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50 free Taj Mahal trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Taj Mahal is a tomb that took more than 20,000 people two decades to build, for an empress who died giving birth to her fourteenth child. This quiz covers the love story and the engineering: Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, the 1631 commission, Ustad Ahmad Lahori and his multinational team, Makrana marble hauled up a 15-kilometre ramp, the 23-metre dome, the leaning minarets, the pietra dura, Amanat Khan's calligraphy and the false cenotaphs above the real graves. It also covers what surrounds and followed the tomb: the charbagh garden and the Moonlight Garden across the Yamuna, the Gur-e Amir and Humayun's Tomb that inspired it, Aurangzeb's coup and Shah Jahan's view from Agra Fort, the Black Taj legend, Lord Curzon's lamp and lawns, the wartime scaffolding, the pollution and mud packs, UNESCO and the New 7 Wonders. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen a postcard; the expert tier asks for craftsmen, chronicles and rupees. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you like this, try our quizzes on the Mughal Empire and on world landmarks.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Taj Mahal stands on the bank of which river?
Yamuna
It sits on the right bank at Agra, in Uttar Pradesh.
Q 02Shah Jahan, who commissioned the Taj Mahal, was which Mughal emperor in sequence?
Fifth
He reigned from 1628 until his deposition in 1658.
Q 03In which year did Mumtaz Mahal die and the Taj Mahal get commissioned?
1631
Her title means 'the Exalted One of the Palace'.
Q 04Mumtaz Mahal died while giving birth to which child?
Her 14th
The daughter was named Gauhara Begum; Mumtaz died at Burhanpur in the Deccan.
Q 05What does the name Taj Mahal mean?
Crown of the Palace
The words come from Persian and Arabic; an alternative theory derives 'Taj' from the second syllable of Mumtaz.
Q 06In which year was the mausoleum itself completed?
1648
Work on the rest of the complex went on for another five years.
Q 07Roughly how many workers and artisans were employed on the project?
More than 20,000
They worked under a board of architects led by the emperor's court architect.
Q 08Who led the board of architects that designed the Taj Mahal?
Ustad Ahmad Lahori
An Ottoman craftsman designed the dome and Amanat Khan was chief calligrapher.
Q 09Where did the Taj Mahal's white marble come from?
Makrana in Rajasthan
The red sandstone for the other buildings was quarried at Fatehpur Sikri.
Q 10How was building material hauled to the site?
Up a 15 km earthen ramp on wagons pulled by oxen and elephants
The scaffolding was made of brick rather than wood, mirroring the tomb.
Q 11How many minarets flank the tomb?
Four
Each is over 40 metres tall and leans slightly outward so it would fall away from the tomb if it collapsed.
Q 12Why were the minarets built with a slight outward lean?
So debris would fall away from the tomb in a collapse
Each minaret is divided into three near-equal parts by balconies.
Q 13How high is the marble dome that crowns the mausoleum?
23 metres
It sits on a 12-metre drum and is topped by a 9.6-metre gilded finial.
Q 21What is the name for the four-part Mughal garden layout used at the Taj Mahal?
Charbagh
A Delhi tomb inspired both the garden and the hasht-behesht plan of the site.
Q 22Which Samarkand tomb of the Mughals' ancestor Timur was an inspiration for the Taj Mahal?
Gur-e Amir
The Mughals traced their descent from Timur.
Q 23What is the 'Moonlight Garden' across the river from the mausoleum called?
Mehtab Bagh
Archaeologists think the river was meant to be seen as one of the rivers of Paradise.
What was Shah Jahan's fate in 1658?
Q 14What was the main finial originally made of before being replaced in the early 19th century?
Gold
The replacement is gilded bronze, topped by a moon whose horns point heavenward.
Q 15What is the inlay technique of cutting semi-precious stones into marble called?
Pietra dura
The spandrels carry vines, flowers and fruits in stylised geometric patterns.
Q 16Which calligrapher, honoured with the title Amanat Khan, created the Taj Mahal's Qur'anic inscriptions?
Abdul Haq
An inscription at the base of the inner dome reads 'Written by the insignificant being, Amanat Khan Shirazi'.
Q 17What clever trick was used with the calligraphy panels higher up the walls?
Larger script to counter skewing when viewed from below
Most of it is thuluth script in jasper or black marble inlaid into white.
Q 18Where are the real graves of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan?
In a lower chamber beneath the false cenotaphs
The upper chamber holds only decorative false sarcophagi.
Q 19What is the one asymmetrical element in the otherwise symmetrical mausoleum?
Shah Jahan's cenotaph, placed to the west of centre
Mumtaz's cenotaph sits at the exact centre; his was added beside it and is topped by a small pen box marking a male tomb.
Q 20Which direction do the bodies face, in accordance with Islamic practice?
West, towards Mecca
The cenotaphs are aligned north-south with heads to the north.
Deposed by his son Aurangzeb and held at Agra Fort
From his confinement he could see the Taj Mahal across the river; he died in 1666.
Q 25Which French traveller of 1665 first spread the story of a planned Black Taj Mahal?
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Most archaeologists now regard the black-marble twin tomb as a myth.
Q 26Which British viceroy ordered a restoration completed in 1908 and installed the large interior lamp?
Lord Curzon
He also replaced the gardens with European-style lawns that remain today.
Q 27Why was scaffolding erected around the Taj Mahal in 1942?
To disguise it from Japanese air attack
The trick was repeated during the wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.
Q 28What has turned the Taj Mahal's marble yellow-brown since the late 20th century?
Environmental pollution
Acid rain and the Mathura Oil Refinery are blamed.
Q 29What restoration treatment has the Indian government applied to whiten the marble in the 2020s?
Mud packs
Broken marble is also being replaced.
Q 30In which year was the Taj Mahal made a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
1983
UNESCO called it 'the jewel of Islamic art in India'.