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70 free Quick trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
These quick trivia questions are built for speed: one short line, four options, an answer you either know or you don't. There are 64 of them, mixing world capitals and currencies, planets and the human body, famous dates and battles, Olympic and golf basics, everyday foods, classic bands and composers, well-known novels, and a little technology. Nothing needs a paragraph to read and nothing needs a calculator. Use them as fast trivia questions for a warm-up round on quiz night, a lightning round when a longer game drags, a two-minute break at work, or a quick trivia game in the car. Most questions sit at an easy-to-medium level so a mixed group can keep pace, with a handful of tougher ones scattered through so nobody runs the table. Every answer here has been checked against a reference page and cited, so the answer key holds up when someone argues.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital city of Australia?
Canberra
Canberra was purpose-built as a compromise capital and formally named in 1913.
Q 02The Nile flows through which continent?
Africa
It runs north to the Mediterranean, ending in the Nile Delta.
Q 03Which is the largest ocean on Earth?
Pacific
It is also the deepest, home to the Mariana Trench.
Q 04Which country has the largest population in the world?
India
It took the top spot in 2023 with an estimated 1.43 billion residents.
Q 05Mount Everest sits on the border between Nepal and which country?
China
The summit itself marks part of the China–Nepal border.
Q 06What is the official currency of Japan?
Yen
Its symbol is ¥ and its ISO code is JPY.
Q 07Which is the smallest sovereign state in the world?
Vatican City
It covers just 44 hectares and had a population of about 882 in 2024.
Q 08What is the largest hot desert in the world?
Sahara
Only the cold deserts of Antarctica and the Arctic are bigger overall.
Q 09The city of Marrakesh is in which country?
Morocco
It is one of the country's four imperial cities, and the whole country was once known as the Kingdom of Marrakesh.
Q 10The Danube river flows into which sea?
Black Sea
It passes through four capital cities on the way: Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade.
Q 11Mount Kilimanjaro is in which country?
Tanzania
It is a dormant volcano and the highest free-standing mountain in the world.
Q 12Which element has the chemical symbol Fe?
Iron
The symbol comes from the Latin word ferrum.
Q 13Which is the largest planet in the Solar System?
Jupiter
Its volume is about 1,321 times that of Earth.
Q 14Which gas do plants take in for photosynthesis?
Q 21Which is the nearest star to Earth after the Sun?
Proxima Centauri
It is about 4.25 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus.
Q 22Penguins live almost exclusively in which hemisphere?
Southern
Despite the stereotype, they are not confined to cold climates like Antarctica.
Q 23In which year did the Berlin Wall fall?
1989
East Germany announced open borders in November of that year, and demolition began the following June.
Q 24Who was the first human to travel into space?
Carbon dioxide
The process converts it into sugars, a step called carbon fixation.
Q 15How many bones does an adult human body typically have?
206
Babies start with around 270; many fuse together as they grow.
Q 16Roughly how fast does light travel in a vacuum?
300,000 km/s
The exact figure, 299,792,458 metres per second, is used to define the metre.
Q 17Which of these cells transport oxygen around the body?
Erythrocytes
Better known as red blood cells, they are packed with hemoglobin, the molecule that binds oxygen in the lungs.
Q 18What is the largest organ of the human body?
Skin
It makes up roughly 16 percent of body mass.
Q 19At what temperature does water boil in degrees Fahrenheit?
212
That is 100 degrees on the Celsius scale at standard pressure.
Q 20What does DNA stand for?
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Its two chains coil around each other in the famous double helix.
Yuri Gagarin
He flew aboard Vostok 1 in 1961 using the call sign Kedr.
Q 25In which year did the Titanic sink?
1912
It struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
Q 26Machu Picchu was built by which civilization?
Inca
The 15th-century citadel is thought to have been an estate for the emperor Pachacuti.
Q 27In which year was Magna Carta sealed?
1215
King John sealed it at Runnymede on 15 June.
Q 28Who was British Prime Minister for most of the Second World War?
Winston Churchill
He served from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955.
Q 29In which year was the Great Fire of London?
1666
It began in a bakery on Pudding Lane and burned for four days.
Q 30At which battle was Napoleon finally defeated in 1815?
Waterloo
The defeat ended his Hundred Days return from exile.