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50 free Madrid trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Madrid became Spain's capital almost by accident when Philip II parked his court there in 1561, and it has never been anywhere else for long. This quiz covers the story: the 9th-century emir's fortress, Alfonso VI's conquest, the Valladolid interlude, Charles III the 'best mayor', the Esquilache hat riots, the 2 May 1808 uprising, the 1931 constitution, Franco's Seville idea, la Movida and 23-F. The sights get their share: the bear and strawberry tree at Kilometre Zero, the Plaza Mayor's 237 balconies, the 3,418-room Royal Palace and the Christmas Eve fire that made it necessary, the Prado's opening and architect, Guernica at the Reina Sofía, the Golden Triangle, the Temple of Debod, the Retiro's fallen angel, the Cibeles post office turned city hall and the Cuatro Torres. Sport and culture round it out: the Bernabéu's finals, Atlético's Mattressers, Las Ventas, Don Quixote's printing house, Lope de Vega, Chueca and the Metro of 1919. Easy questions ask which river the city stands on and which Picasso hangs in the Reina Sofía; hard ones want the emir who founded it and the French army of 1823. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city and its landmarks, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Try our Real Madrid and Spain quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Madrid lies on which river?
The Manzanares
The city sits about 660 metres up on the central Meseta, one of Europe's highest capitals.
Q 02With an average altitude of about 650 metres, Madrid is the second-highest capital in Europe after which?
Andorra la Vella
The altitude and dry climate keep humidity low; the city ranges from 700 metres at Plaza de Castilla down to 570 by the river.
Q 03Madrid is the second-largest city in the European Union after which?
Berlin
Its metro area of about 6.8 million is the EU's second largest after Paris.
Q 04Madrid began in the 9th century as a fortress built by which Umayyad emir of Córdoba?
Muhammad I
It guarded Toledo against Christian raids; Alfonso VI seized the town in 1083, two years before Toledo itself.
Q 05Which king made Madrid the permanent seat of his court in June 1561?
Philip II
The population more than quadrupled by 1598, though the court briefly left the city from 1601 to 1606.
Q 06Between 1601 and 1606 the Spanish court left Madrid for which city?
Valladolid
Madrid's population temporarily plummeted before diplomats, nobles and writers returned.
Q 07Which king, nicknamed 'the best mayor of Madrid', gave the city sewers, street lighting and the future Prado?
Charles III
His minister Esquilache's clothing decree sparked riots in 1766.
Q 08The 1766 Esquilache Riots in Madrid were provoked by a decree banning what?
Traditional hats and long cloaks
The clothing law was meant to curb crime; the crowd forced its repeal.
Q 09Madrid's 2 May 1808 uprising against the French began with a crowd protesting the removal of whom?
The last Bourbon royals to Bayonne
A famous last stand was made at the Monteleón barracks; the brutal reprisals were painted by Goya.
Q 10Which Spanish constitution was the first to name Madrid explicitly as the national capital?
1931
The Second Republic's charter did so during the 'Silver Age' of Spanish culture; the city fell to Franco's forces in March 1939.
Q 11After the Civil War, Franco's regime considered moving the capital from Madrid to which city?
Seville
The plan was dropped, and the regime instead played up Madrid's imperial past; ration coupons were a staple of the post-war city.
Q 12The countercultural movement centred on Madrid from the late 1970s through the 1980s is known as what?
La Movida
It flourished after the 1981 coup attempt, 23-F, was met with mass demonstrations for democracy.
Q 13The heraldic symbol of Madrid, depicted in a statue on the Puerta del Sol, shows a bear and what?
A strawberry tree
El Oso y el Madroño stands on the east side of the square.
Q 21The Reina Sofía Museum's most famous work is which 1937 Picasso painting?
Guernica
The museum opened in 1992 in a former hospital and is named for Queen Sofía; Dalí, Miró and Juan Gris are also strongly represented.
Q 22The Prado, the Reina Sofía and which third museum make up Madrid's 'Golden Triangle of Art'?
The Thyssen-Bornemisza
All three line the Paseo del Prado, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape.
Q 23The Temple of Debod, an ancient Egyptian temple, was donated to Spain in 1968 in gratitude for what?
Helping save the monuments of Nubia
Q 14The Puerta del Sol marks what point of Spain's radial road system?
Kilometre Zero
The Royal House of the Post Office on the square houses the regional government.
Q 15The Plaza Mayor was completed in 1619 under which king, whose equestrian statue stands at its centre?
Philip III
Juan Gómez de Mora built it; the bronze statue is by Giambologna and Pietro Tacca.
Q 16How many balconies overlook the Plaza Mayor from the buildings that enclose it?
237
Construction began in 1617 under Philip III and finished two years later.
Q 17The Royal Palace of Madrid has roughly how many rooms, making it the largest royal palace in Europe?
3,418
It replaced the Alcázar, which burned down on Christmas Eve 1734, and covers more than 135,000 square metres.
Q 18The Royal Alcázar that preceded the Royal Palace burned down on what date in 1734?
Christmas Eve
Philip V then built the present palace on the site of the old Muslim fortress.
Q 19The Prado Museum first opened to the public in which year?
1819
Its building was designed in 1785 as a natural history cabinet; the first catalogue listed 311 Spanish paintings.
Q 20Which architect designed the Prado's building in 1785, originally to house a natural history collection?
Juan de Villanueva
The king commissioned it; the museum holds the best collections of Goya, Velázquez, El Greco and Bosch.
It came from near Aswan and now stands in the Parque del Oeste.
Q 24The Buen Retiro Park was founded in which year?
1631
It is the city's most visited spot, with the Crystal Palace glass pavilion and a monument to Alfonso XII beside the pond.
Q 25The Retiro's Fountain of the Fallen Angel, erected in 1922, depicts which figure?
Lucifer
Ricardo Bellver's sculpture was inspired by a passage of Milton's Paradise Lost.
Q 26The Cibeles Palace, now Madrid's city hall, was built as the headquarters of what?
The postal and telegraph service
Two young architects won a competition to design it; it opened the same year as the Metro and also houses the CentroCentro cultural centre.
Q 27The Madrid Metro's first line, between Cuatro Caminos and Sol, opened in which year?
1919
King Alfonso XIII invested in it; the ghost station of Chamberí survives from that first line.
Q 28The Madrid Metro is the third-longest in Europe behind which two systems?
Moscow and London
Only the Paris Métro has more stations; the network has thirteen heavy-rail lines and three light-rail lines.
Q 29Madrid-Barajas Airport's award-winning Terminal 4 opened in which year?
2006
The airport handles over 60 million passengers a year and specialises in routes to the Americas.
Q 30Real Madrid have played at the Santiago Bernabéu since its completion in which year?
1947
Renovated in 2024 to seat 83,186, it hosted the Euro 1964 final and the 1982 World Cup final.