Montenegro Trivia
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45 free Montenegro trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Montenegro is a country of 630,000 people wedged between the Adriatic and the Dinaric Alps, whose name is Venetian for 'Black Mountain'. It was ruled by prince-bishops, kept the Ottomans at bay from its highlands, became a kingdom in 1910, spent most of the 20th century inside Yugoslavia and voted for independence in 2006 by a margin so narrow the EU had set a special threshold. This quiz covers that story along with the geography that draws visitors: the fjord-like Bay of Kotor and its walled Venetian town, Durmitor and the Tara Canyon, Lake Skadar, Mount Lovćen and the highest peak that only became the highest in 2018. It also asks about modern Montenegro: Podgorica's years as Titograd, the euro used without eurozone membership, NATO accession in 2017, Milo Đukanović's three decades in power, the official language debate, the Serbian Orthodox Church, water polo and handball medals, the poet Njegoš and The Mountain Wreath, and the island resort of Sveti Stefan that hosted Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Montenegro, Podgorica, Kotor, the Tara River Canyon, Lake Skadar, Sveti Stefan, Njegoš and the flag, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Montenegro?
Podgorica
Podgorica's old town was all but destroyed in World War II, when only a clock tower, a mosque and a few houses survived, so the capital is largely a city built since 1946.
Q 02Montenegro's coastline lies on which sea?
The Adriatic
The Adriatic shore came late: Montenegro was a landlocked mountain state until the peace settlement of 1878 gave it a lasting outlet to the sea.
Q 03Montenegro's anthem 'Oj, svijetla majska zoro' greets the bright dawn of which month?
May
May is the month: the title means 'Oh, Bright Dawn of May'. The song was a folk tune sung in many versions before a 2004 law on state symbols fixed its official text.
Q 04Which country borders Montenegro beyond the mouth of the Bay of Kotor?
Croatia
Croatia meets Montenegro at the Prevlaka peninsula, which guards the mouth of the bay; the two disputed it after Yugoslavia broke up, and United Nations monitors stayed there until 2002.
Q 05What does the name Montenegro, Crna Gora in the local language, literally mean?
Black Mountain
Black Mountain is the literal meaning of both names: 'Montenegro' simply translates Crna Gora, a name usually linked to the dark mountain that rises above the old capital.
Q 06Which organisation proposed the 55% bar for Montenegro's 2006 independence vote?
The European Union
The European Union's envoy proposed the 55% rule, which the pro-independence side attacked as undemocratic before accepting it; the yes vote then cleared it with 55.5%.
Q 07Before 2006, Montenegro was in a state union with which country?
Serbia
Serbia and Montenegro formed a loose state union in February 2003, replacing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; Montenegro voted to leave it three years later.
Q 08Which organisation did Montenegro join in June 2017?
NATO
NATO admitted Montenegro as its 29th member on 5 June 2017, eighteen years after alliance aircraft had bombed targets there during the Kosovo war.
Q 09Which currency has Montenegro used since 2002 without any formal agreement with its issuer?
The euro
The euro replaced the German mark, which Montenegro had adopted in place of the Yugoslav dinar; it uses the currency unilaterally and has no seat in the eurozone.
Q 10Montenegro's independence was recognised by the Great Powers at which 1878 gathering?
The Congress of Berlin
The Congress of Berlin recognised Montenegro's independence and roughly doubled its territory, though it cut back the larger gains promised months earlier at San Stefano.
Q 11In 1910 Montenegro's Prince Nicholas took which new title?
King
King was the title Nicholas I took in August 1910 to mark fifty years on the throne; he proved Montenegro's first and only king, deposed in 1918 when the country was absorbed into the new Yugoslav state.
Q 12Montenegro's celibate prince-bishops usually passed their office to whom?
A nephew
A nephew was the usual heir: the Petrović-Njegoš prince-bishops, barred from marrying, each named a nephew to succeed them until the last one made himself a secular prince in 1852.
Q 13Which James Bond film is partly set in Montenegro?
Casino Royale
Casino Royale (2006) sets its poker showdown in Montenegro, yet those scenes were shot in the Czech Republic, where the spa town of Karlovy Vary and its Grandhotel Pupp stood in for the country.
Q 21Crkvice, a village high above the Bay of Kotor, is one of the places in Europe with the most what?
Rainfall
Rainfall at Crkvice comes to about five metres a year, among the heaviest in Europe, yet the karst limestone carries most of the water away through underground channels.
Q 22Which border peak, just higher than famous Bobotov Kuk, is Montenegro's highest point?
Zla Kolata
Zla Kolata, at 2,534 metres on the Albanian border, tops the list; Bobotov Kuk, a few metres lower, was taken for the highest until the border peaks were surveyed.
Q 23Bobotov Kuk, long thought to be Montenegro's highest point, lies in which mountain range?
Durmitor
Durmitor is the massif around Žabljak: glaciers shaped its peaks and left 18 lakes that locals call 'mountain eyes', and its national park has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980.
Q 14Prince-Bishop Petar II, known simply as Njegoš, is celebrated for which epic poem?
The Mountain Wreath
The Mountain Wreath is a drama in verse that Njegoš had printed in 1847 at an Armenian monastery in Vienna, and it is still counted his masterpiece.
Q 15Which maritime republic ruled the Bay of Kotor from 1420 until 1797?
Venice
Venice held Kotor from 1420 until the republic itself fell in 1797; the walls it built up the mountainside behind the town are now part of a UNESCO listing of its sea defences.
Q 16Zeta, the medieval forerunner of Montenegro, fell to which power in 1496?
The Ottomans
The Ottomans forced out Zeta's lord, Đurađ Crnojević, in 1496 and within a few years attached the land to their sanjak of Scutari.
Q 17Before the Slavs arrived, the land that is now Montenegro was inhabited mainly by which ancient people?
Illyrians
The Illyrians, a group of Indo-European tribes, dominated the western Balkans before Rome conquered them; their last kingdom, under Gentius, fell in 168 BC.
Q 18Which occupying power faced a mass uprising in Montenegro from 13 July 1941?
Italy
Italy had occupied Montenegro after Yugoslavia's collapse in April 1941; the rising of 13 July won back almost the whole country within weeks before it was crushed, and the date is now Statehood Day.
Q 19From 1946 to 1992, Montenegro's capital bore what name?
Titograd
Titograd honoured the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito: the city took the name in 1946, when it became the republic's capital, and returned to its historic name in 1992.
Q 20Which politician dominated Montenegro for three decades after Yugoslavia broke up?
Milo Đukanović
Milo Đukanović rose as an ally of Slobodan Milošević, turned against him in 1997 and later led Montenegro to independence; he was prime minister or president for most of the years from 1991 to 2023.
Q 24Which river in Montenegro carved a canyon up to 1,300 metres deep, often billed as Europe's deepest?
The Tara
The Tara's canyon is about 80 kilometres long and UNESCO calls its gorges the deepest in Europe, although the Sulak canyon in Russia's Caucasus is measured some 600 metres deeper.
Q 25Which lake on the Montenegro-Albania border is the largest in the Balkans?
Skadar
Lake Skadar is the largest lake in the Balkans and changes size with the seasons, swelling from under 400 square kilometres to about 530 at high water; the shore on Montenegro's side is a national park.
Q 26Which two mountain massifs rise straight from the shores of the Bay of Kotor?
Lovćen and Orjen
Lovćen and Orjen wall in the bay on either side; the poet-ruler Njegoš asked to be buried on a Lovćen summit, and his mausoleum now crowns the mountain.
Q 27Which fortified islet on Montenegro's coast was a fishing village before Yugoslavia turned it into a luxury hotel?
Sveti Stefan
Sveti Stefan had only about 20 residents left by 1954; the state moved them to the mainland and reopened the walled village as a hotel that drew guests such as Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor.
Q 28Which monastery, Montenegro's leading pilgrimage site, is built into an almost vertical cliff?
Ostrog
Ostrog was founded in the seventeenth century by Saint Basil of Ostrog, whose body is enshrined there; pilgrims climb to it because miracles are credited to the saint.
Q 29Besides Latin, which alphabet has equal standing under Montenegro's constitution?
Cyrillic
Cyrillic and Latin are equal under the 2007 constitution, which also made Montenegrin the official language; a 2009 spelling reform then gave each alphabet two extra letters, written ś and ź in Latin.
Q 30Most Orthodox believers in Montenegro belong to which church?
Serbian Orthodox
The Serbian Orthodox Church, through its Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, has by far the largest following; its 2020 protest walks against a church-property law helped unseat the ruling party that year.