Peru
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7correct to beat the crowd
Discover how much you really know about Peru with our comprehensive free 98-question trivia quiz with answers. From the ancient wonders of Machu Picchu to the vibrant culture of Lima, test your knowledge on Peruvian history, geography, food, and famous landmarks. Whether you're planning a trip or simply curious about this South American gem, this quiz will challenge and entertain you!
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Q 01Which ancient civilization in Peru is considered the earliest known complex society in the Americas?
Caral-Supe
Caral-Supe raised its pyramids north of Lima at about the time Egypt built its own, yet it left no pottery, no weapons and no defensive walls; Mexico's Olmecs arose nearly 2,000 years later.
Q 02Which lake in Peru's southern highlands is often called the world's highest navigable lake?
Titicaca
Lake Titicaca's first steamship, the Yavari, was built in England in 1862, shipped out in pieces small enough for mules to carry up the Andes, and finally launched on the lake in 1870.
Q 03The Amazon proper begins in Peru where the Marañón meets which other river?
Ucayali
The Ucayali meets the Marañón in northern Peru, and from there Peruvians call the river the Amazon; across the border it is renamed the Solimões and becomes the Amazon again only below Manaus.
Q 04Which Inca emperor was captured by the Spanish at Cajamarca in 1532?
Atahualpa
Atahualpa offered to fill a room with gold in exchange for his freedom; the Spanish melted down the treasure that poured in from across the empire, then executed him anyway in 1533.
Q 05Which Indigenous language, once the Inca Empire's tongue, is co-official in Peru?
Quechua
Quechua kept spreading after the conquest because Catholic missionaries preached in it, until colonial officials banned it from public use after the Túpac Amaru II rebellion of the 1780s.
Q 06Which Peruvian dish is raw fish marinated in lime juice and spiced with chili peppers?
Ceviche
Ceviche is 'cooked' without heat: the acid in the citrus juice firms the raw fish and turns it opaque, and many restaurants serve the leftover marinade in a glass as leche de tigre.
Q 07Which storybook bear arrives in London as a stowaway from 'darkest Peru'?
Paddington
Paddington was first written as a stowaway from 'darkest Africa'; Michael Bond's agent pointed out that Africa has no native bears, so Bond changed the bear's home to Peru.
Q 08Which Peruvian writer won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature?
Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa ran for president of Peru in 1990 and lost the run-off to Alberto Fujimori, and in 1976 he ended his friendship with Gabriel García Márquez by punching him in Mexico City.
Q 09Which grape brandy, shaken with lime juice and egg white in a famous 'sour', shares its name with a Peruvian port?
Pisco
Pisco was long exported through the colonial port whose name it shares; the pisco sour is credited to Victor Morris, an American who opened a bar in Lima in 1916.
Q 10Peru is considered the birthplace of which tuber, grown there in thousands of native varieties?
Potato
The potato was first domesticated in the Andes of southern Peru at least 7,000 years ago; highland farmers still freeze-dry it into chuño by leaving it out in the night frost and trampling out the water.
Q 11Which Inca citadel high in the Andes is often called the 'Lost City of the Incas'?
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu was built around 1450, probably as a royal estate for the emperor Pachacuti, and abandoned about a century later; the nickname is a mix-up, because the Incas' real last refuge lay elsewhere.
Q 12Thor Heyerdahl sailed which balsa raft from Callao, Peru, to Polynesia in 1947?
Kon-Tiki
Kon-Tiki carried Heyerdahl and five companions about 6,900 km in 101 days before smashing onto a reef at Raroia; he wanted to show that South Americans could have reached Polynesia by sea.
Q 13Which Yale historian, led up a mountain by a local farmer in 1911, made a forgotten Inca citadel world-famous?
Hiram Bingham
Q 21Which pre-Inca kingdom built Chan Chan, the largest adobe city in the Americas?
Chimor
Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimor kingdom, also called the Chimú, and the largest city of pre-Columbian South America; it fell to the Incas around 1470.
Q 22Which cold ocean flow running up Peru's coast helps give the country its unusual range of climates?
Humboldt
The Humboldt Current keeps the coast a desert while feeding one of the richest fisheries on Earth.
Q 23What is the highest mountain peak in Peru?
Huascarán
Huascarán rises 6,768 metres in the Cordillera Blanca; in 1970 an earthquake shook loose an avalanche from the mountain that buried most of the town of Yungay.
Hiram Bingham was really hunting for Vilcabamba, the last Inca stronghold, when farmer Melchor Arteaga led him up to the ruins, and he wrongly concluded that he had found it.
Q 14Which conquistador founded the city of Lima in 1535 as the seat of Spanish rule?
Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro fell out with his old partner Diego de Almagro, whom the Pizarro brothers defeated and executed in 1538; in 1541 followers of Almagro's son stormed the palace in Lima and killed Pizarro.
Q 15What is the name for the Peruvian-Chinese fusion cuisine, which is very popular in Lima?
Chifa
Chifa was born when Cantonese labourers who came to Peru in the 19th century began cooking with local ingredients; its fried rice, arroz chaufa, is now eaten all over the country.
Q 16Which wild camelid, prized for the world's finest wool, is Peru's national animal?
Vicuña
Vicuña fleece was reserved for Inca nobility, who had the wild herds rounded up, sheared and then set free again; the animal stands on Peru's coat of arms.
Q 17What is the official currency of Peru?
Sol
The sol came back in 1991 as the 'nuevo sol' after years of hyperinflation: one new sol was worth a billion of the old soles that Peru had abandoned in 1985.
Q 18Peru's national football team won which tournament in 1939 and again in 1975?
Copa América
Copa América titles went to Peru as hosts in Lima in 1939 and again in 1975, when a semi-final that finished level over two legs was settled in Peru's favour by drawing lots.
Q 19Peru is traditionally divided into three regions: the costa, the sierra, and which third region?
Selva
The selva, Spanish for jungle, is Peru's share of the Amazon rainforest; though Peru is best known for the Andes, this lowland forest covers about three-fifths of the country.
Q 20In Peru, the traditional dish cuy is made from which animal?
Guinea pig
Guinea pig, or cuy, has been raised for meat in the Andes since long before the Spanish arrived; an 18th-century Last Supper by the Peruvian painter Marcos Zapata even puts one on the table in front of Christ.
Q 24Which Peruvian city, built largely of pale volcanic sillar stone, is nicknamed the 'White City'?
Arequipa
Arequipa sits beneath three volcanoes and has been wrecked by earthquakes again and again, which is why its sillar churches and mansions have such thick walls and low vaulted roofs.
Q 25Which Inca festival of the sun, banned under Spanish rule, was revived at Sacsayhuamán in 1944?
Inti Raymi
Inti Raymi was restaged in 1944 by Faustino Espinoza Navarro, who built the pageant on the chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega's account and cast local people; it is now performed every 24 June.
Q 26Which Andean 'grain', a staple of the Incas, is now sold around the world as a 'superfood'?
Quinoa
Quinoa was the Incas' 'mother of all grains', yet it is not a true cereal at all: the plant is a relative of spinach, and what we eat are its seeds.
Q 27Which canyon in southern Peru, one of the world's deepest, is the country's best-known condor-watching site?
Colca Canyon
Colca Canyon was billed as the world's deepest after a Polish team first rafted its river in 1981; today crowds gather at its Cruz del Cóndor lookout to watch the birds rise past the rim.
Q 28The Uros people of southern Peru build their floating islands from what plant?
Totora reed
Totora reed rots from the bottom, so the Uros keep piling fresh reeds on top of their islands; they also eat the plant and bundle it into boats.
Q 29Who proclaimed Peru's independence in July 1821?
José de San Martín
José de San Martín proclaimed independence in Lima, but Spanish forces still held the interior; it took Bolívar's army and its victory at Ayacucho in 1824 to finish the war.
Q 30What is the world's largest rodent, found in the rivers and marshes of Peru's Amazon lowlands?
Capybara
Capybaras can stay underwater for up to five minutes to hide from predators such as jaguars and anacondas; in Peru the animal is known as the ronsoco.