Senegal Trivia
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48 free Senegal trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Forty-five questions on Senegal, the westernmost country of mainland Africa and one of the continent's steadiest democracies. Geography covers Dakar on the Cap-Vert peninsula, the Pointe des Almadies, the Gambia wedged inside the country, Casamance, Saint-Louis, the pink Lake Retba and a highest point of just 648 metres. History runs from the Jolof Empire and Takrur, the Portuguese landing, Goree and the slave trade, Faidherbe's conquests and Lat-Dior's resistance, the Four Communes, the Battle of Dakar in 1940, the short-lived Mali Federation, Senghor's presidency and his seat in the Academie francaise, the Senegambia Confederation, the peaceful handovers to Diouf, Wade, Sall and Faye, and the French troops going home in 2025. Culture and sport cover Wolof and teranga, the Sufi brotherhoods and Touba, thieboudienne, mbalax and Youssou N'Dour, laamb wrestling, the Lions of Teranga beating France in 2002 and finally winning AFCON, Sadio Mane, the Dakar Rally, the African Renaissance Monument and the 2026 Youth Olympics. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its cities, people and institutions, and the sentence that establishes it is quoted under each explanation. Suits a pub quiz, a West Africa lesson or a Dakar-bound traveller.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Senegal almost completely surrounds which small country?
The Gambia
The Gambia follows its river inland as a narrow strip because an 1889 deal between its British rulers, who held the river, and the French colony around it fixed the borders that Senegal inherited.
Q 02Senegal anchors the western end of which African Union project to plant a belt of trees across the Sahel?
The Great Green Wall
The Great Green Wall was first drawn as a strip of trees 15 km wide from the Senegalese coast to Djibouti; it has since become a patchwork of land-restoration schemes across the Sahel.
Q 03The Senegal River forms nearly all of the country's northern border with which neighbour?
Mauritania
Mauritania: a 1989 clash over grazing rights on the river border grew into a crisis in which the two countries broke off relations and thousands of people fled or were driven across it.
Q 04Which language, the mother tongue of about two in five Senegalese, serves as Senegal's lingua franca?
Wolof
Wolof has more second-language speakers than native ones: most Senegalese whose mother tongue is Pulaar, Serer or another language speak it as well.
Q 05Which island off Dakar, home to the House of Slaves, was among the first UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1978?
Goree
Goree and its 'Door of No Return' draw world leaders as a memorial to the slave trade, though many historians doubt that large numbers of captives ever left through that doorway.
Q 06Which medieval state united Cayor, Baol, Sine, Saloum and Waalo?
The Jolof Empire
The Jolof Empire was formed, oral tradition says, when those kingdoms gave up their independence willingly, but it was broken up by force after Cayor rebelled in the mid-1500s.
Q 07Which colonial governor led the 1850s conquest of the Senegalese mainland kingdoms?
Louis Faidherbe
Louis Faidherbe, governor from 1854, pushed a chain of forts up the river and, short of French troops, raised the first Senegalese Tirailleurs in 1857 to do the fighting.
Q 08The 1940 Battle of Dakar was an unsuccessful Allied attempt to seize the port from whom?
Vichy French forces
Vichy French forces fired on de Gaulle's envoys and held off the Royal Navy for three days in September 1940, the crippled battleship Richelieu fighting on as a floating gun battery.
Q 09Senegal gained independence in 1960 as part of a short-lived federation with which neighbour?
French Sudan (Mali)
French Sudan (Mali) and Senegal became independent together in June 1960, but the federation split within two months, and French Sudan kept the federation's name as the Republic of Mali.
Q 10Who was Senegal's first president, a poet later elected to the Académie française?
Leopold Sedar Senghor
Leopold Sedar Senghor, a leading poet of the negritude movement, was president from 1960 until he stepped down voluntarily at the end of 1980; he entered the Academie francaise in 1983.
Q 11Who was elected in March 2024 to become the youngest president in Senegal's history?
Bassirou Diomaye Faye
Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 44 when sworn in on 2 April 2024, won the March election outright in the first round, ten days after his release from prison alongside his ally Ousmane Sonko.
Q 12Senegal's separatist conflict since 1982 has been centred on which southern region?
Casamance
Casamance, the region around the Casamance River in the far south, has been the MFDC's base since a December 1982 independence march in Ziguinchor was put down, starting the insurgency.
Q 13Which colonial city was capital of the whole West African federation from 1895 until 1902?
Saint-Louis
Q 21The famous rally to Senegal's capital, first run in 1979, originally started from which city?
Paris
Paris was the start line of Thierry Sabine's first rally in December 1978; after the 2008 race was called off over security fears, the event moved to South America and then Saudi Arabia and has not returned to Africa.
Q 22Lake Retba near Dakar is famous for what colour, caused by Dunaliella salina algae?
Pink
Pink is the colour of Lake Retba, or Lac Rose: Dunaliella salina algae make a red pigment to soak up sunlight in its very salty water, where salt is still harvested.
Q 23What is Senegal's national dish?
Thieboudienne
Thieboudienne (ceebu jen), fish cooked with rice, tomato and vegetables, was added to UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2021 and is claimed as the ancestor of jollof rice.
Saint-Louis, founded in 1659 on an island at the river mouth, lost the role in 1902, and its fortunes waned as steamships found its port ever harder to reach.
Q 14Senegal's tricolour flag bears what symbol at its centre?
A green five-pointed star
A green five-pointed star replaced the stylised human figure on the flag of the short-lived federation Senegal left in 1960; the green, yellow and red stripes stayed as they were.
Q 15Senegal's national football team is nicknamed the Lions of what?
Teranga
Teranga means hospitality, a value so bound up with national pride that the team took it for its name; the lion itself is Senegal's national symbol.
Q 16Which reigning champions did Senegal beat 1-0 in the 2002 World Cup's opening match?
France
France, the 1998 winners and Senegal's former colonial ruler, lost 1-0 to a Papa Bouba Diop goal in Senegal's first World Cup, and the newcomers went on to the quarter-finals.
Q 17Senegal won its first Africa Cup of Nations by beating which team in the 2021 edition's final?
Egypt
Egypt lost 4-2 on penalties in Yaounde after a goalless draw, Senegal's goalkeeper Edouard Mendy making the decisive save; Senegal had lost the finals of 2002 and 2019.
Q 18Which Senegalese forward became Africa's most expensive player when Liverpool signed him in 2016?
Sadio Mane
Sadio Mane joined Liverpool from Southampton for about 34 million pounds in 2016 and later paid for a school and a hospital in Bambali, the village he had run away from at 15 to chase a football career.
Q 19Which traditional sport is described as Senegal's national obsession?
Wrestling
Wrestling, known as laamb, began as a village contest and is now a professional stadium sport in which fighters may also trade punches; champions such as Yekini and Balla Gaye 2 are national celebrities.
Q 20Which Olympic event did the IOC award to Senegal in 2018, the first ever for Africa?
The Summer Youth Olympics
The Summer Youth Olympics were awarded to Senegal's capital in October 2018 for 2022, then pushed back to 2026 by the pandemic; it is the first Olympic event of any kind awarded to an African nation.
Q 24Which Senegalese dance music, driven by sabar drums, was popularised worldwide by Youssou N'Dour?
Mbalax
Mbalax took shape in the 1970s, when city bands raised on Cuban dance music began singing in local languages over the rhythms of the sabar drum.
Q 25Youssou N'Dour's 1994 hit '7 Seconds' was a duet with which singer?
Neneh Cherry
Neneh Cherry sings in English on '7 Seconds', whose title refers to a newborn's first moments, before it knows of the world's problems; the single topped the French chart for nearly four months.
Q 26Which country's state art studio built Dakar's giant African Renaissance Monument, unveiled in 2010?
North Korea
North Korea: its Mansudae Overseas Projects studio built the bronze, and Senegal is reported to have paid in land instead of cash for a statue criticised for its 27 million dollar cost.
Q 27Most of Senegal's small Christian minority belongs to which church?
Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic: Christians are under 5 percent of a largely Muslim country, yet its first president was one of them, a mission-school boy who entered a seminary before choosing letters and politics.
Q 28Senegal's powerful Mouride and Tijani brotherhoods belong to which tradition within Islam?
Sufism
Sufism: most Senegalese Muslims follow one of four main brotherhoods, and the Mourides are still led by a caliph chosen from their founder's descendants.
Q 29Which captain of Senegal's 2002 World Cup side later coached the team to its first Africa Cup of Nations title?
Aliou Cisse
Aliou Cisse missed a penalty in the shootout that cost Senegal the 2002 final, lost another final as coach in 2019, and at last lifted the trophy in February 2022.
Q 30Which currency does Senegal use?
West African CFA franc
The West African CFA franc is shared by eight countries and pegged to the euro; CFA first stood for 'French colonies of Africa' and now stands for 'African Financial Community'.