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49 free Fjords trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This fjords trivia quiz covers the glacier-carved sea inlets that give Norway, New Zealand, Greenland, Chile, Alaska and Canada their most dramatic coastlines. The easier questions handle the basics: what a fjord actually is, which country has nearly 1,200 of them, the 'King of the Fjords', the cliff called Pulpit Rock and the New Zealand fiord Rudyard Kipling called the eighth wonder of the world. The harder end is for geography obsessives: the sill at a fjord's mouth and why it starves deep water of oxygen, the Antarctic inlet nearly two kilometres deep, the 420-kilometre fjord system in Canada's Arctic, the coral reefs found on Norwegian fjord floors in 2000, the Old Norse root shared with the Scots word firth, why the Bay of Kotor and the Oslofjord are not technically fjords at all, the glacier at Ilulissat that calves 20 billion tonnes of ice a year, and the German cruiser sunk in a fjord narrows in 1940. There are also questions on the Fjord horse, the Flåm railway, Hurtigruten and the waterfalls of Geiranger. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the fjords, regions and features involved before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our Norway, glaciers, New Zealand and national parks quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A fjord is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides created by what?
A former glacier
A former glacier carved the fjord: the ice gouged a deep trough that flooded with seawater when it retreated and sea levels rose.
Q 02Without its fjords, how long would Norway's roughly 29,000 km coastline be?
2,500 km
About 2,500 km is the figure once the nearly 1,200 fjords are excluded, against roughly 29,000 km with them, an extreme case of the coastline paradox.
Q 03What shape of valley does a glacier carve, which later becomes a fjord?
U-shaped
Rivers cut V-shaped valleys; the ice's abrasion and 'segregation' leaves the broad U with steep walls.
Q 04The rocky shoal at the mouth of most fjords, left where the glacier's erosion weakened, is called what?
A sill or threshold
A sill or threshold is the shallow rock bar at the mouth where the glacier's erosion weakened; water rushing over it can create violent currents, as at Norway's Saltstraumen.
Q 05The Bay of Kotor in Montenegro is often called a fjord but is actually what?
A ria, a drowned river valley
It is the flooded valley of the vanished Bokelj River; rias lack a fjord's glacial sill and overdeepening.
Q 06Which 19th-century Norwegian scientist first proposed that fjords were carved by glaciers?
Jens Esmark
Jens Esmark argued in 1824 that glaciers had carved Norway's fjords and valleys, and that much of Northern Europe had once lain under thick ice, an early ice-age theory.
Q 07What was discovered on the bottoms of Norwegian fjords in 2000?
Coral reefs
Coral reefs were found on the bottoms of Norwegian fjords in 2000; they host plankton, anemones, fish and several shark species, and Fiordland's fjords have deep-water corals unusually near the surface.
Q 08Which Alaskan fjord, a wilderness south of Juneau, ends at the Sawyer Glaciers?
Tracy Arm
Tracy Arm, within the Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness south of Juneau, is a roughly 48 km fjord ending at the tidewater North and South Sawyer Glaciers.
Q 09The spelling 'fiord' survives mainly in which country's English?
New Zealand
New Zealand keeps the 'fiord' spelling, hence Fiordland National Park in the South Island's southwest, while most other English-speaking countries write 'fjord'.
Q 10Which Irish town's name comes from Old Norse for 'inlet of the mud flats'?
Wexford
Wexford comes from Old Norse Veisafjǫrðr, 'inlet of the mud flats', a Viking-era name; Waterford and Carlingford likewise end in the fjord-derived '-ford'.
Q 11Norway's Sognefjord reaches roughly what depth below sea level?
About 1,300 m
About 1,300 m (1,308 m) is the Sognefjord's maximum depth, while the threshold at its mouth is only 100 to 200 m deep, keeping the deep basin still.
Q 12What nickname does the Sognefjord carry?
King of the Fjords
King of the Fjords is the Sognefjord's nickname: at 205 km it is Norway's longest and deepest fjord, and 'Sogn' may come from a word meaning 'to suck', after the tidal surge at its mouth.
Q 13Which glacier, continental Europe's largest, sits above the inner end of the Sognefjord?
Jostedalsbreen
Q 21The Trollfjord in northern Norway, a detour on the Hurtigruten route, has an entrance only how wide?
About 100 m
About 100 m is the width of the Trollfjord's entrance; the whole fjord is just 2 km long, cutting into Austvågøya in Lofoten, and Hurtigruten ships nose in when conditions allow.
Q 22Norway's Hurtigruten coastal service between Bergen and Kirkenes was founded in what year?
1893
1893 was the year Richard With's steamship Vesteraalen made the first Hurtigruten sailing, from Trondheim north to Hammerfest, then the fastest link between north and south.
Q 23The Flåm Line drops 866 m from Myrdal to the Sognefjord at a maximum gradient of what?
5.5 percent
Jostedalsbreen, continental Europe's largest glacier at roughly 480 km², lies above the inner Sognefjord near Fjærland, with peaks around it rising to about 2,000 m.
Q 14The Nærøyfjord and Geirangerfjord were jointly listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?
2005
2005 was the year UNESCO inscribed the 'West Norwegian Fjords – Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord', citing their exceptional natural beauty and classic fjord geology.
Q 15How wide is the Nærøyfjord at its narrowest point?
About 250 m
About 250 m is the Nærøyfjord's narrowest width; the 17-km branch of the Sognefjord has occasionally frozen over in cold winters.
Q 16Which waterfall faces the Seven Sisters directly across the Geirangerfjord?
The Suitor
The Suitor (Friaren) faces the Seven Sisters directly across the Geirangerfjord; legend says it courts them in vain, and the Sisters' tallest strand free-falls about 250 m.
Q 17Which unstable mountainside threatens Geiranger with a tsunami if it collapses into the fjord?
Åkerneset
Åkerneset, a fissured slope above the Sunnylvsfjord, is monitored around the clock because a collapse would send a tsunami toward Geiranger, the scenario of the 2015 Norwegian film The Wave.
Q 18What agricultural nickname does the Hardangerfjord region carry?
The fruit orchard of Norway
The fruit orchard of Norway is the nickname of the Hardangerfjord region, whose mild fjord-side slopes grow apples, cherries and plums that blossom each May.
Q 19Preikestolen, or Pulpit Rock, rises about 604 m above which fjord?
Lysefjord
Lysefjord, the 42-km 'light fjord' named for its pale granite walls, lies 604 m below Preikestolen; the path to the rock was rebuilt by Nepalese Sherpas in 2013.
Q 20Kjeragbolten, the wedged boulder in Rogaland, hangs over an abyss roughly how deep?
About 1,000 m
About 1,000 m (984 m) separates Kjeragbolten from the Lysefjord below; the five-cubic-metre boulder, wedged by a glacier, is a favourite photo spot and BASE-jumping site.
5.5 percent (1 in 18) is the Flåm Line's steepest gradient, among the steepest of any standard-gauge adhesion railway; the 20-km branch opened in 1940.
Q 24What historic event took place in the Oslofjord's Drøbak narrows in April 1940?
The sinking of the German cruiser Blücher
Colonel Eriksen's aging Oscarsborg fortress fired on the invasion flotilla; Edvard Munch painted the same fjord in The Scream.
Q 25Norway's third-longest fjord, at about 130 km, shares its name with which city?
Trondheim
Trondheim gives the Trondheimsfjord its name; the 130-km fjord stays ice-free all year, and the tiny island of Munkholmen sits just off the city's harbour.
Q 26Which Nordland fjord is often called the Narvik Fjord in English, after the iron-ore port?
Ofotfjord
Ofotfjord, 78 km long and 553 m deep, is the fjord on which Narvik stands; 'Narvik Fjord' is an English convenience, not an official Norwegian name.
Q 27Hornindalsvatnet in western Norway, a former fjord cut off from the sea, holds what record?
Europe's deepest lake
Europe's deepest lake is Hornindalsvatnet, officially measured at 514 m; its floor lies about 460 m below sea level, a legacy of the glacier that once carved a fjord there.
Q 28The Norwegian Fjord horse is always what colour?
Dun
Dun is the only colour: every Fjord horse carries the dun gene, in five recognised shades from brown dun to yellow dun, with the dark dorsal stripe running through its two-tone mane.
Q 29The Arctic fjord chain of Nansen Sound, Greely Fiord and Tanquary Fiord lies in which country?
Canada
Canada's Ellesmere Island, in Nunavut, holds the Nansen Sound, Greely Fiord and Tanquary Fiord chain, a high-Arctic fjord system far longer than Norway's 205-km Sognefjord.
Q 30The deepest fjord on Earth, Skelton Inlet at 1,933 m, is on which continent?
Antarctica
Antarctica's Skelton Inlet, an ice-filled fjord opening onto the Ross Ice Shelf, reaches 1,933 m; Chile's Messier Channel, at 1,358 m, is deeper than any Norwegian fjord.