Ethiopia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
100 free Ethiopia trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Ethiopia trivia quiz covers the ancient, never-colonised country at the heart of the Horn of Africa: Lucy and the birth of humanity, the Kingdom of Aksum and its obelisks, the rock churches of Lalibela, the Solomonic emperors, the victory at Adwa, Haile Selassie and the Rastafari, the Derg, the famine of the 1980s and today's Africa-leading airline and giant Nile dam. It also gets to the table and the track: coffee, injera and berbere, and the barefoot marathoner Abebe Bikila. The first questions suit anyone who has eaten with their right hand off a shared injera; the last ones test people who know why the Ethiopian year is seven years behind and what the Ge'ez script is. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ethiopia lies in which region of the continent?
The Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is named for the horn-like shape in which the region juts out from the continent toward Arabia; Ethiopia makes up the largest part of it.
Q 02Along with Liberia, Ethiopia is described as the only African country never to have been what?
Fully colonised
Fully colonised is the usual wording because Italy occupied Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 but never controlled the whole country, where the Arbegnoch, or 'Patriots', kept up a guerrilla war.
Q 03At which 1896 battle did Ethiopian forces under Menelik II defeat an Italian invasion?
Adwa
Adwa, fought on 1 March 1896, forced Italy to recognise Ethiopia's independence in the Treaty of Addis Ababa; the anniversary is still a public holiday, Adwa Victory Day.
Q 04The 3.2-million-year-old hominin skeleton found in Ethiopia's Afar region in 1974 is known as what?
Lucy
Lucy got her name from the Beatles' 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', played over and over in camp the night she was found; Ethiopians call her Dinknesh, 'you are marvellous'.
Q 05Ethiopia was long known to the outside world by which other name?
Abyssinia
Abyssinia was the usual name for Ethiopia in Europe, which is why the 1935 dispute that led to Italy's invasion is still known as the Abyssinia Crisis.
Q 06Ethiopia's calendar has which unusual feature?
Thirteenth month
A thirteenth month of just five or six days follows twelve months of exactly 30, which is why Ethiopia's tourist board long promised visitors 'Thirteen Months of Sunshine'.
Q 07Ethiopia's year count runs seven to eight years behind the West's because its church dated which event differently?
The Annunciation
The Annunciation was dated later by the Alexandrian monk Annianus than by Dionysius Exiguus, whose reckoning Europe adopted; that is why Ethiopia celebrated its new millennium in 2007, years after most of the world.
Q 08Enkutatash, celebrated in Ethiopia each September, marks which occasion?
New Year's Day
New Year's Day falls on 11 September, or 12 September before a leap year, in Ethiopia's calendar; girls in new clothes go from door to door singing and handing out bunches of yellow daisies.
Q 09Emperor Haile Selassie is revered as a central figure by which religion that arose in the Caribbean?
Rastafari
Rastafari takes its name from Ras Tafari, the title and name he bore before his coronation in 1930; believers in Jamaica read his crowning as the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy.
Q 10Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974 by which Soviet-backed military junta?
The Derg
The Derg, Amharic for 'committee', began as a council of junior officers and enlisted men airing army grievances; under Mengistu Haile Mariam it ruled until 1991, through civil war and the Red Terror.
Q 11The eleven monolithic churches of Lalibela were carved to recreate which holy city?
Jerusalem
Jerusalem had fallen to Saladin in 1187, and a vision is said to have inspired King Lalibela to build a new one at home; the stream running through the site is still called the Jordan.
Q 12The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Aksum claims to hold which biblical relic?
The Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant is said to rest in a chapel beside the church, where only a single guardian monk may look at it; tradition says Menelik I, the first emperor, brought it to Ethiopia.
Q 13Ethiopia's emperors, down to Haile Selassie, claimed descent from the son of which legendary queen?
The Queen of Sheba
Q 21Dallol in the Danakil Depression holds which climate record?
Highest average annual temperature
Highest average annual temperature for an inhabited place: readings taken from 1960 to 1966 averaged about 34 °C, and the former mining settlement is now a ghost town.
Q 22Which Ethiopian runner won the 1960 Olympic marathon barefoot?
Abebe Bikila
Abebe Bikila ran barefoot because his new shoes did not fit comfortably; four years later in Tokyo, wearing shoes and only weeks after an appendectomy, he won again.
Q 23Which Ethiopian edged Paul Tergat for the 2000 Olympic 10,000 metres title?
Haile Gebrselassie
The Queen of Sheba, called Makeda in Ethiopia's national epic, the Kebra Nagast, is said to have borne King Solomon a son, Menelik I, whom tradition counts as the first emperor.
Q 14Ethiopia's Aksum adopted Christianity in the 4th century, a few decades after which country became the first Christian state?
Armenia
Armenia's King Tiridates III converted around 301 by the traditional date; Aksum's King Ezana followed, and his coins swapped the old disc and crescent for a cross.
Q 15The 24-metre Obelisk of Axum was looted by Mussolini's Italy and erected in which city in 1937?
Rome
Rome kept the obelisk near the Circus Maximus for almost seven decades despite a 1947 UN agreement to return it; it finally flew home in three pieces in 2005.
Q 16Ethiopia, home to more than 130 million people, is the world's most populous what?
Landlocked country
Landlocked country: Ethiopia lost its Red Sea coast in 1993 and now relies on the port of neighbouring Djibouti for its foreign trade.
Q 17Ethiopia lost its coastline when which country became independent in 1993?
Eritrea
Haile Selassie had annexed the territory in 1962, triggering a 30-year war.
Q 18Lake Tana in northern Ethiopia is the source of which river?
The Blue Nile
The Blue Nile is the shorter of the Nile's two branches, yet it delivers more than half of the water that reaches Egypt, most of it in a summer flood fed by Ethiopia's rains.
Q 19The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam holds what distinction?
Largest hydroelectric plant in Africa
Largest hydroelectric plant in Africa at 5.15 gigawatts, the dam was financed at home, through bonds and contributions from Ethiopians' salaries, and was formally inaugurated in September 2025.
Q 20Which peak in the northern highlands is Ethiopia's highest mountain?
Ras Dashen
Ras Dashen rises to about 4,550 metres, the top of highlands so lofty and so vast that they are nicknamed the Roof of Africa.
Haile Gebrselassie set 27 world records; as a boy he ran ten kilometres to school and back each day, which left him racing with his left arm crooked as if still carrying his books.
Q 24The staple flatbread on which Ethiopian stews are served is made from which grain?
Teff
Teff flour is fermented for a few days with a starter saved from the previous batch, and that fermentation gives injera its sour tang and spongy texture.
Q 25Ethiopians traditionally eat using what?
The right hand
The right hand tears off pieces of injera to scoop up stews from a shared platter; using the left is considered disrespectful.
Q 26Which continental body, once the OAU, is based in Addis Ababa?
The African Union
The African Union replaced the Organisation of African Unity in 2002 and kept its seat; its 100-metre headquarters tower, opened in 2012, was built and paid for by China as a gift.
Q 27Ethiopia's flag is a green, yellow and red tricolour bearing what emblem?
A golden star on a blue disc
A golden star on a blue disc was added in 1996; the emblem is said to stand for the unity and equality of Ethiopia's many peoples and faiths.
Q 28Amharic, the working language of Ethiopia's federal government, is written in which script?
Ge'ez script
Ge'ez script has outlived the language it was made for: Ge'ez itself survives only in church liturgy, while its syllable signs now write Amharic and Tigrinya.
Q 29The four largest of Ethiopia's many ethnic groups are the Amhara, Somali, Tigrayans and which other?
Oromo
Oromo are the largest group of all, about a third of the population; their traditional gadaa system, which hands power to a new age-set every eight years, is on UNESCO's heritage list.
Q 30Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize chiefly for making peace with which neighbour?
Eritrea
His historic 2018 visit ended two decades of frozen conflict, though war in Tigray followed in 2020.