India Trivia
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108 free India trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
55 free India trivia questions with answers. These Indian trivia questions cover the whole country, not just the Taj Mahal: the states and languages, the Indus Valley and the Mughals, Ashoka and Gandhi, the flag and the anthem, Diwali and Holi, cricket and Bollywood, ISRO's Moon landing, Ramanujan's taxicab number, and the food that only arrived with the Portuguese. It is written for anyone - Indian or not - who wants a fair, factual quiz about India rather than a list of cliches. Easy questions come first (capital, independence day, national animal) and the set works up to details that will stretch a Delhi quiz team: who designed the flag, where India played its first Test, which village out-rains Cherrapunji. Use it for a classroom, a Diwali party round, or a solo test. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and carries its source, so the dates and figures are the real ones.
30 of 108 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital of India?
New Delhi
New Delhi exists because George V announced in December 1911 that British India's capital would leave Calcutta; the planned city took two decades to build and was inaugurated in 1931.
Q 02India is the seventh-largest country by area; which country ranks sixth?
Australia
Australia is sixth, with more than twice India's area, yet India has roughly fifty times as many people; Argentina, in eighth place, is the next country below India.
Q 03On what date did India gain independence from Britain?
15 August 1947
15 August 1947 was Lord Mountbatten's choice: the last viceroy picked the second anniversary of Japan's surrender in the Second World War. 26 January 1950 became Republic Day.
Q 04Which river gives India its name?
The Indus
The Greeks called the river Indos; ironically most of the Indus now flows through Pakistan. The constitution's other name for the country is Bharat.
Q 05Which ancient urban culture flourished in the subcontinent around 2500-1900 BCE?
The Indus Valley Civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation laid out Mohenjo-daro and Harappa on street grids with elaborate drains, yet its script has never been deciphered, so its people's own words remain unread.
Q 06Which state, capital Hyderabad, left Andhra Pradesh in 2014?
Telangana
Telangana became India's 29th state on 2 June 2014, after a campaign that peaked when K. Chandrashekar Rao began a fast unto death in 2009; he became its first chief minister.
Q 07Which is India's most populous state, with almost 200 million people at the 2011 census?
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh counted almost 200 million people in 2011, about a sixth of India, so it sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, far more than any other state.
Q 08Which language's planned 1965 phase-out from Indian government business was shelved after protests in the south?
English
English was meant to serve the central government for only 15 years after the constitution took effect in 1950; as the deadline neared, protests in Madras state won assurances that it would stay.
Q 09India's founding legal charter, in force since 26 January 1950, holds which world record?
Longest written national constitution
The longest written national constitution: it originally ran to 395 articles and 22 parts, took nearly three years to draft, and was hand-lettered by calligrapher Prem Behari Narain Raizada.
Q 10Which symbol of Gandhi's movement did the Ashoka Chakra replace on India's flag?
Spinning wheel
A spinning wheel, the charkha, stood for Gandhi's drive to make Indians self-reliant by spinning their own cloth; the assembly swapped it for Ashoka's 24-spoke wheel weeks before independence.
Q 11Who presented Gandhi with the 1921 flag design that grew into India's national tricolour?
Pingali Venkayya
Pingali Venkayya showed Gandhi a red and green flag at Vijayawada in 1921; Gandhi had a white band added for India's other communities, and the design grew into the national flag.
Q 12What is the national animal of India?
Bengal tiger
Bengal tiger: it took the title from the Asiatic lion in the early 1970s; one reason given was that tigers ranged across many Indian states while the lion survived only in Gujarat's Gir forest.
Q 13Which bird is India's national bird?
Indian peafowl
Q 21Gandhi's 1930 Salt March ran from Ahmedabad to which coastal village?
Dandi
Dandi, on the Gujarat coast, where on 6 April 1930 he scooped salt from the shore to break the law behind the British monopoly; the walk from Sabarmati Ashram took 24 days.
Q 22Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is observed worldwide as what?
International Day of Non-Violence
The International Day of Non-Violence dates from 2007, when India put the resolution to the UN General Assembly backed by 140 co-sponsoring countries; in India the date is the holiday Gandhi Jayanti.
Q 23Before returning to India, Gandhi spent 21 years practising law and organising protest in which country?
South Africa
The Indian peafowl was chosen over the great Indian bustard; ornithologist Salim Ali argued the title was meant to rally protection for a threatened bird and called the peacock's selection misconceived.
Q 14India's national anthem, 'Jana Gana Mana', was composed by whom?
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore wrote 'Jana Gana Mana' in 1911; his 'Amar Shonar Bangla' later became Bangladesh's anthem. The separate national song is Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's 'Vande Mataram'.
Q 15In 1913 the poet of Gitanjali became the first non-European to win which honour?
Nobel Prize in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature honoured Gitanjali in the poet's own translation; he later gave up his British knighthood in protest at the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Q 16Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a tomb for whom?
His wife Mumtaz
His wife Mumtaz Mahal died in 1631 giving birth to their fourteenth child; Shah Jahan began her white-marble tomb the next year and was eventually laid to rest beside her.
Q 17The Taj Mahal stands on the bank of which river, which also flows through Delhi?
Yamuna
The Yamuna separates the tomb from the Mehtab Bagh, a 'moonlight garden' matching the Taj's gardens in width and alignment; excavations there dispelled the myth that Shah Jahan planned a black marble twin on that bank.
Q 18Who founded the Mughal Empire after defeating the Sultan of Delhi at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526?
Babur
Babur, a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, founded the dynasty in 1526 and wrote a candid memoir, the Baburnama; the Mughal court language was Persian.
Q 19Which emperor, the son who deposed Shah Jahan, pushed the Mughal Empire to its greatest extent?
Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb confined his father in Agra in 1658, then spent more than two decades at war in the Deccan; the conquests stretched the empire across almost the whole subcontinent at ruinous cost.
Q 20Emperor Ashoka renounced war in remorse after his bloody conquest of which region?
Kalinga
Kalinga, on today's Odisha coast, fell around 260 BCE; Ashoka's own edict counts 100,000 killed and 150,000 deported, and says the suffering turned him towards the teaching of dhamma.
South Africa, from 1893 to 1914: thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg in 1893 for refusing to leave a first-class carriage, he stayed on to campaign against racial discrimination.
Q 24Who was India's first prime minister?
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru marked independence with his 'Tryst with Destiny' speech, then led the Congress party to victory in the first three general elections and died in office in 1964.
Q 25Diwali, the festival of lights, is traditionally linked to the homecoming of which figure to Ayodhya?
Rama
Rama's return to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile is one of several stories behind the lamps; in another popular tradition, Diwali marks Krishna's killing of the demon Narakasura.
Q 26Holi, India's festival of colours, marks the arrival of which season?
Spring
Spring: Holi falls on the full moon of Phalguna, usually in March, as winter ends; the night before, bonfires called Holika Dahan burn to mark good over evil.
Q 27Holi's association with Radha and Krishna makes which region its spiritual heartland?
Braj, around Mathura
Braj, the region around Mathura and Vrindavan where Krishna is said to have grown up; in its town of Barsana women famously chase men with sticks in the 'Lathmar Holi'.
Q 28Which Indian shrine runs a volunteer kitchen serving about 100,000 free meals a day?
The Golden Temple
The Golden Temple's langar seats everyone together on the floor, a Sikh practice meant to set aside distinctions of religion, caste and wealth; volunteers cook and serve the meals.
Q 29Which gathering, rotating among Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain, is the world's largest?
Kumbh Mela
Kumbh Mela means the festival of the sacred pitcher: pilgrims bathe at river sites where, in Hindu legend, drops of the nectar of immortality fell, and UNESCO listed it in 2017.
Q 30Bollywood is the nickname for India's film industry in which language?
Hindi
Hindi films made in Mumbai are only one branch of Indian cinema: Tamil films come from Chennai's 'Kollywood' and Telugu films from studios in Hyderabad.