Kerala Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Kerala trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Kerala is a sliver of coast between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea that keeps turning up firsts: the first state in India to be declared fully literate, the first to elect a communist government, the site of the first rocket India ever launched. It has been trading spices with Rome since antiquity, and its oldest churches, mosques and synagogues predate most of Europe's cathedrals. The 50 questions cover Kerala Piravi and how the state was assembled in 1956, the kings, reformers and rebels of Travancore and Malabar, the backwaters, hill stations and wildlife of the Ghats, the festivals of Onam and Vishu, classical dance and ritual arts, Malayalam cinema and literature, the food, and the Malayalis who made a mark on India and the world. Each answer comes with a short explanation of why it matters. It works as a school or college quiz round (prostuti style), a pub quiz set, or a warm-up before a trip to the backwaters. Play it on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for the table.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which legendary king's annual homecoming, granted by Vishnu's Vamana avatar, does Kerala celebrate at Onam?
Mahabali
Mahabali granted the dwarf Vamana three steps of land, but Vamana grew vast, covered earth and heaven in two strides and took the third on Mahabali's head.
Q 02Kerala Piravi marks the 1956 redrawing of India's states on what basis?
Language
Language: Andhra was carved out in 1953 after Potti Sreeramulu died on hunger strike for a state for Telugu speakers.
Q 03Which explorer died at Cochin on Christmas Eve 1524 and was first buried in the city's St Francis Church?
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama had come back to India as viceroy but caught malaria soon after landing, and his body was moved out of the church for reburial in 1539.
Q 04Which apostle, by tradition, landed on the Kerala coast in 52 AD and founded the state's Syrian Christian community?
Thomas
Thomas is said to have landed on the Malabar Coast, and tradition holds he was martyred at Mylapore on India's east coast, where San Thome Basilica stands over his tomb.
Q 05Kerala was the first Indian state to run a government what, launched in 1967?
Lottery
Lottery money also pays medical bills: income from Kerala's Karunya draw funds treatment for poor patients with cancer, haemophilia, kidney and heart disease.
Q 06Which fruit, also the national fruit of Bangladesh, is Kerala's official state fruit?
Jackfruit
Jackfruit was declared Kerala's state fruit in 2018, and the government planned to sell Kerala jackfruit as a brand in markets around the world.
Q 07Which slogan is Kerala Tourism's tagline?
God's Own Country
God's Own Country was a phrase New Zealand's national-anthem poet, Bracken, had published about his country in the 1890s, long before Kerala Tourism made it the state's tagline.
Q 08Which city, home to ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and India's first IT park, Technopark, is Kerala's capital?
Thiruvananthapuram
Thiruvananthapuram was shortened to Trivandrum by the British, and the city later took back its ancient name officially.
Q 09Which Kerala dance-drama paints its noble heroes' faces green in a style called pachcha and its worst villains red?
Kathakali
Kathakali plays traditionally ran all night by the light of one huge oil lamp, and modern performances often cut them to two to four hours.
Q 10Which shrine in Kerala's capital had its secret vaults opened and inventoried in 2011 on the Supreme Court's orders?
Padmanabhaswamy
Padmanabhaswamy's inventory turned up gold coins and a jewelled golden throne, but Vault B stayed shut after temple astrologers warned that opening it would displease the deity.
Q 11Which Kerala martial art did the British ban in 1804, closing many of its training grounds?
Kalaripayattu
Kalaripayattu survived the ban because a few gurus kept teaching it in secret, some in the interior villages of Malabar.
Q 12Which Marxist became Kerala's first chief minister in 1957, heading India's first elected communist government?
E. M. S. Namboodiripad
E. M. S. Namboodiripad's government lasted barely two years: after mass protests, the central government dismissed it in 1959.
Q 13Which author set her 1997 Booker Prize winner, The God of Small Things, in the Kerala village of Ayemenem?
Arundhati Roy
Q 21Which river is Kerala's longest?
Periyar
The Periyar's great flood of 1341 is blamed for choking an old port's river mouth and opening a new one at Kochi, which grew into a trading hub.
Q 22What is the traditional feast served on a banana leaf as lunch at Onam called?
Sadya
Sadya matters so much that a Malayalam proverb says one must have the Onam feast even if it means selling one's property.
Q 23Which Kerala hill station is the centre of the Kanan Devan tea estates?
Munnar
Munnar's estates passed from Tata Tea in 2005 to a new company whose employees bought the majority stake.
Arundhati Roy was summoned to answer obscenity charges in a Kerala court over the novel's final chapter, a love scene between a Syrian Christian woman and an untouchable carpenter.
Q 14Which Kerala sprinter missed the 1984 Olympic 400 m hurdles bronze by one hundredth of a second?
P. T. Usha
P. T. Usha, the 'Payyoli Express', finished fourth in 55.42 seconds after a rival's false start seemed to break her rhythm at the restart.
Q 15Which actor played Georgekutty, a cable-TV operator who outwits the police, in the 2013 Malayalam hit Drishyam?
Mohanlal
Mohanlal's Drishyam was remade in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi, and in China as Sheep Without a Shepherd.
Q 16Neelakurinji, the shrub whose mass blooms turn Kerala's high hills blue, flowers together about how often?
Every 12 years
Every 12 years the shrubs flower together, seed and then die, so a hillside that turns blue must wait a dozen years to bloom again.
Q 17From which coastal village near Kerala's capital did India launch its first rocket, a Nike-Apache, in 1963?
Thumba
Thumba sits almost on Earth's magnetic equator, and the local bishop handed the church over to the scientists.
Q 18Which peak in Eravikulam National Park, at 2,695 m, is the highest point in India south of the Himalayas?
Anamudi
Anamudi rises inside Eravikulam, which Kerala set aside as a sanctuary to protect the endangered Nilgiri tahr.
Q 19Which Kerala backwater town, laced with canals, is nicknamed the 'Venice of the East'?
Alappuzha
Alappuzha owes its canals and port to Raja Kesavadas, Travancore's 18th-century dewan, remembered as the maker of modern Alleppey.
Q 20Which deity, son of Shiva and Vishnu's Mohini form, draws millions of pilgrims a year to Sabarimala?
Ayyappan
Ayyappan's pilgrims prepare with weeks of austerity, living simply and staying celibate, then climb barefoot carrying offerings on their heads.
Q 24Which city's Pooram, devised by Sakthan Thampuran in the 1790s, climaxes with rival elephant lines swapping parasols?
Thrissur
Thrissur's temples were turned away from the Arattupuzha Pooram after heavy rain made them late, so Sakthan Thampuran gave them a Pooram of their own.
Q 25Which former seat of the Zamorins became India's first UNESCO City of Literature in 2023?
Kozhikode
Kozhikode, once called Calicut, gave its name to calico, the cotton cloth Europeans first bought at its port.
Q 26Kerala was created in 1956 by joining Travancore-Cochin with the Malabar district of which former state?
Madras
Madras also received Travancore-Cochin's four Tamil-speaking southern taluks, now Kanyakumari district, which is why the old kingdom's southern tip lies in Tamil Nadu.
Q 27Which Kerala town's Cheraman Juma Masjid, dated by legend to 629 CE, is claimed as the first mosque in India?
Kodungallur
Kodungallur's mosque is said to date from 629, but it has been rebuilt and modified many times, and some historians treat its founding story as legend.
Q 28Which Jew Town synagogue of 1568, floored with hand-painted Chinese tiles, is the Commonwealth's oldest still in use?
Paradesi
Paradesi's congregation dwindled as most Cochin Jews emigrated to Israel after 1948, yet its 400th anniversary in 1968 drew Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Q 29Mattancherry Palace in Kochi is called the Dutch Palace, but which power built it around 1545 for the king of Cochin?
Portuguese
Portuguese builders put up the palace for the king of Cochin, and it takes its Dutch name from the Dutch, who took over Mattancherry and renovated it.
Q 30Which Kerala district became India's first fully literate district in 1990?
Ernakulam
Ernakulam got there through a total-literacy campaign in which the district administration, led by its collector, joined forces with volunteer groups.