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50 free Tehran trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Tehran trivia quiz covers the Iranian capital from the ancient city of Rhages to the sprawling metropolis of nine million people at the foot of the Alborz. The easy questions are ones any traveller could get: the mountain range above the city, the marble tower at its western gate, the 435-metre Milad Tower, the palace complex that UNESCO listed in 2013 and the two football clubs that share the Azadi Stadium. The harder end is for history readers and people who know the city well: the Qajar ruler who made Tehran the capital in 1786, the shah assassinated at a shrine in Rey, the 1943 conference of Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill, the 444-day embassy hostage crisis, the 1971 celebrations that gave the city its most famous monument, the year the metro finally opened, the museum whose Western art sat in a vault after 1979, and the ski resort that is the closest in the world to a national capital. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the city, its landmarks, its clubs and its history before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Iran, Baghdad and Istanbul quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which mountain range rises directly north of Tehran?
Alborz
The city climbs from about 1,100 metres in the south to over 1,800 metres in its northern suburbs, so winters differ sharply between districts.
Q 02In which year was Tehran first chosen as the capital of Iran?
1786
Iran's capital had moved many times before; by one count Tehran became the 51st.
Q 03Which dynasty's founder, Agha Mohammad Khan, made Tehran his capital?
Qajar
He distrusted Isfahan and Shiraz, whose notables were loyal to the earlier Safavid and Zand rulers, and preferred a town with little urban power of its own.
Q 04What ancient city, absorbed into Greater Tehran, was known to the Greeks as Rhages?
Ray
Ray is now Tehran's 20th municipal district and was home to the medieval physician Rhazes.
Q 05In which year was Tehran's Azadi Tower completed?
1971
It marked the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire, and its architect Hossein Amanat won the design competition while still in his twenties.
Q 06What was Tehran's Azadi Tower originally called before the 1979 revolution?
Shahyad
Azadi means freedom in Persian; the surrounding square was renamed at the same time.
Q 07Which material completely clads the exterior of the Azadi Tower?
Cut marble
An underground museum sits beneath the monument as part of the Azadi Cultural Complex.
Q 08Roughly how tall is the Milad Tower, from base to antenna tip?
435 metres
Its head is a 12-storey pod whose roof sits at 315 metres, and it hosts the Fajr film festival.
Q 09In which year was the Milad Tower completed?
2007
Construction took about eleven and a half years, and the tower was formally inaugurated in October 2008.
Q 10Who designed the Tabiat Bridge, the pedestrian bridge completed in Tehran in 2014?
Leila Araghian
She wanted it to be a place to linger rather than pass through, so the bridge curves and carries benches.
Q 11Which two parks does the Tabiat Bridge connect across the Modarres Expressway?
Taleghani and Ab-o-Atash
It won the 2016 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, whose jury called it a breath of fresh air.
Q 12Which Tehran palace complex was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013?
Golestan
It is the former royal seat of the Qajar dynasty and once stood inside the walls of Tehran's citadel.
Q 13Who was crowned in Tehran in 1926, the first Pahlavi coronation?
Reza Shah
The 1967 ceremony crowned Farah Pahlavi as the first empress crowned in Iran's modern history.
Q 21In which year did the first Tehran Metro service, an express line to Karaj, begin?
1999
Planning had begun in the 1970s; the revolution and the Iran-Iraq War stalled the project for two decades.
Q 22Roughly how many passengers does the Tehran Metro carry per day?
More than 3 million
It is the largest metro system in the Middle East, and end cars on every train are reserved for women.
Q 23Which street, formerly Pahlavi Street, is described as the longest in the Middle East?
Valiasr
After the revolution it was briefly renamed for Prime Minister Mosaddegh before taking its current name.
Q 14Which Qajar ruler was assassinated in 1896 at the Abdol-Azim shrine south of Tehran?
Naser al-Din Shah
His reign of almost 48 years brought Iran its first modern school, bank, railway and museum.
Q 15Which three Allied leaders met in Tehran in late 1943?
Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill
It was the first meeting of the Big Three, and Tehran was then under Anglo-Soviet occupation.
Q 16What was the Allied codename for the 1943 Tehran Conference?
Eureka
Argonaut was Yalta, Sextant was Cairo and Terminal was Potsdam.
Q 17On what date in 1979 was the United States embassy in Tehran seized?
4 November
Fifty-two of the hostages were held for 444 days, until minutes after Ronald Reagan's inauguration.
Q 18How many days did the Tehran embassy hostage crisis last?
444
It ended with the Algiers Accords; the deposed shah had died in Cairo the previous summer.
Q 19Which airport, 50 km south of the city, handles Tehran's main international flights?
Imam Khomeini
It was inaugurated on 1 February 2004 during the 25th-anniversary celebrations of the revolution.
Q 20In which year did Tehran's older Mehrabad Airport open?
1938
Mehrabad now handles mainly domestic and charter flights and doubles as a military base.
Q 24Which Tehran ski resort is the closest in the world to a national capital?
Tochal
Its highest lifts reach about 3,900 metres, higher than any European ski area, and it opened in 1976.
Q 25Which dormant volcano, visible from Tehran, is the highest peak in Iran?
Damavand
In Ferdowsi's Shahnameh it is where the hero Fereydun chained the serpent-king Zahhak.
Q 26Which two football clubs share the Azadi Stadium and contest the Tehran derby?
Esteghlal and Persepolis
World Soccer magazine ranked it Asia's most important derby in 2008, and foreign referees have officiated it since 1995.
Q 27Under what name was Esteghlal known when the first Tehran derby was played in 1968?
Taj
Taj means crown, a name that did not survive the revolution.
Q 28Which continental multi-sport event did Tehran host in 1974?
Asian Games
It was the first time the Games came to West Asia, with 3,010 athletes from 25 nations.
Q 29What was the Azadi Stadium called when the Shah opened it in 1971?
Aryamehr
Fans' vuvuzelas have earned it the nickname of a bee swarm.
Q 30Which Iranian empress inaugurated the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in 1977?
Farah Pahlavi
Its Western collection, with Warhol, Pollock and Picasso, is called the most valuable outside Europe and North America.