Middle East Trivia
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117 free Middle East trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
68 free Middle East trivia questions with answers. The Middle East is where farming, writing and three world religions began, and where a huge share of the world's oil still comes from. This quiz covers the region as a whole: its geography (the Fertile Crescent, the Dead Sea, the Empty Quarter, the Nile, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz), its landmarks (Petra, Mecca, Jerusalem's Old City, the Burj Khalifa, the Suez Canal) and its modern history (Sykes-Picot, the founding of Israel, OPEC, the Arab League, the Iranian Revolution, the Gulf War and the Arab Spring). There are country-by-country questions too, from Turkey and Iran to Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and every Gulf state, plus a few on Arabic, the Hajj and who coined the term 'Middle East' in the first place. Early questions suit a general-knowledge round; later ones will stretch geography buffs. Every answer has been verified against Wikipedia and shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 117 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country is the largest in the Middle East by area?
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia fills most of the Arabian Peninsula, yet it hasn't a single permanent river, only dry wadis that run after rain.
Q 02Which three countries are the most populous in the Middle East?
Egypt, Iran and Turkey
Egypt, Iran and Turkey each hold well over 80 million people, and nearly all Egyptians live along the Nile, because the rest of the country is desert.
Q 03Which American naval strategist used the term 'Middle East' in a 1902 article?
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Alfred Thayer Mahan argued that Britain's navy must hold the Persian Gulf to keep Russia out; The Times then took up his phrase in a long series of articles.
Q 04Mount Damavand, the highest peak in the Middle East, stands in which country?
Iran
Iran. Damavand's snowcapped cone last erupted about 7,300 years ago, yet fumaroles near its summit still let off volcanic gas.
Q 05Which three religions all originated in the Middle East and have their holiest sites there?
Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Judaism, Christianity and Islam all revere Abraham as a founding father, which is why the three are grouped together as the Abrahamic religions.
Q 06Which region spanning the Levant and Mesopotamia is nicknamed 'the cradle of civilization'?
The Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent earned the nickname because settled farming, the first cities and the earliest writing all emerged along its well-watered arc.
Q 07Which sea separates the Arabian Peninsula from the coast of Africa?
The Red Sea
The Red Sea fills a long rift in Earth's crust, opened where the block carrying Arabia split away from Africa.
Q 08Ancient Mesopotamia lay between which two rivers?
Tigris and Euphrates
The Tigris and Euphrates. So little rain falls on their southern plain that reliable farming began there only once people dug canals to carry the rivers' water to the fields.
Q 09The lowest land on Earth is the shore of which body of water?
The Dead Sea
The Dead Sea. Its surface has fallen by tens of metres since the mid-20th century, largely because the river that feeds it has been heavily diverted upstream.
Q 10Which river is the Dead Sea's main tributary?
Jordan River
The Jordan River flows in from the north, but the lake has no outlet: water leaves only by evaporation and its salts stay behind, which is why it is far saltier than the ocean.
Q 11Which three territories border the Dead Sea?
Jordan, the West Bank and Israel
Jordan, the West Bank and Israel ring the lake; as the story goes, Bedouin shepherds looking for a stray animal found the first Dead Sea Scrolls in a cave above the West Bank shore.
Q 12Which Egyptian president nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, prompting an invasion by Britain, France and Israel?
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser. The invaders had to pull out within months under American and Soviet pressure, and he emerged a hero of Arab nationalism.
Q 13Which container ship blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March 2021?
Ever Given
Q 21The Gulf Cooperation Council, founded in 1981, has how many member states?
Six
Six: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE signed the GCC charter in Abu Dhabi in May 1981, and the council's secretariat sits in Riyadh.
Q 22The secret 1916 Anglo-French deal carving up the Ottoman Middle East is named after whom?
Sykes and Picot
Sykes and Picot, a British and a French diplomat, drew it up in secret; Russia's Bolsheviks published it in 1917, embarrassing Britain, which had promised the Arabs independence.
Q 23Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in December 2010 sparked the Arab Spring in which country?
Tunisia
Bouazizi, a street vendor in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, set himself alight on 17 December 2010; President Ben Ali fled the country on 14 January 2011, the first leader toppled by the Arab Spring.
The 400-metre Ever Given ran aground on 23 March 2021 and was refloated six days later, by which time more than 400 ships were waiting to pass.
Q 14How many locks do ships pass through on the Suez Canal?
Zero
Zero. It is a sea-level waterway, an open cut from one sea to the other, so ships sail all 193 km without ever being raised or lowered.
Q 15Which narrow waterway connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman?
The Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz is the Persian Gulf's only sea passage to the open ocean, which is why about a fifth of the world's oil supply was moving through it by the mid-2010s.
Q 16Which Gulf island nation is linked to Saudi Arabia by a causeway?
Bahrain
Bahrain. The link is the King Fahd Causeway, and in 2011 Saudi troops drove across it after Bahrain's rulers asked for help against mass protests.
Q 17What does 'Rub' al Khali', the name of the great desert of southern Arabia, mean?
Empty Quarter
Empty Quarter. The name suits the surface, which is almost uninhabited, yet vast oil reserves lie under the sands, including part of Ghawar, the world's largest conventional oil field.
Q 18OPEC was founded in Iraq, but which city houses its headquarters?
Vienna
Vienna. In December 1975 gunmen led by Carlos the Jackal stormed a meeting there, seized more than 60 hostages including oil ministers, and flew many of them to Algiers.
Q 19Which non-Middle Eastern country was one of OPEC's five founding members?
Venezuela
Venezuela. Its oil minister Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo was a driving force behind OPEC, yet he later called petroleum 'the devil's excrement'.
Q 20The Arab League was founded in 1945 in which city?
Cairo
Cairo. The league's headquarters has stayed there except from 1979 to 1990, when members moved it abroad to punish Egypt for making peace with Israel.
Q 24Which square was the centre of the 2011 protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak?
Tahrir Square
Tahrir Square. Protesters were still camped there on 11 February, when the vice president went on state television to say Mubarak had handed power to the army.
Q 25Which city is considered the holiest in Islam and the birthplace of Muhammad?
Mecca
Mecca. Wherever they are, Muslims turn towards the city five times a day to pray, and every believer who is able is expected to make the pilgrimage there once.
Q 26The Kaaba, which pilgrims circle during the Hajj, stands inside which mosque?
Masjid al-Haram
Masjid al-Haram, the Sacred Mosque, surrounds the Kaaba, which is draped in the kiswah, a silk cloth worked in gold that is taken down and replaced every year.
Q 27Pilgrims circling the Kaaba try to kiss which relic in its corner?
Black Stone
The Black Stone. Raiders carried it off in 930 and held it for over 20 years, and it survives as broken pieces bound together in a silver frame.
Q 28Jerusalem's Old City has Muslim, Christian, Jewish and which other quarter, named for the first state to adopt Christianity?
Armenian
Armenian. Monks from Armenia settled in Jerusalem in the 4th century, soon after their kingdom converted, and the quarter grew up around their Cathedral of St James.
Q 29Israel captured East Jerusalem in which 1967 conflict?
The Six-Day War
The Six-Day War. Israel had warned Jordan to stay out of the fighting; when it joined in, Israeli forces drove its army out of East Jerusalem within three days.
Q 30Which leader read out Israel's declaration of independence in Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948?
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion read it hours before British rule ended at midnight, became Israel's first prime minister, and within a day was fighting off invading Arab armies.