Tibet Trivia
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58 free Tibet trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Tibet trivia quiz covers the highest region on Earth from every angle: its geography and rivers, the seventh-century empire that once occupied a Chinese capital, the Dalai Lamas and the Gelug school, the palaces and temples of Lhasa, and everyday life built around barley, yaks and butter tea. The easy questions handle the basics: what Tibetans call the Potala's city, where the current Dalai Lama lives, and which mountain on Tibet's border is the world's tallest. The harder end is for travellers and history readers: the king who founded the empire and married a Nepalese and a Chinese princess, the Mongolian origin of the title 'Dalai', the altitude of the Tanggula Pass on the world's highest railway, the four religions that hold Mount Kailash sacred, why sky burial is practical on the plateau, the events of 10 March 1959, and the meaning of the snow lions on the exile flag. There are also questions on the Panchen Lama, tsampa, prayer wheels, Losar, the Tibetan script and the mastiff that briefly became the world's priciest dog. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Tibet, Lhasa, the Dalai Lamas and related topics before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our Himalayas, Buddhism and China quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Tibet's plateau was pushed up when which tectonic plate drove north into Eurasia?
The Indian Plate
The Indian Plate began ramming into Eurasia roughly 50 million years ago and is still pushing north, which is why Tibet stands at an average of more than 4,000 metres.
Q 02Which Himalayan peak on Tibet's southern border do Tibetans know as Chomolungma?
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is Chomolungma in Tibetan; the first British attempts of the 1920s all climbed from the Tibetan side, because Nepal was then closed to foreigners.
Q 03What is Tibet's own name for itself?
Bod
Bod, pronounced roughly 'Bö', is what Tibetans call their land; the English name 'Tibet' is said to come from outsiders' versions of the name, such as the Arabic Tubbat.
Q 04What is the ceremonial white silk scarf offered as a greeting in Tibet called?
Khata
Khata scarves are usually white, which Tibetans commonly read as the giver's pure heart; one is offered to welcome a guest, honour a lama or wish a traveller a safe journey.
Q 05Lhasa, once called Rasa or 'goats' place', has a name meaning the place of what?
Gods
Gods: Lhasa means 'place of the gods'; the older name is tied to a legend that goats carried the earth used to fill in a lake where the city's great temple was built.
Q 06Who was the 33rd king of Tibet and founder of the Tibetan Empire in the 7th century?
Songtsen Gampo
Songtsen Gampo unified the Tibetan Plateau and moved his court from the Yarlung valley to the site of Lhasa, where he is said to have built Buddhist temples.
Q 07Princess Wencheng, sent to marry the empire's founder, came from which Chinese dynasty's imperial clan?
Tang
The Tang emperor Taizong at first refused the match; he sent Princess Wencheng, a distant relative, only after Tibetan forces attacked the frontier town of Songzhou.
Q 08In late 763, Tibetan troops occupied which Chinese capital for fifteen days?
Chang'an
Chang'an, today's Xi'an, fell while China was still reeling from the An Lushan rebellion; the Tibetans installed a puppet emperor and withdrew after about fifteen days.
Q 09The 821-823 peace treaty between Tibet and China was inscribed on a pillar outside which Lhasa temple?
Jokhang
The 821–823 treaty pillar stands outside the Jokhang; its bilingual Tibetan–Chinese text fixed the frontier and swore lasting peace between the two empires.
Q 10Which king's assassination around 842 began the break-up of the Tibetan Empire?
Langdarma
Langdarma, remembered for persecuting Buddhism, is said to have been killed by the monk Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje; the civil war that followed broke the empire apart.
Q 11Tibetan tradition credits which 7th-century minister with creating the Tibetan script?
Thonmi Sambhota
Thonmi Sambhota, a minister sent to India in the 7th century, is traditionally credited with devising the Tibetan alphabet from an Indian Gupta-type script, though the earliest Tibetan annals never mention him.
Q 12The word 'Dalai' in Dalai Lama comes from Mongolian and means what?
Ocean
'Dalai' is Mongolian for Ocean, the title Altan Khan bestowed on Sonam Gyatso in 1578; 'Gyatso', the Tibetan element of his name, also means ocean.
Q 13Sonam Gyatso, the first to receive the title in 1578, is counted as which Dalai Lama?
The 3rd
The 3rd Dalai Lama is how Sonam Gyatso is counted: the title was applied posthumously to his two predecessors in the lineage, Gendun Drup and Gendun Gyatso.
Q 21The Dalai Lama's 1989 Nobel Peace Prize was called a tribute to whom?
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi never received the prize, an omission later committee members publicly regretted; in 1989 its chairman called the Dalai Lama's award in part a tribute to Gandhi's memory.
Q 22The Dalai Lama's government-in-exile is based in which Indian hill town?
Dharamshala
The exile administration sits in Dharamshala (McLeod Ganj) in Himachal Pradesh; it was first set up at Mussoorie in April 1959 and moved there in 1960.
Q 23Tibetan exiles mark 10 March as the anniversary of which event?
The 1959 Lhasa uprising
Q 14The Dalai Lamas belong to which school of Tibetan Buddhism, also known as the Yellow Hats?
Gelug
The Gelug school grew from the reforms of Je Tsongkhapa, who founded Ganden monastery himself; two of his disciples then founded Drepung and Sera, completing its three great seats near Lhasa.
Q 15Which Dalai Lama, 'the Great', unified central Tibet and ordered the Potala Palace built?
The 5th
The 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, took power in 1642 with Mongol backing after defeating the Tsangpa ruler, and began the Potala Palace in 1645.
Q 16The Potala Palace is named after Mount Potalaka, the mythical abode of which bodhisattva?
Avalokiteśvara
Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, is said to dwell on Mount Potalaka; the Dalai Lamas are regarded as his emanations, so their palace took the name.
Q 17Tradition says Lhasa's most sacred temple was built for a Buddha statue brought by which queen from the Kathmandu valley?
Bhrikuti
Bhrikuti is said to have brought the statue the temple was built for; the images were later swapped, so the Buddha brought by the Chinese princess Wencheng sits there today.
Q 18What is the Barkhor in Lhasa?
A pilgrim circuit and market street
A pilgrim circuit and market street: the Barkhor rings the old city's holiest temple for about a kilometre, and pilgrims walk it clockwise, some prostrating at every step.
Q 19The 14th Dalai Lama was born in Taktser, a village in which north-eastern region of traditional Tibet?
Amdo
Amdo is where a search party found the two-year-old Lhamo Thondup, who is said to have picked out the late Dalai Lama's belongings, saying 'It's mine'; he was enthroned in Lhasa in 1940.
Q 20What is the 14th Dalai Lama's religious name?
Tenzin Gyatso
Tenzin Gyatso is the name the boy born Lhamo Thondup took as a monk; in 2011 he gave up the political role Dalai Lamas had held for centuries, handing it to an elected exile leader.
The 1959 Lhasa uprising began when crowds ringed the Norbulingka palace, fearing the Dalai Lama would be seized at a show in the Chinese army camp; days later he fled to India.
Q 24Around 1960 the CIA secretly trained Tibetan guerrillas at Camp Hale, high in which US state?
Colorado
Colorado's Camp Hale, a wartime ski-troop base about 2,800 metres up in the Rockies, was picked because its terrain and thin air resembled Tibet; trainees were later parachuted home.
Q 25What is the 1951 document under which China annexed Central Tibet called?
The Seventeen Point Agreement
The Seventeen Point Agreement was signed in Beijing on 23 May 1951, months after the PLA had overrun Tibet's eastern garrison; the Dalai Lama repudiated it when he fled in 1959.
Q 26Which British officer led the 1904 expedition into Tibet and negotiated the resulting convention?
Francis Younghusband
Francis Younghusband led the 1903–04 mission; after the massacre at Chumik Shenko it marched on to the capital, where he dictated the resulting convention in September 1904.
Q 27Tibet is China's second-largest province-level region by size, behind which one?
Xinjiang
Xinjiang alone is bigger: Tibet's autonomous region, created in 1965, covers about 1.2 million square kilometres, yet the 2020 census counted only about 3.6 million people there.
Q 28The Panchen Lama, second in spiritual authority to the Dalai Lama, traditionally heads which monastery?
Tashilhunpo
Tashilhunpo's abbots held the title Panchen, 'great scholar'; in the 17th century a Dalai Lama declared that his tutor, then its abbot, would be reborn, starting the line.
Q 29Which mountain in western Tibet is sacred to Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and followers of Bön alike?
Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash has no recorded ascent: climbing is barred out of respect for its sanctity, so pilgrims of four faiths walk a circuit around its base instead, some prostrating the whole way.
Q 30Hindus regard the sacred peak Tibetans call Gang Rinpoche as the home of which god?
Shiva
Hindus hold that Shiva dwells on the summit with his consort Parvati, one reason the peak is treated as too holy to climb.