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47 free Oslo trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Oslo has been called Ánslo, Christiania and Kristiania, burned down fourteen times, and grown from a fjord-side trading post into the electric-car capital of the world. This Oslo trivia quiz covers the city's whole story: Harald Hardrada's founding, the 1624 fire that moved the town, the 1925 name change, the wartime sinking of the Blücher, and the modern waterfront of opera houses and museums. You will also visit the places every traveller knows (Frogner Park's Vigeland sculptures, the Munch Museum, Bygdøy's Viking ships and Kon-Tiki, Holmenkollen, the City Hall where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded) plus the geography, climate, transport and sport that make the city tick. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer is verified and cited to its reference page. If you enjoy this quiz, try our other Scandinavian and world-cities quizzes.
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Q 01Oslo is the capital of which country?
Norway
Oslo is the capital of Norway and its largest city; it is both a county and a municipality, the only Norwegian city where those two administrative levels are combined.
Q 02Which Viking king established Oslo as a trading place in 1048?
Harald Hardrada
Harald Hardrada, the last great Viking king, is credited by the sagas with founding Oslo as a trading town around 1048; graves from before AD 1000 let the city celebrate its millennium in 2000.
Q 03What was Oslo called from 1624 until 1925?
Christiania
After a devastating fire in 1624, King Christian IV rebuilt the town beneath Akershus Fortress and named it Christiania after himself; the spelling Kristiania was used from the late 1800s.
Q 04In which waterfront district did the Oslo Opera House open in 2008?
Bjørvika
Bjørvika, a former container port east of the city centre, is where the Oslo Opera House opened in April 2008; the new Munch Museum followed there in 2021.
Q 05Which king first resided permanently in Oslo, making it the capital around 1300?
Haakon V
Haakon V Magnusson, king from 1299, was the first monarch to reside permanently in Oslo and began Akershus Fortress; the city's standing faded after the union with Denmark from 1380.
Q 06By what factor did Aker's area exceed Oslo's when the two merged in 1948?
27 times larger
Aker, the green and largely affluent municipality that surrounded the capital, was 27 times larger in area; the 1948 merger was unpopular there but created the modern city of Oslo.
Q 07What is the population of Oslo municipality (2025)?
About 724,000
About 724,000 people lived in Oslo municipality in 2025; the continuous urban area holds roughly 1.1 million and the wider metropolitan region about 1.5 million.
Q 08Which patron saint, shown with a millstone and arrows, appears on Oslo's city seal?
St. Hallvard
St. Hallvard, Oslo's patron saint, holds arrows and a millstone, the instruments of his martyrdom; Oslo, like Bergen and Tønsberg, uses a seal rather than a formal coat of arms.
Q 09Which animal appears in Oslo's nickname, coined in an 1870 Bjørnson poem?
Tiger
Tiger: the nickname Tigerstaden, 'Tiger City', traces to an 1870 poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in which a tiger stands for the dangerous city; a bronze tiger was placed outside Oslo Central Station in 2000.
Q 10What did people once wrongly believe the name Oslo meant?
The mouth of the Lo river
The mouth of the Lo river was a long-repeated folk etymology, but no river Lo ever existed; linguists read Óslo as 'meadow at the foot of a hill' or 'meadow consecrated to the gods'.
Q 11How many lakes lie within Oslo's city limits?
343
Oslo has 343 lakes inside its municipal boundary; the largest, Maridalsvannet, supplies much of the city's drinking water, and there are also 40 islands within the city limits.
Q 12Which river historically divided Oslo into an East End and a West End?
Akerselva
Akerselva runs from Maridalsvannet through the centre to the fjord and marks the old divide between the working-class East End and the wealthier West End; its waterfalls powered some of the country's first modern factories in the 1840s.
Q 13Roughly how many hours of daylight does Oslo get at midsummer?
More than 18
More than 18 hours: around the June solstice the sun is up in Oslo for almost 19 hours and the night never gets fully dark, only twilight; midwinter days shrink to about six hours.
Q 21Which award is presented in Oslo every December?
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament, while the other Nobel prizes are presented in Stockholm.
Q 22In which Oslo building is the 10 December Nobel ceremony held?
The City Hall
The City Hall (Rådhuset) went up between 1931 and 1950 in the former slum area of Vika and has hosted the ceremony since 1990; its twin brick towers overlook the harbour.
Q 23Who opened the Nobel Peace Center in June 2005?
King Harald V
Q 14Which temperature, recorded in July 1901, stood for over a century as Oslo's record high?
35 °C
35 °C was recorded in Oslo in July 1901, the hottest reading in the city's measurement history and part of its warmest month on record.
Q 15Which sculptor's works fill Frogner Park?
Gustav Vigeland
Gustav Vigeland designed the free sculpture installation in Frogner Park, 212 bronze and granite works including the Monolith and the Wheel of Life, installed mainly between 1924 and 1943.
Q 16Which Oslo peninsula is nicknamed the Museum Peninsula?
Bygdøy
Bygdøy, a peninsula on Oslo's western side, hosts the Fram Museum, the Norwegian Folk Museum and the Norwegian Maritime Museum, and is one of the country's most expensive residential areas.
Q 17Which famous painting is held by Oslo's Munch Museum?
The Scream
The Scream, in both a painted and a pastel version, is held by the Munch Museum, to which Edvard Munch bequeathed his entire remaining collection on his death in 1944.
Q 18Which two Thor Heyerdahl craft are displayed together in an Oslo museum?
Kon-Tiki and Ra II
Kon-Tiki and Ra II, the 1947 balsa raft and the 1970 papyrus boat, are the original craft displayed in the Kon-Tiki Museum; Tigris was burned in 1978 and the first Ra was abandoned at sea.
Q 19How many Viking ships formed the collection of Oslo's Viking Ship Museum?
Three
Three ships, found at Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune, formed the collection; the museum closed in 2021 to be rebuilt as the Museum of the Viking Age.
Q 20Which medieval stave church is the centrepiece of Oslo's open-air Norsk Folkemuseum?
Gol Stave Church
Gol Stave Church, built around 1200 in Hallingdal, was moved to Oslo in the 1880s for King Oscar II's collection and became the centrepiece of the open-air Norsk Folkemuseum.
King Harald V opened the Nobel Peace Center on 11 June 2005 in the former Vestbanen railway station; the opening formed part of the centenary celebrations of the country's independence from Sweden in 1905.
Q 24Which firm designed the Oslo Opera House, opened in 2008?
Snøhetta
Snøhetta, the Oslo-based firm that also designed the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, won the competition in 2000; the marble-clad building cost about 500 million euros and won the 2009 Mies van der Rohe Award.
Q 25Which lake is the classic starting point for walks into Oslo's Nordmarka forest?
Sognsvann
Sognsvann, a lake at the terminus of the metro line of the same name, is the classic gateway into the Nordmarka forest; a 3.3 km path circles its shore.
Q 26How many Ibsen quotations are set into Oslo's central pavements?
69
69 quotations in stainless-steel lettering were set into the granite pavements along Henrik Ibsen's daily walk from his flat to the Grand Café; the Ibsen Sitat project finished in 2008.
Q 27Which Nobel-winning author grew up in Oslo and described it in Elleve år?
Sigrid Undset
Sigrid Undset, Nobel laureate in 1928, grew up in Oslo and drew on that childhood for Elleve år, the 1934 autobiographical novel translated as The Longest Years.
Q 28Which Winter Olympics did Oslo host?
1952
Oslo hosted the 1952 Winter Olympics, the first Winter Games held in a capital city, with Holmenkollen as the ski-jumping venue; the city withdrew a bid for the 2022 Games in 2014.
Q 29Which venue hosts Oslo's annual Diamond League athletics meeting?
Bislett Stadium
Bislett Stadium, rebuilt in 2005 on the site of the old arena where dozens of world records fell, has hosted the Bislett Games as a Diamond League meeting since the series began in 2010.
Q 30Which Oslo club is the country's most successful ice hockey team?
Vålerenga
Vålerenga Ishockey, with more Norwegian championships than any other club, plays at the rebuilt Jordal Amfi; the club's football side has also won both the league and the cup.