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50 free Melbourne trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Melbourne is the city that was briefly the richest in the world, the first capital of federated Australia, and the place where Australian rules football, the Melbourne Cup and the country's first feature film were all invented. It is also the city with the world's largest tram network and, after six lockdowns, the longest total COVID lockdown anywhere. These 50 questions run from the easy to the obscure: the state and the bay, the Viscount who gave the city its name, John Batman's disputed treaty, the Hoddle Grid, the gold rush that let Melbourne overtake Sydney, 'Marvellous Melbourne' and the 1890s bust. Then culture and sport: Nellie Melba, Countdown, the Heidelberg School, Hosier Lane, the MCG and the first Test match, the Storm and the Victory. The hard tier asks for the demographic centre, the dam that holds most of the water, the airport that came before Tullamarine and the suburb that hosts Nintendo. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something either way. Play it solo, or print it for a pub night with Sydney friends.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Melbourne is the capital of which Australian state?
Victoria
It is also Australia's second-most populous city, home to about 19% of the national population.
Q 02Melbourne occupies the northern and eastern shores of which bay?
Port Phillip Bay
The enclosed, shallow bay makes the sea warmer than the open ocean in summer and colder in winter.
Q 03What are the inhabitants of Melbourne called?
Melburnians
The spelling drops the 'o' from the city's name.
Q 04The city was named in 1837 after whom?
A British prime minister
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, took his title from Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire.
Q 05In which year was Melbourne founded by free settlers from Van Diemen's Land?
1835
Van Diemen's Land is modern-day Tasmania; the settlement was initially known by the Indigenous name Dootigala.
Q 06Melbourne was Australia's interim seat of government until which year?
1927
Parliament sat in Melbourne until it moved to the new purpose-built capital, Canberra.
Q 07Melbourne hosted the Summer Olympics in which year?
1956
They were the first Olympic Games held outside Europe and the United States.
Q 08Melbourne has the world's largest urban network of what?
Trams
As of 2021 the system ran 475 vehicles on 250 km of double track.
Q 09What Indigenous name is used for the Melbourne area?
Naarm
In the Boonwurrung language Naarm means 'the Bay'.
Q 10Who claimed in the 1830s to have bought 2,400 km² of land from Wurundjeri elders?
John Batman
None of the parties spoke the same language, and the elders likely saw the exchange as a tanderrum ceremony granting temporary access.
Q 11Which governor annulled Batman's Treaty with the Aboriginal elders?
Richard Bourke
Bourke then governed all of eastern mainland Australia from Sydney and paid compensation to the association.
Q 12What is the name of the 1837 street layout at the core of Melbourne's CBD?
Hoddle Grid
The grid measures roughly one mile by half a mile and fronts the Yarra River on its southern edge.
Q 13Viscount Melbourne's seat, Melbourne Hall, stands in which English county?
Derbyshire
The Australian city therefore shares its name with a small English market town.
Q 21The Australian Grand Prix moved to Melbourne from which city?
Adelaide
The move came during the Kennett government's 1990s push for sports tourism.
Q 22Since which year has the F1 race been held at the Albert Park Circuit?
1996
Albert Park sits on Bunurong land south of the CBD.
Q 23How many days in total did Melbourne spend in COVID-19 lockdown?
262
Across six lockdowns it was the longest total lockdown period of any city in the world.
Q 24In which year did Melbourne record its highest temperature of 46.4 °C?
Q 14In 1851 the district around Melbourne separated from which colony?
New South Wales
The district became the Colony of Victoria with Melbourne as its capital, just as gold was discovered.
Q 15By which year had Melbourne overtaken Sydney as Australia's most populous city?
1865
The gold rush nearly doubled the population from 25,000 to 40,000 within months.
Q 16Which visiting English journalist coined the phrase 'Marvellous Melbourne' in the 1880s?
George Augustus Sala
The phrase came to stand for the opulence of the land-boom decade, when Melbourne was reputedly the world's richest city.
Q 17Where did Australia's first federal parliament convene on 9 May 1901?
Royal Exhibition Building
The building, opened for the 1880 exhibition, is now World Heritage–listed.
Q 18Melbourne's cable tramway system opened in which year?
1885
It became one of the world's most extensive cable systems by 1890.
Q 19Which artist painted the 1955 work 'Collins St., 5 pm'?
John Brack
The painting captured the city centre as the dreary domain of office workers.
Q 20The construction of which 1958 building led to CBD height limits being lifted?
ICI House
Its completion ushered in the skyscraper era in Melbourne's skyline.
2009
It was recorded on 7 February, the day of the Black Saturday bushfires.
Q 25Which phrase sums up Melbourne's famously changeable weather?
Four seasons in one day
Isolated showers can pass through in minutes, repeat several times a day, and give way to calm sunshine.
Q 26Australia 108, Melbourne's tallest building, stands in which district?
Southbank
Melbourne's CBD is home to more skyscrapers than any other Australian city.
Q 27Which suburb is Melbourne's demographic centre?
Camberwell
Urban sprawl to the south-east pulled the population centre well away from the CBD.
Q 28Which Melbourne festival is Australia's largest free community festival?
Moomba
Melbourne topped The Economist's most-liveable-cities list for much of the 2010s, partly for its cultural scene.
Q 29In which year was the State Library founded?
1854
It is one of the world's oldest free public libraries and the fourth-most-visited globally as of 2018.
Q 30Which 1886 novel set in Melbourne was the fastest-selling crime novel of its era?
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
Fergus Hume's book predates Sherlock Holmes's debut by a year.