Morocco Trivia
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67 free Morocco trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Morocco is one of the world's oldest continuously existing states, the only North African country the Ottomans never conquered, and the first nation on earth to recognise the United States. This Morocco trivia quiz covers all of it: the geography of the Atlas and Rif mountains, the Sahara dunes and the Strait of Gibraltar; the history from Idris I and the Almohads through the French protectorate, the Green March and today's king; the culture of Fez's medina, Marrakesh's Jemaa el-Fnaa square, the blue town of Chefchaouen and the world's oldest university; the food (couscous, tagine, mint tea, argan oil, pastilla); the films shot at Ouarzazate; and the sport, from the Atlas Lions' 2022 World Cup run to Olympic champions El Moutawakel and El Guerrouj. The 67 questions start easy enough for anyone planning a first trip and finish with genuine stumpers for people who have lived there. It works for a travel night, a geography classroom or an Africa round in a pub quiz. Every answer is checked against encyclopaedic and primary sources, and the explanations add the detail that makes each fact stick.
30 of 67 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital city of Morocco?
Rabat
Rabat took over from Fez under the French, who moved the seat of government to the coast after riots in the old capital; independent Morocco kept it, though Casablanca is far larger.
Q 02Which body of water separates Morocco from Spain?
Strait of Gibraltar
The Strait of Gibraltar is named for the Rock on its northern shore, Jabal Tariq or 'Tariq's mountain', after Tariq ibn Ziyad, the general who led the Muslim conquest of Spain from 711.
Q 03Which country borders Morocco to the east?
Algeria
Algeria shares the whole eastern frontier, but the land border was shut in 1994, after Morocco linked its neighbour to a gun attack on a Marrakesh hotel, and it stayed shut for decades.
Q 04What is the highest peak in Morocco and all of North Africa?
Toubkal
Toubkal rises to 4,167 metres south of Marrakesh, yet in summer it needs no technical climbing: trekkers walk up from the village of Imlil in two days, sleeping at a mountain refuge.
Q 05Morocco's Arabic name, al-Maghrib, places it at which compass point of the Arab world?
The west
The west: al-Maghrib means 'the West', a name the Arabs gave all of north-west Africa, the Maghreb; Morocco, its most westerly country, kept the name as its own.
Q 06Which two Spanish enclaves on Morocco's Mediterranean coast does Morocco claim as its own?
Ceuta and Melilla
Ceuta and Melilla have been in Spanish hands for more than four centuries and give the European Union its only land borders with Africa, which is why both are ringed by high fences.
Q 07Which river, Morocco's longest, feeds a famous valley of date palms and kasbahs before mostly drying up in the desert?
The Draa
The Draa is about 1,100 km long on the map, yet beyond its oases the bed lies dry for most of the year, so its water seldom reaches the sea.
Q 08Which Moroccan city is nicknamed the 'Blue Pearl' for its blue-washed houses?
Chefchaouen
Chefchaouen began in 1471 as a small fortress and filled with Muslims and Jews driven out of Spain; one telling credits its Jewish residents with first painting the walls blue.
Q 09Which mountain resort town, laid out by the French as a hill station, is nicknamed Morocco's 'Little Switzerland'?
Ifrane
Ifrane was founded in 1929 with Alpine-style chalets so that colonial families could escape the summer heat of the plains; its slopes are snow-covered in winter.
Q 10Which hero of Greek myth is said to have rested in the sea caves that bear his name on Morocco's northern tip?
Hercules
Hercules is said to have slept in the caves before one of his labours; in one telling he then smashed through the mountain that joined Africa to Europe, leaving the Pillars of Hercules.
Q 11Morocco rejoined which body in 2017, 33 years after walking out?
The African Union
The African Union's forerunner gave a seat in 1984 to a republic declared on territory Morocco claims, so Morocco walked out; by its return it was the only African country outside the body.
Q 12In 1821 the sultan of Morocco gave which young country a building to house its diplomats?
The United States
The United States had signed a treaty of friendship with Morocco in 1786; its diplomats went on working in the sultan's gift for 140 years, and the building is now a museum.
Q 13Which country sent a gunboat to a Moroccan port in 1911 to challenge France's hold there?
Germany
Q 21The 1975 'Green March' of about 350,000 Moroccans was aimed at taking over which territory from Spain?
Spanish Sahara
Spanish Sahara was entered by unarmed marchers carrying Qurans and flags; within weeks Spain agreed to pull out and hand the territory to Morocco and Mauritania.
Q 22Which two leaders met at Casablanca in January 1943 and demanded the Axis powers' 'unconditional surrender'?
Roosevelt and Churchill
Roosevelt and Churchill talked for ten days; Stalin was invited but stayed in Moscow because the battle of Stalingrad was still being fought.
Q 23Which rebel leader established the short-lived Republic of the Rif in the 1920s?
Abd el-Krim
Germany's gunboat Panther set off a war scare across Europe; Berlin backed down in return for a slice of French Congo, and a treaty signed the following March made Morocco a French protectorate.
Q 14After Corsica, the French exiled Sultan Mohammed V to which island?
Madagascar
Madagascar only made him a hero: unrest spread until France brought him home in November 1955 and recognised Morocco's independence on 2 March 1956.
Q 15Which descendant of the Prophet fled the Abbasid caliph and founded Morocco's first major Muslim dynasty in 788?
Idris I
Idris I escaped a crushed revolt in Arabia, was taken in by the Awraba tribe at Walila and made their imam; he is said to have been poisoned three years later by an agent of the caliph.
Q 16Which dynasty has ruled Morocco since the 17th century?
The Alaouites
The Alaouites came out of the Tafilalt oasis on the desert's edge; in the 1660s Moulay Rashid reunited a country that had splintered when the Saadis collapsed, and his family kept the throne.
Q 17Morocco was the only North African nation never to fall under the rule of which power?
The Ottomans
The Ottomans took the rest of the North African coast, but the Saadi sultans held them off, so Morocco went on under its own rulers while its neighbours answered to Istanbul.
Q 18Morocco's Saadi dynasty conquered which empire of the Niger bend in the late 16th century, seizing Timbuktu?
The Songhai Empire
The Songhai Empire fell in 1591 to a Moroccan force of only about 4,000 men, because they carried muskets across the desert and the far larger Songhai army fought with spears and arrows.
Q 19Fes el Bali, the walled quarter holding the Chouara tannery, is a famous example of what kind of city core?
A medina
Fes el Bali is a medina, an old walled town whose lanes are too narrow for cars, so donkeys, mules and handcarts still deliver the goods, down to the gas cylinders.
Q 20The 1578 Battle of the Three Kings in Morocco killed the young king of which European country?
Portugal
Sebastian I disappeared on the field at Alcácer Quibir; without an heir, Portugal passed to Philip II of Spain for 60 years.
Abd el-Krim routed a Spanish army at Annual in 1921 and declared the Republic of the Rif; it took chemical bombs and a combined French and Spanish army to force his surrender in May 1926.
Q 24Which king came to the Moroccan throne in July 1999?
Mohammed VI
Mohammed VI succeeded his father Hassan II and within five years had rewritten the family code, the Mudawana, to give women more rights.
Q 25The Roman ruins of Volubilis are thought to have been a royal capital of which ancient kingdom?
Mauretania
Mauretania's last king, Ptolemy, was a grandson of Antony and Cleopatra; Caligula had him put to death in AD 40 and Rome swallowed the kingdom.
Q 26Which traveller left Tangier for Mecca in 1325 and roamed for decades?
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta set out on the pilgrimage and did not see Morocco again for 24 years; back home, he dictated the story of his travels to a scholar, working largely from memory.
Q 27French is widely used in Morocco but has no official status: which language joined Arabic as official in 2011?
Berber
Berber, known to its speakers as Amazigh or Tamazight, was made an official language by the 2011 constitution, passed by referendum after the Arab Spring protests.
Q 28What is the name of the Moroccan dialect of Arabic that serves as the everyday lingua franca?
Darija
Darija is so far from the Arabic of the Middle East that Arabic speakers from outside Morocco often struggle to follow it, and it has no standard written form.
Q 29What is the currency of Morocco?
The dirham
The dirham is a closed currency: it cannot be exchanged outside Morocco, so travellers change money on arrival and convert what is left before they fly home.
Q 30What symbol sits at the centre of Morocco's red flag?
A green five-pointed star
A green five-pointed star was added in 1915; until then the flag was plain red, and under French and Spanish rule the new design could fly only inland, never at sea.