated with the gem and the fictional city Dorothy walks to. From there the quiz moves through the mineralogy: the trace elements that make it green, its Mohs hardness, why almost every stone is oiled, the mossy inclusions dealers call jardin and the rectangular cut named after it. The hard end covers the mining districts of Muzo, Coscuez and Chivor, the trapiche stones with spoke-like patterns, Zambia's Kagem mines, the synthetic emeralds of Chatham and Gilson, and the famous individual stones: the 752-pound Bahia Emerald and its ownership saga, the Chalk Emerald in the Smithsonian, the Mogul Mughal Emerald with its Shi'a inscription and the Duke of Devonshire's uncut giant. A few questions cover the emerald in culture, from Ireland's nickname to Seattle's. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for emerald, beryl, Colombian emeralds and the named stones before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our ruby and gemstone quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Emerald is a green variety of which mineral?
Beryl
The same mineral yields blue, pink and yellow gems when other trace elements are present.
Q 02Trace amounts of which element are most often responsible for an emerald's green colour?
Chromium
Vanadium can also do the job, and iron shifts the hue toward blue or yellow.
Q 03Emerald is the traditional birthstone for which month?
May
Alchemical lore also claimed the stone counteracted poison and would blind a venomous animal that looked at it.
Q 04Which zodiac sign is emerald traditionally associated with?
Taurus
Older lore also credited the stone with curing epilepsy and strengthening memory.
Q 05What is the hardness of emerald on the Mohs scale?
7.5 to 8
Despite that hardness, most emeralds are so full of inclusions that their toughness is rated poor.
Q 06Which country is historically the world's largest producer of emeralds?
Colombia
Its classic mining districts produce stones prized above all for their intense colour.
Q 07Which African country is the world's second-biggest emerald producer?
Zambia
Its Kagem mines near Kitwe supplied about a fifth of gem-quality output in 2004, with stones that tend to be cleaner and bluer than Colombian ones.
Q 08The word emerald ultimately derives from a Greek word meaning what?
Green gem
Smaragdos passed through Latin smaragdus and Old French esmeraude before reaching English in the 14th century.
Q 09What French word, meaning garden, do gemologists use for the mossy inclusions inside an emerald?
Jardin
Because each stone's inclusions are unique, they can be used to identify a particular emerald.
Q 10What substance is traditionally used to fill surface cracks in emeralds to improve their clarity?
Cedar oil
Its refractive index is close to that of the stone, and US law requires the treatment to be disclosed at sale.
Q 11Unlike diamonds, at what magnification are emeralds graded for clarity?
By eye
An emerald with no inclusions visible to the naked eye is considered flawless.
Q 12What is the shape of the signature 'emerald cut'?
Rectangular step cut
Ovals are also common, and heavily included stones are often cut as cabochons instead.
Q 13Emeralds were mined in antiquity in which country, at Mount Smaragdus, from around 1500 BC?
Egypt
Rome and Byzantium worked those mines on an industrial scale; they were abandoned once the South American deposits were found.
Q 21The Bahia Emerald, containing the largest single crystal ever found, weighs about how much?
752 lb
The 341 kg schist-embedded stone survived Hurricane Katrina in a New Orleans warehouse and years of ownership lawsuits.
Q 22The Bahia Emerald was reported stolen in 2008 from a vault in which US state?
California
It was later located and a Los Angeles judge spent years sorting out competing ownership claims.
Q 23The 37.82-carat Chalk Emerald ring, recut by Harry Winston, is on display at which institution?
The Smithsonian
Clair Chalk reportedly turned the ring inward at a White House dinner so as not to upstage Queen Elizabeth II's smaller emerald.
Q 14Which Egyptian queen was said to be particularly fond of emeralds?
Cleopatra
Ancient owners believed the stones sharpened intelligence, protected marriages and let their wearer see the future.
Q 15Which of these is one of the three main emerald mining areas in the world's top-producing country?
Muzo
Coscuez and Chivor are the other two, and chemical analysis can now tell stones from each apart.
Q 16What name is given to rare Colombian emeralds with ray-like spokes of dark impurities?
Trapiche emerald
The name comes from the grinding wheel used to process sugarcane in the region.
Q 17In which type of rock are Colombian emeralds primarily found?
Black shale
Hydrothermal brines reacting with organic matter in the sedimentary rock supplied the colouring trace elements.
Q 18In Muisca legend, emeralds formed from the tears of which figure, now a peak guarding the emerald zone?
Fura
She and Tena lost their immortality when she was unfaithful, and the god Are turned them into crags.
Q 19Roughly what share of the world's emerald market is the top-producing country estimated to supply?
70-90%
Fine Colombian stones over 50 carats can cost far more than diamonds of the same size.
Q 20How long did it take Spain to overpower the Muzo people and seize their emerald lands?
Five decades
The Spanish then forced the Muzo to work the fields they had mined for centuries.
Q 24How many pear-shaped diamonds surround the Chalk Emerald in its Harry Winston setting?
Sixty
They total 15.62 carats around a stone that once centred a Maharani's necklace.
Q 25The Mogul Mughal Emerald is engraved with invocations from which branch of Islam?
Shi'a
Since the Mughal emperors were Sunni, it probably belonged to a courtier rather than to Aurangzeb himself.
Q 26The Mogul Mughal Emerald is held by a museum in which city?
Doha
Christie's sold the 217.80-carat stone in 2001 for over 1.5 million pounds.
Q 27Which ruler gave the Duke of Devonshire his namesake emerald in 1831?
Emperor Pedro I of Brazil
The 1,383.93-carat stone was shown at the 1851 Great Exhibition and now sits in London's Natural History Museum.
Q 28In L. Frank Baum's original 1900 novel, why did everything in the Emerald City look green?
Everyone had to wear tinted spectacles
The Wizard's 'humbug' meant the city was no greener than any other.
Q 29Which US city has used 'The Emerald City' as its official nickname since 1982?
Seattle
That is 80 years after Baum's book, so the fictional city cannot have been named for it.
Q 30Which country is nicknamed the Emerald Isle, from a poem by William Drennan?
Ireland
The poem was 'When Erin First Rose'; Montserrat and Kodiak Island share the nickname.