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50 free Sydney trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Sydney began as a place to put convicts nobody wanted, on a harbour Arthur Phillip called the finest in the world. This quiz follows the city from the Gadigal and the First Fleet's 11 ships through the Rum Rebellion, Governor Macquarie's stone buildings and Francis Greenway's pardon, the gold rush, the Depression-era Harbour Bridge and the ribbon a New Guard officer slashed with a sabre before the premier could cut it, to the Japanese submarines of 1942 and the postwar migration that made 40 percent of Sydneysiders overseas-born. The landmarks get proper attention: why the Bridge is the Coathanger and how many rivets hold it, Utzon's competition win and resignation, the million tiles on the Opera House shells, the Sydney Tower, Taronga's 'beautiful view', Bondi's world-first lifesavers, Luna Park's face, and the Blue Mountains' actual blueness. There are questions on the 2000 Olympics and Cathy Freeman, the Sydney to Hobart race, Mardi Gras, the New Year's Eve fireworks, rugby league's nine Sydney clubs and the Swans. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Sydney and its landmarks and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Australia quiz covers the rest of the country.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sydney is the capital of which Australian state?
New South Wales
It holds about 66 percent of the state's population and is Australia's most populous city.
Q 02Sydney Cove was named in 1788 after Thomas Townshend, who held which office?
Home Secretary
Phillip toyed with calling the settlement Albion; the Aboriginal name for the cove was Warrane.
Q 03Which Aboriginal clan traditionally owned the land where the British settlement was first established?
The Gadigal
Their territory, Gadi, runs along the southern shore of the harbour from South Head to Darling Harbour; Greater Sydney covers the lands of 28 clans.
Q 04Where did James Cook first land on Australia's east coast on 29 April 1770?
Botany Bay
He met the Gweagal clan there and stayed a week; the First Fleet also arrived at Botany Bay before moving to the better harbour.
Q 05How many ships made up the First Fleet?
Eleven
They left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 with more than 1,400 people and took over 250 days to reach Australia.
Q 06On what date was the settlement at Sydney Cove established, now marked as Australia Day?
26 January 1788
The fleet had reached its first anchorage on 18 January; the colony was formally proclaimed on 7 February.
Q 07How many convicts were among the First Fleet's thousand-plus settlers?
736
The colony was meant to be a self-sufficient farm; the first crops failed and hunger lasted until the Second Fleet arrived in 1790.
Q 08What killed about half of the Sydney region's Indigenous population in April 1789?
A smallpox epidemic
In November 1790 Bennelong led survivors into the settlement, beginning a continuous Aboriginal presence in the town.
Q 09The Rum Rebellion of 1808 deposed which governor?
William Bligh
The colony's military corps ousted the former Bounty captain after he tried to curb the officers' trading.
Q 10Which convict architect earned a pardon from Governor Macquarie for designing Macquarie Lighthouse?
Francis Greenway
He went on to design the Hyde Park Barracks and St James's Church, and once appeared on the Australian ten-dollar note.
Q 11Hyde Park in Sydney, dedicated by Macquarie in 1810, holds what distinction?
Oldest public parkland in Australia
He named it after London's Hyde Park; boxing, wrestling and horse racing were staged there from 1810.
Q 12Sydney was declared a city in which year?
1842
A governing council followed, elected on a restrictive property franchise; the gold rushes of 1851 came soon after.
Q 13Who upstaged Premier Jack Lang at the 1932 Harbour Bridge opening by cutting the ribbon with a sabre?
Francis de Groot
De Groot belonged to the far-right New Guard; the ribbon was retied and Lang cut it properly.
Q 21The Opera House became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?
2007
Utzon had already won the Pritzker Prize in 2003; more than ten million people visit the site each year.
Q 22The Opera House stands on which headland of Sydney Harbour?
Bennelong Point
A tram depot on the site was demolished in 1958; conductor Eugene Goossens insisted on the location over the premier's preference for Wynyard.
Q 23What is the official name of Sydney Harbour?
Port Jackson
Phillip described it as a place where 'a Thousand Sail of the Line may ride in the most perfect Security'.
Q 14Why is the Sydney Harbour Bridge nicknamed 'the Coathanger'?
Its arch-based design
British firm Dorman Long built it under John Bradfield's direction, borrowing from its own Tyne Bridge in Newcastle.
Q 15How many rivets hold the Sydney Harbour Bridge together?
Six million
All Australian-made and hand-driven, the last one went in on 21 January 1932.
Q 16The Harbour Bridge's arch rises 134 m above the water; on hot days it can grow taller by how much?
18 cm
It is the world's tallest steel arch bridge and was the widest long-span bridge until Vancouver's Port Mann in 2012.
Q 17What structural role do the four granite-faced pylons of the Harbour Bridge play?
None; they are decorative
The abutments at their base do the work; the pylons were added for looks and public reassurance.
Q 18Which Danish architect won the 1957 competition to design the Sydney Opera House?
Jorn Utzon
Saarinen was on the jury; Utzon resigned in 1966 amid cost rows and never saw the finished building.
Q 19The Opera House was estimated in 1957 to cost A$7m; what did it finally cost in 1973?
$102m
It was also meant to open on Australia Day 1963, a decade early.
Q 20Roughly how many tiles cover the Opera House shells?
Just over one million
They come in glossy white and matte cream in a chevron pattern, made by Swedish firm Hoganas.
Q 24Bondi Surf Bathers' Life Saving Club, founded in 1907, claims to be what?
The world's first of its kind
The same year saw the Sydney bathing costume protests against proposed dress standards for swimmers.
Q 25How many surf beaches lie along Sydney's coastline?
Seventy
Bondi is the most famous and joined the National Heritage List in 2008; Manly is the northern beaches' holiday favourite.
Q 26Sydney was attacked in May and June 1942 by what?
Japanese submarines
Midget submarines entered the harbour and 21 people were killed.
Q 27Sydney beat which city in the final round of voting to host the 2000 Olympics?
Beijing
The vote was held in Monte Carlo in September 1993; the Games ran from 15 September to 1 October 2000.
Q 28Who lit the Olympic cauldron at the Sydney 2000 opening ceremony?
Cathy Freeman
Ten days later she won the 400 metres in front of the home crowd.
Q 29Sydney's New Year's Eve fireworks draw an in-person crowd of roughly how many?
1.5 to 1.6 million
The Harbour Bridge joined the midnight display in 1997, and a 9 pm show is aimed at families.
Q 30The name Taronga, as in Taronga Zoo, is an Aboriginal word meaning what?
Beautiful view
The zoo opened on its harbourside site on 7 October 1916.