Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Lake Titicaca trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Lake Titicaca trivia quiz covers the great lake shared by Peru and Bolivia, from its 3,812-metre surface to the reed islands floating on it. The easy questions ask which two countries share it, why it is called the highest navigable lake, which mountain range it sits in, what the Uros build their islands from and where the Incas believed the sun was born. Then it heads out onto the water: the strait that splits the lake in two, its single outlet, its 41 islands, the sedge that grows in its shallows and the trout that helped drive a native fish extinct. The hard end is for people who like their geography with stories attached: the British-built steamship carried over the Andes in 2,766 mule-loads and fired with llama dung, the Chilean torpedo boat that arrived by train, the island where only the men knit, the giant frog Jacques Cousteau measured at 60 centimetres, the flightless grebe, the Tiwanaku temples under the Inca ones, and the reef where the Incas dropped their offerings. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on Lake Titicaca, the Uros, Isla del Sol, the Titicaca water frog and the ship Yavari before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Peru, Bolivia and world lakes quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Lake Titicaca lies on the border between which two countries?
Peru and Bolivia
The western part is in Peru's Puno Region and the eastern side in Bolivia's La Paz Department.
Q 02Titicaca is often described as the world's highest what?
Navigable lake
The claim refers to commercial craft; the crater lake on Chile's Ojos del Salado sits far higher at around 6,480 metres.
Q 03What is the surface elevation of Lake Titicaca?
3,812 m (12,507 ft)
Tibet's Lake Puma Yumco, at 5,030 metres, is the highest large lake in the world.
Q 04By surface area and volume, Lake Titicaca is the largest lake on which continent?
South America
Globally it ranks only 18th largest.
Q 05What is the 800-metre-wide strait joining Lake Titicaca's two sub-basins called?
Tiquina
The big basin, Lago Grande, reaches 284 metres deep; the little Wiñaymarka averages just 9 metres.
Q 06What is the maximum depth of Lake Titicaca?
284 m (932 ft)
The overall average depth is 107 metres, dragged down by the shallow southern basin.
Q 07Lake Titicaca's only outlet is which river, which flows south to Lake Poopó?
Río Desaguadero
That outflow accounts for only about 10% of the lake's water loss; wind and high-altitude sun evaporate the other 90%.
Q 08How many islands does Lake Titicaca have?
41
Five major river systems feed the lake, led by the Ramis and the Coata.
Q 09Lake Titicaca is usually listed as freshwater, but its water is actually slightly what?
Brackish
UNESCO puts its salinity at 5.2 to 5.5 parts per thousand; it is nearly a closed lake.
Q 10In Aymara, the word 'titi' in the lake's name is usually translated as which animal?
Puma
One 1948 reading of titiq'aq'a is 'grey, lead-coloured puma', referring to the sacred rock on the Isla del Sol.
Q 11In 2012 the Global Nature Fund gave Titicaca which unwelcome title?
Threatened Lake of the Year
A 2011 UN report had found alarming concentrations of cadmium, arsenic and lead in parts of the lake.
Q 12Between April and November 2009 the lake's level dropped how much, reaching its lowest since 1949?
81 cm
Shorter rainy seasons and the melting of glaciers that feed its tributaries are blamed.
Q 13The Uros people build their floating islands from layers of which plant?
Totora sedge
The reeds are constantly topped up as the lower layers rot; the largest islands are about half the size of a football pitch.
Q 21On the Peruvian island of Taquile, which craft is performed exclusively by males from the age of eight?
Knitting
Women spin the yarn and weave; UNESCO named 'Taquile and Its Textile Art' a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Q 22Taquile island served for centuries, into the 20th century, as what?
A prison
It became the property of the Taquile people in 1970, and their community-run tourism model now hosts about 40,000 visitors a year.
Q 23Amantani island's two peaks are named Pachatata and Pachamama. What does Pachamama mean?
Mother Earth
About 4,000 Quechua speakers live there in ten communities, with no cars, no hotels and all farming done by hand.
Q 14According to legend, why did the Uros originally build islands that floated?
To move away from hostile neighbours
Many islands still carry watchtowers, and the settlement can be shifted into deep water if threatened.
Q 15After what event in 1986 did many Uros rebuild their islands closer to the shore near Puno?
A major storm
Historically most islands sat about 14 km out near the middle of the lake.
Q 16According to Uru legend, the Uros claimed to have blood of what colour, because they never felt the cold?
Black
They called themselves Lupihaques, 'sons of the Sun', and considered themselves the owners of the lake and its water.
Q 17Isla del Sol, the largest sacred island, is reached by boat from which Bolivian lakeside town?
Copacabana
The town's 17th-century basilica houses Our Lady of Copacabana, the patron saint of Bolivia, and its feast day is 6 August.
Q 18In Inca religion, which deity was believed to have been born on the Isla del Sol?
The sun god
Isla de la Luna next door is where Viracocha was said to have commanded the moon to rise.
Q 19Which first Inca ruler is said in one myth to have emerged from the sacred rock on the Isla del Sol?
Manco Cápac
Pachacuti later ordered his mummified body moved from Cusco to the island's Temple of the Sun.
Q 20Melville's The Confidence-Man opens by comparing a stranger to Manco Cápac rising from where?
Lake Titicaca
The comparison appears in the novel's very first sentence, set at sunrise on 1 April.
Q 24Craftsmen from which Lake Titicaca island helped Thor Heyerdahl build Ra II and Tigris?
Suriqui
It is thought to be the last place where the art of totora reed boat construction survived.
Q 25Which pre-Inca civilisation, centred about 70 km from La Paz, built a temple on the Isla de la Luna?
Tiwanaku
The Inca structures visible on the island today were built directly on top of the earlier ones.
Q 26Inca offerings recovered by divers at Khoa reef in Lake Titicaca include incense burners shaped like which animal?
Felines
Carved juvenile llamas and fine metal, shell and stone ornaments were dropped there as part of an Inca pilgrimage complex.
Q 27Roughly how many aquatic species does Lake Titicaca support?
More than 530
Around 90% of the fish species in the basin are endemic, including 23 species of Orestias found nowhere else.
Q 28The Titicaca orestias, a native fish last seen in 1938, was likely driven extinct by which introduced fish?
Rainbow trout
The Argentine silverside Odontesthes bonariensis was the other culprit.
Q 29What unflattering nickname has the loose-skinned lake amphibian Telmatobius culeus earned?
Titicaca scrotum frog
Its lungs are only a third the normal size, so the folds of skin help it breathe in the cold water.
Q 30Which explorer's late-1960s expedition reported Titicaca water frogs of 60 cm and 1 kg?
Jacques Cousteau
That makes them some of the largest wholly aquatic frogs on Earth, though most individuals are much smaller.