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60 free Mexico City trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Mexico City is the oldest capital in the Americas and one of only two founded by Indigenous peoples: the Mexica built Tenochtitlan on an island in Lake Texcoco around 1325, Cortes razed it in 1521 and rebuilt on the same grid, and the lake was drained so thoroughly that the city has been sinking into its bed ever since. This quiz covers that arc, from the eagle-and-cactus prophecy and Moctezuma's meeting with Cortes to New Spain, the Grito, the Boy Heroes of Chapultepec, Maximilian's palace, the 1968 Olympics and the Tlatelolco massacre, and the 1985 earthquake. Then it does the modern megacity: 16 boroughs and 22 million people at 2,240 metres, the Zocalo and its flag, the cathedral and the Templo Mayor found by electricity workers in 1978, the pictogram Metro, Xochimilco's trajineras and axolotls, Chapultepec's grasshopper hill and its castle, the Angel of Independence and its extra steps, Bellas Artes' Tiffany curtain and four-metre sink, Frida Kahlo's Blue House and Trotsky's murder in Coyoacan, the Basilica of Guadalupe's 20 million pilgrims, the Azteca's two World Cup finals, lucha libre masks, Day of the Dead and the city that once had the world's worst smog. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Mexico City and its landmarks, districts and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Mexico quiz covers the rest of the country.
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Q 01Mexico City began as Tenochtitlan, built by which people around 1325?
The Mexica (Aztecs)
It rose on islands in Lake Texcoco and became the largest city of the pre-Columbian Americas.
Q 02According to Aztec prophecy, the site for their great city would be marked by an eagle doing what?
Perching on a cactus with a snake in its beak
The image is on the Mexican flag today; the cactus was said to have grown from the heart of Copil.
Q 03Mexico City is described as the oldest capital city in the Americas and one of only two founded by whom?
Indigenous peoples
The other is Quito; the Spanish name 'Mexico' replaced Tenochtitlan simply because it was easier to pronounce.
Q 04On which date did Cortes and his men first enter Tenochtitlan and meet Moctezuma II?
8 November 1519
The Aztecs drove the Spanish out on La Noche Triste in June 1520; the final siege ended with Cuauhtemoc's surrender in August 1521.
Q 05Who was the last Aztec ruler, who surrendered to Cortes in August 1521?
Cuauhtemoc
Cuitlahuac had succeeded Moctezuma but soon died, probably of smallpox; the Spaniards practically razed the city.
Q 06After the conquest, why did Cortes decide to rebuild on the ruins of Tenochtitlan rather than elsewhere?
To erase all traces of the old order
He had first settled south of the city; the Spanish kept the basic layout but built churches over the temples.
Q 07At what altitude does Mexico City sit?
2,240 metres
The thin air helped Bob Beamon's 8.90 m long jump at the 1968 Olympics; surrounding volcanoes top 5,000 m.
Q 08Into how many boroughs, or alcaldias, is Mexico City divided?
16
They are subdivided into neighbourhoods called colonias; the Federal District was renamed Ciudad de Mexico, CDMX, in 2016.
Q 09Greater Mexico City is the Western Hemisphere's second-largest urban area after which city?
Sao Paulo
The city proper has 9.2 million, second only to Lima among Spanish-speaking cities.
Q 10Why is Mexico City sinking?
Groundwater is over-pumped from the old lake bed
The city rests on the drained Lake Texcoco; the Palacio de Bellas Artes alone has sunk about four metres.
Q 11The Federal District surrounding the city was renamed Ciudad de Mexico on what date?
29 January 2016
Until 2013 locals called it 'DF'; CDMX has since taken over.
Q 12The Zocalo's formal name is what?
Plaza de la Constitucion
The 240-by-240-metre square holds a giant flag raised and lowered daily and was the Aztec ceremonial centre.
Q 13The Metropolitan Cathedral on the Zocalo was built in sections between which dates?
1573 and 1813
It rose around the first post-conquest church, and sinking has put it on the World Monuments Fund's endangered list.
Q 21The Torre Latinoamericana, opened in 1956, is famous for surviving what undamaged?
The magnitude-8.1 quake of 1985
It was Mexico's tallest building for 27 years and the city's first skyscraper.
Q 22The great earthquake that struck Mexico City at 7:19 am in 1985 fell on which date?
19 September
At least 5,000 died; the epicentre was 350 km away off Michoacan, and the soft lake bed amplified the shaking; another quake hit on the same date in 2017.
Q 23The Mexico City Metro opened in which year?
1969
Every station has a pictogram, a boon for riders who could not read; the 225.9 km network is Latin America's largest.
Q 14The Templo Mayor, the Aztecs' main temple, was rediscovered in 1978 by whom?
Electricity workers digging for cables
They hit a huge stone disc of the goddess Coyolxauhqui; the temple was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and the rain god Tlaloc.
Q 15The name Chapultepec means what in Nahuatl?
Grasshopper hill
The 866-hectare park holds the zoo, the castle and the National Museum of Anthropology.
Q 16Chapultepec Castle was the residence of Maximilian I during which period?
The Second Mexican Empire, 1864-67
With Iturbide Palace it is one of only two royal palaces in North America ever inhabited by monarchs; it has been the National Museum of History since 1939.
Q 17The cadets who died defending Chapultepec Castle against US troops in 1847 are remembered as what?
Los Ninos Heroes
The storming of the castle ended the Battle for Mexico City; the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in the north of the city.
Q 18Paseo de la Reforma was modelled by Emperor Maximilian on which Paris avenue?
The Champs-Elysees
The golden Angel of Independence on the avenue is the city's most recognisable icon.
Q 19Why does the Angel of Independence have more steps than the nine it had in 1910?
The ground around it has sunk
Built for the independence centennial, the column had already collapsed once during construction in 1906.
Q 20The Palacio de Bellas Artes has a stage curtain made of nearly a million pieces of glass by which firm?
Tiffany's of New York
The 24-ton stained-glass curtain is the only one of its kind in any opera house; the building opened in 1934.
Q 24Each Metro station is identified by a minimalist logo designed by whom?
Lance Wyman
The pictograms helped riders who could not read; Guadalajara and Monterrey copied the system.
Q 25Visitors to Xochimilco ride the canals in colourful boats called what?
Trajineras
About 170 km of canals wind between artificial islands, and the area is a World Heritage Site.
Q 26What is a chinampa?
An artificial island for farming
Sometimes called floating gardens, they were built by weaving reeds and stakes into underwater fences and filling them with soil.
Q 27Which critically endangered salamander, famous for regrowing limbs, is native to the lakes of Xochimilco?
The axolotl
Perhaps 50 to 1,000 adults survive in the wild, squeezed by invasive tilapia and carp; captive colonies number in the many thousands.
Q 28The Frida Kahlo Museum in Coyoacan is nicknamed La Casa Azul because of what?
Its cobalt-blue walls
She was born and died in the house and lived there with Diego Rivera; Trotsky was murdered nearby in 1940.
Q 29Which exiled Russian revolutionary was murdered in his Coyoacan house in 1940?
Leon Trotsky
He had first been given asylum with Rivera and Kahlo; the house is now a museum.
Q 30The name Coyoacan means what?
Place of those who own coyotes
A fountain of two bronze coyotes stands in the borough's central plaza.