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60 free Jerusalem trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Jerusalem has been captured and recaptured 44 times, and this quiz covers most of the reasons why. It runs from the Gihon Spring settlement of 3000 BCE and King David through the Babylonians, Pompey, the destruction of the Second Temple, Hadrian's Aelia Capitolina, the caliphs, Crusaders and Saladin, Suleiman's walls, the British Mandate, the 1947 partition plan and the divided city of 1949 to 1967. The Old City gets close attention: its four quarters and seven gates, the Western Wall's hidden courses, the Dome of the Rock's octagon and gilded roof, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre's shared patriarchates and hereditary keyholders, the Via Dolorosa's fourteen stations, the Mount of Olives cemetery and the valleys of Kidron and Hinnom. Beyond the walls there are questions on the Knesset, Yad Vashem, the Shrine of the Book, Teddy Kollek, Beitar Jerusalem, the Marathon, Mahane Yehuda's closing bugle and the 2013 snowstorm. Easy questions ask which three religions hold the city holy and what the Knesset is; hard ones want the Canaanite god behind the name and how many wall courses lie underground. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city and its sites, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Try our Bible and Ancient Rome quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Jerusalem sits on a plateau in which mountain range, between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea?
The Judaean Mountains
The Old City stands about 760 metres above sea level; the ridge to its east includes the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus.
Q 02Jerusalem is considered a holy city to which three religions?
Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Its Old City packs the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre into less than one square kilometre.
Q 03By Wikipedia's tally, how many times has Jerusalem been captured and recaptured?
44
It has also been besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times and destroyed at least twice.
Q 04On 14th-century BCE Egyptian tablets the city is Urusalim, 'City of' which Canaanite deity?
Shalem
Shalem was the god of dusk; his name shares the root S-L-M with the Hebrew word shalom, hence the popular gloss 'City of Peace'.
Q 05The dual ending of the Hebrew name Yerushalayim suggests the city sat on how many hills?
Two
The name is mentioned 669 times in the Hebrew Bible, while Zion appears 154 times.
Q 06What is the most common Arabic name for Jerusalem, meaning 'the holy'?
Al-Quds
It was originally titled Bayt al-Maqdis; the Hebrew nickname Ir ha-Qodesh has the same meaning.
Q 07According to the Hebrew Bible, which king captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it his capital?
David
His son Solomon then commissioned the First Temple; the original settlement core is the rocky spur now called the City of David.
Q 08Which empire captured Jerusalem in 586 BCE and destroyed the First Temple?
Neo-Babylonian
Cyrus the Great of Persia let the exiles return after 539 BCE, and work on the Second Temple began around 516 BCE.
Q 09Which Roman general brought Jerusalem under the Republic's rule in 63 BCE?
Pompey
Herod the Great later built the huge retaining walls that enlarged the sanctuary platform into one of the ancient world's largest.
Q 10The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in which year?
70 CE
The First Jewish Revolt ended with the city's destruction; a few decades later Hadrian rebuilt it as a Roman colony dedicated to Jupiter.
Q 11After the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans renamed the city what?
Aelia Capitolina
The name honoured Emperor Hadrian and the gods of Rome, and Jews were banned from the city after the revolt was crushed.
Q 12Jerusalem was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate in which year, beginning the early Islamic period?
638
Under early Islamic rule the Dome of the Rock and the Qibli mosque were built on the sacred esplanade.
Q 13The Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099; who recaptured it for Islam in 1187?
Saladin
The city then passed through Ayyubid and Mamluk hands until it became Ottoman in 1517.
Q 21The Dome of the Rock was built in 691–692 CE on the orders of which Umayyad caliph?
Abd al-Malik
It is the oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture and carries the earliest inscriptions proclaiming Islam and the prophet Muhammad.
Q 22What is the basic shape of the Dome of the Rock's floor plan?
Octagonal
The plan may follow the Byzantine Church of the Seat of Mary on the Bethlehem road; the roof was gilded only in the 20th century.
Q 23The Dome of the Rock's distinctive gold-plated roof dates from what period?
1959–64
The blue-and-white İznik-style tiles on the exterior are early Ottoman; the roof was gilded again in the 1990s.
Q 14The walls that still define the Old City were rebuilt in 1538 under which Ottoman sultan?
Suleiman the Magnificent
His wall had six gates; a seventh was cut in 1887, while the Golden Gate was walled up soon after being rebuilt.
Q 15The Old City is traditionally divided into four quarters: Muslim, Christian, Jewish and which other?
Armenian
The division may go back to an 1840s British map; the Muslim Quarter is the largest and most populous of the four.
Q 16How large is the walled Old City of Jerusalem?
About 0.9 square kilometres
That is roughly three-eighths of a square mile; UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1981 and it is on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
Q 17Which of the Old City gates was added to Suleiman's wall in 1887, long after the others?
New Gate
Suleiman's builders had left the Golden Gate open at first, then bricked it up; two minor gates were reopened by archaeologists in modern times.
Q 18The Western Wall is a retaining wall of which artificially expanded hilltop?
The Temple Mount
Its lower courses of huge stones are Herodian; the whole western retaining wall runs 488 metres, far beyond the famous prayer section.
Q 19By what short Hebrew name do Jews commonly refer to the Western Wall?
The Kotel
In the Islamic world it is the Buraq Wall; the term 'Wailing Wall' was mainly used by Christians.
Q 20How many courses of the Western Wall's prayer section lie buried below street level?
17
Just over half the wall's total height dates from the end of the Second Temple period and is believed to have been begun by Herod the Great.
Q 24In which year did Muhammad's Night Journey to Jerusalem take place, per Islamic tradition?
621
Jerusalem was also the first direction of Muslim prayer, and ranks as Islam's third-holiest city after Mecca and Medina.
Q 25The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is believed to contain the site of the crucifixion, known as Calvary or what?
Golgotha
It also holds the empty tomb, enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule.
Q 26Which Roman emperor supported the original 4th-century construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?
Constantine
Around 326 he ordered a pagan temple replaced by a church; it was consecrated on 13 September 335 and later destroyed by al-Hakim in 1009.
Q 27Since 1187 the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been entrusted to which family?
The Joudehs
The sultan gave the 30-centimetre iron key to the Joudehs, while the Nusseibehs act as doorkeepers; the arrangement is part of a 'Status Quo' dating to 1757.
Q 28The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the seat of the Greek Orthodox, Latin and which other patriarchate?
Armenian
A famous 'immovable ladder' has stood beneath a facade window for centuries because no community may alter the shared status quo.
Q 29The Via Dolorosa is marked by how many Stations of the Cross?
14
Nine are in the streets and five inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the current route dates only from the 18th century.
Q 30What does 'Via Dolorosa' mean in Latin?
Sorrowful Way
The winding 600-metre route from the old Antonia Fortress partly follows a Roman east–west street laid out by Hadrian.