Jordan Trivia
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93 free Jordan trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jordan packs a rose-red city carved by the Nabataeans, the lowest point on dry land, a desert that has doubled for Mars and Arabia on film, the reputed baptism site of Jesus and the mountain where Moses saw the Promised Land into a country not much bigger than Portugal. It has also been ruled by one family since 1921 and has taken in more refugees per head than almost anyone. This Jordan trivia quiz covers all of it. Fifty-one questions run from geography (Amman, Aqaba, the Dead Sea, Wadi Rum, Jabal Umm al Dami) through ancient history (Ammon, the Nabataeans, Petra, Trajan, the Decapolis, Jerash) and the Islamic and Crusader centuries (Yarmuk, Karak, Ajloun) to the modern kingdom (the Arab Revolt, Transjordan, Abdullah I, Hussein, 1967, Black September, the 1994 treaty, Abdullah II) and culture and sport (the flag, the dinar, mansaf, taekwondo gold, the Asian Cup final). Roughly a third are easy, a third medium, and the rest are for people who really know the Levant. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia and official pages, so the dates, numbers and names are ones you can rely on.
30 of 93 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Arabic word for 'hill' names the districts of Amman, a capital first built on seven of them?
Jabal
Jabal means hill or mountain: Amman began on seven of them and has since spread over many more, so its neighbourhoods are still known by their hill, as in Jabal al-Luweibdeh; a wadi is the valley in between.
Q 02What is Jordan's ruling royal house, descended from the Sharif of Mecca, called?
Hashemite
The Hashemites trace their line to Hashim, great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad; the family ruled Mecca for centuries until the Saudi conquest of the Hejaz in 1924-25, soon after one of its sons took charge of Transjordan.
Q 03Visitors walk into Petra through the Siq; what is it?
A narrow gorge
A narrow gorge, the Siq is a natural cleft that winds between sheer sandstone walls before opening suddenly onto Petra's most famous facade; so tight an entrance made the city easy to defend.
Q 04Which Swiss traveller rediscovered the Nabataean rock-cut city for the Western world in 1812?
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, travelling disguised as a Muslim pilgrim, bluffed his way into the hidden city in 1812 by saying he wished to sacrifice a goat at a prophet's tomb on a nearby peak.
Q 05The Nabataeans who carved Petra grew rich on caravans carrying which goods?
Frankincense and myrrh
Frankincense and myrrh, tree resins burned as incense, came north by caravan from southern Arabia; the Greek historian Diodorus wrote that carrying them to the sea made the Nabataeans far wealthier than other Arab tribes.
Q 06Which Roman emperor annexed the Nabataean kingdom in AD 106 and made it the province of Arabia?
Trajan
Trajan claimed the kingdom in AD 106 when its last king, Rabbel II, died; his engineers then paved the Via Nova Traiana, a trunk road running the length of the new province.
Q 07Gerasa, Pella and other Greek cities of Transjordan formed which league of cities under Rome?
The Decapolis
The Decapolis, often called a league, was a group of ten Greek-speaking cities that Pompey freed from the Hasmonean kingdom in the 60s BC and left self-governing under Rome; Pliny the Elder's list includes Gerasa, Pella and Damascus.
Q 08Which Jordanian city holds one of the world's best-preserved Roman provincial towns, with colonnaded streets and an oval forum?
Jerash
Jerash, the Roman Gerasa, was wrecked by earthquakes in the 740s and then lay buried in sand for centuries, which is why its streets, plazas and theatres survive in such good condition.
Q 09What was Jordan's capital called after the Greeks conquered it in the 3rd century BC?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia honoured Ptolemy II Philadelphus, whose dynasty held the city in the 3rd century BC; the name lasted through Roman times until Arab rule revived the older Semitic name.
Q 10Jordan's Zarqa River is the biblical Jabbok, where which figure wrestled until dawn with a mysterious stranger?
Jacob
Jacob, on his way to a reunion with Esau, wrestled until daybreak at the ford of the Jabbok, says Genesis 32; his opponent could not beat him, and gave him the new name Israel.
Q 11The 'Ain Ghazal statues, among the oldest large human figures known, were made from what material?
Lime plaster
Lime plaster was modelled over bundles of reeds about 9,000 years ago; some thirty figures turned up in the 1980s buried together in two pits, and why their makers put them underground is still unknown.
Q 12At which 636 battle just north of Transjordan did the Muslims decisively defeat the Byzantines?
Yarmuk
Yarmuk, fought in 636 beside the river that now marks Jordan's northern border, broke Byzantine power in the region and opened the whole Levant to the Rashidun caliphate.
Q 13Al-Karak and Montreal castles were built in Transjordan by which power?
The Crusaders
Q 21Jordan and which fellow Arab kingdom, ruled by a royal cousin, formed the 1958 Arab Federation?
Iraq
Iraq, ruled by Faisal II, a cousin of Jordan's king, joined the Arab Federation in February 1958; it collapsed after the 14 July revolution killed Faisal in Baghdad.
Q 22In which war did Jordan lose control of the West Bank to Israel?
Six-Day War of 1967
The Six-Day War of 1967 cost Jordan the West Bank and East Jerusalem within days in June; it had annexed the territory in 1950 and formally renounced its claim in 1988.
Q 23After Black September in 1970, Palestinian fighters were expelled from Jordan to which country?
Lebanon
Lebanon received the PLO leadership and thousands of fedayeen after the 1970-71 fighting; the organisation ran its operations from Beirut until it was forced to leave in 1982.
The Crusaders built Montreal (Shobak) in 1115 under Baldwin I and Kerak a generation later to hold their lordship of Oultrejordain; both castles fell to Saladin's armies in 1188-89.
Q 14Ajloun Castle was built in the 1180s by a commander of Saladin, the founder of which dynasty?
The Ayyubids
The Ayyubids, Saladin's dynasty, raised Ajloun Castle in 1184-85 to watch the Jordan Valley; the Mongols wrecked much of it in 1260, and the Mamluk sultan Baybars rebuilt it almost at once.
Q 15Which Muslim refugees from the Caucasus resettled the abandoned site of today's capital under Ottoman rule?
Circassians
Circassians, driven from the Caucasus after Russia's conquest, were settled by the Ottomans in the ruins of the ancient capital, founding the modern city that grew around their village.
Q 16The Hejaz Railway was built to carry pilgrims towards Mecca but never got past which other holy city?
Medina
Medina was as far as the line got when it opened from Damascus in 1908; the Ottomans also meant it to rush troops into Arabia, one reason many Arabs saw the railway as a threat.
Q 17Which future prime minister, as colonial secretary in 1921, offered Abdullah the emirate of Transjordan?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill met Abdullah in Jerusalem in March 1921; Abdullah had come north meaning to fight the French in Damascus, and dropped the plan in return for the emirate and a subsidy.
Q 18Which country's veto kept Jordan out of the United Nations until 1955?
The Soviet Union
The Soviet Union blocked the application on the grounds that the kingdom was still not truly independent of its former mandate power; Jordan finally joined in December 1955, when a batch of waiting states was let in together.
Q 19Jordan's first king was assassinated in 1951 at which holy site in Jerusalem?
Al-Aqsa Mosque
Al-Aqsa Mosque was where a Palestinian gunman shot the king on 20 July 1951 as he arrived for Friday prayers; his 15-year-old grandson, a future king, survived at his side.
Q 20Which king ruled Jordan for 46 years until his death in 1999?
Hussein
Hussein was a 16-year-old schoolboy in England when his father was made to abdicate in 1952; he went on to survive repeated coup plots and assassination attempts before his death in February 1999.
Q 24Before he took the throne in 1999, Abdullah II commanded which branch of Jordan's military?
Special forces
Special forces: he took command in 1994 and was still a serving general in 1999, when his dying father named him heir to the throne only two weeks before the end.
Q 25Which militant led the al-Qaeda branch that bombed three hotels in Amman in November 2005?
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was himself Jordanian-born; his group claimed the suicide attacks, which killed about 60 people including guests at a wedding party, and a US air strike killed him in June 2006.
Q 26Jordan's only coastline lies on which body of water?
The Red Sea
The Red Sea touches Jordan only at the head of its northeastern gulf; that short shore holds the country's one seaport, so all its seaborne trade funnels through a single town, beside coral reefs prized by divers.
Q 27A cave above the Dead Sea's southeastern shore is venerated as the refuge of which biblical figure after Sodom's destruction?
Lot
Lot sheltered in a cave after fleeing Sodom, says Genesis 19; Byzantine Christians built a church at the mouth of this one, and a salt pillar nearby is pointed out as his wife, who looked back.
Q 28Which ancient road, named in the Book of Numbers, runs the length of Jordan through Madaba, Karak and Petra?
The King's Highway
The King's Highway is the road the Israelites ask to follow through Edom in Numbers 20, promising not to stray left or right, and are refused; traders, armies and pilgrims have used it ever since.
Q 29Which desert valley in southern Jordan provided locations for both Lawrence of Arabia and The Martian?
Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum is country the real T. E. Lawrence rode through and called 'vast, echoing and God-like', so the 1962 film shot his story on the actual ground; its red sands later stood in for Mars in The Martian.
Q 30A desert rock formation in southern Jordan is named after which book by T. E. Lawrence?
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence's account of the desert war, took its title from the Book of Proverbs, not from any landmark; the rock was named after the book, not the other way round.