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50 free Vienna trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Vienna was a Roman camp called Vindobona, the seat of the Habsburgs and Holy Roman Emperors for centuries, the biggest German-speaking city in the world until Berlin overtook it, and for ten years after 1945 a four-power city where a jeep with one soldier from each army patrolled the centre. This quiz covers that story: the Babenbergs, the Ottoman sieges of 1529 and 1683, the Congress of Vienna, the Ringstrasse, Red Vienna, the Anschluss and the 1955 State Treaty. It then does the Vienna people visit and eat: Schonbrunn's 1,441 rooms and the world's oldest zoo, St Stephen's tiled roof, the Hofburg and the Lipizzaners, the Riesenrad and the Prater, the Musikverein's New Year's Concert and the Radetzky March clap-along, the State Opera's Mozart opening, the Central Cemetery where Beethoven and Falco lie, coffee houses where Trotsky and Hitler both sat in 1913, the Sacher-Demel cake war, schnitzel and Heuriger wine. Freud, Klimt's Kiss, the Secession, Hundertwasser and Harry Lime in the sewers round it out. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Vienna and its landmarks, people and events, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Our Austria quiz covers the rest of the country.
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Q 01What did the Romans call their camp on the site of Vienna?
Vindobona
Marcus Aurelius may have died there in AD 180; the German name Wien comes instead from the small River Wien.
Q 02Vienna is the most populous city on which river?
The Danube
The artificial Donauinsel doubles as flood defence and party venue.
Q 03Vienna became the seat of which dynasty in 1155, before the Habsburgs?
The Babenbergs
Duke Henry II moved his residence from Klosterneuburg; the Babenbergs ruled Austria from 976 to 1246.
Q 04Which Ottoman sultan led the first siege of Vienna in 1529?
Suleiman the Magnificent
He brought over 100,000 men against no more than 21,000 defenders under Niklas Graf Salm, and still failed.
Q 05Which king commanded the relief army that broke the Ottoman siege at the Battle of Vienna in 1683?
John III Sobieski of Poland
The battle was fought on Kahlenberg mountain on 12 September after two months of siege.
Q 06Who chaired the Congress of Vienna of 1814-15?
Klemens von Metternich
The congress redrew Europe after Napoleon and tried to snuff out liberal and revolutionary movements.
Q 07Vienna's grand Ringstrasse boulevard was built in the 19th century on the site of what?
The old city bastions and glacis
The State Opera, Burgtheater, Parliament and Votivkirche all line it.
Q 08Which city overtook Vienna as the world's largest German-speaking city around 1900?
Berlin
It peaked at two million; the population still has not regained its 1916 high.
Q 09Around 1900, Vienna had the world's second-largest population of which nationality, after Prague?
Czechs
Many went home after 1918, and the city's population declined for much of the century.
Q 10The period from 1919 to 1934, when socialists ran the city and built public housing, is known as what?
Red Vienna
The Gemeindebauten they built still house a large share of Viennese today.
Q 11On which date in 1938 did Hitler arrive in Vienna, three days after German troops entered Austria?
15 March
Vienna's Jewish population, once nearly 200,000, was about 5,000 after the war.
Q 12After 1945, how did four-power Vienna differ from the other divided German-speaking capital?
Its central district was shared, rotating monthly
The four powers took turns controlling the first district each month and patrolled in jeeps with one soldier from each army.
Q 13The four-power occupation of Vienna ended with the Austrian State Treaty of which year?
1955
Q 21The Hofburg has been the seat of government since 1279 and, since 1946, the residence of whom?
The President of Austria
It was the Habsburgs' winter palace; Schonbrunn was for summer.
Q 22The Spanish Riding School in the Hofburg trains which breed of horse?
Lipizzaner
First named in 1565, it is the oldest school of classical dressage in the world; performances are in the Winter Riding School.
Q 23The Vienna Boys' Choir traces its origin to a 1498 letter from which emperor?
Maximilian I
He ordered court officials to hire a singing master, two basses and six boys; the sailor suits date from the 1920s.
That same year the State Opera and Burgtheater reopened after wartime destruction.
Q 14Which 1949 film noir, written by Graham Greene, uses occupied Vienna as its backdrop?
The Third Man
Anton Karas's zither theme topped charts in 1950, and the Burg Kino still screens the film three times a week.
Q 15In The Third Man, Orson Welles's Harry Lime escapes through what?
The city's sewers
The wheel scene comes earlier; Lime is finally cornered underground.
Q 16How many districts is Vienna divided into?
23
The district number appears on every street sign and forms the middle digits of the postcode, from 1010 to 1230.
Q 17Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna's most visited attraction, has how many rooms?
1,441
The imperial summer residence hosted a Cold War summit in 1961 and joined the UNESCO list in 1996.
Q 18Schonbrunn Zoo, founded in 1752, holds what distinction?
World's oldest zoo still operating
It is also one of the few zoos to keep giant pandas.
Q 19Which two Cold War leaders met at Schonbrunn in 1961?
Kennedy and Khrushchev
The palace has been a museum since the republic was restored in 1955.
Q 20How tall is St Stephen's Cathedral at its highest point?
136 m
Duke Rudolf IV drove the Gothic rebuild; the multicoloured tiled roof collapsed in a fire in 1945 and was restored.
Q 24The Wiener Riesenrad, the Prater's giant Ferris wheel, was built in which year?
1897
It was the world's tallest surviving Ferris wheel from 1920 to 1985 and features in The Third Man.
Q 25How tall is the Wiener Riesenrad?
About 65 m
The 1893 Chicago wheel and London's Great Wheel were both taller but were demolished within a decade.
Q 26The Prater hosted which international event in 1873?
The Vienna World's Fair
The Ernst-Happel-Stadion, Austria's largest, opened there in 1931.
Q 27The Vienna Philharmonic was founded in which year?
1842
Composer Otto Nicolai conducted the first concert on 28 March 1842, and the orchestra still votes democratically on its decisions.
Q 28The New Year's Concert traditionally ends with which piece, during which the audience claps along?
The Radetzky March
The famous waltz about the river is the second encore, its opening interrupted by applause and a New Year greeting from the stage.
Q 29The New Year's Concert has been held in the Golden Hall of which building since 1939?
The Musikverein
The Musikverein is home to the Vienna Philharmonic; the Konzerthaus houses the Vienna Symphony.
Q 30The Vienna State Opera opened in 1869 with which Mozart opera?
Don Giovanni
An American air raid set the house alight on 12 March 1945; it reopened in 1955.