Vietnam Trivia
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95 free Vietnam trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
45 free Vietnam trivia questions with answers. Vietnam trivia in three parts. First the country: where it sits, its capital and largest city, the Mekong and Red River deltas, Fansipan, Ha Long Bay's descending dragon and the cave big enough to hold a skyscraper. Then the history: a thousand years of Chinese rule, Ngo Quyen at Bach Dang, three Mongol invasions repelled, French Indochina, Dien Bien Phu, the Geneva partition, Diem, the Gulf of Tonkin, Tet, My Lai, the Paris Accords, the fall of Saigon and the Doi Moi reforms that followed. Finally the culture: pho and banh mi, the ao dai, robusta coffee, Tet, the national football team and the woman who wrote Vietnam's most famous poem. The Vietnam War trivia sits inside the same set rather than on a separate page, so a searcher gets the whole picture: dates, turning points, casualties and the peace deal whose Nobel Prize one negotiator refused. Easy questions open the quiz; the later ones will test a history graduate. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its citation.
30 of 95 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital of Vietnam?
Hanoi
Hanoi, on the Red River, has been the capital of reunified Vietnam since 1976; Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, is the larger city but not the seat of government.
Q 02Which three countries share a land border with Vietnam?
China, Laos and Cambodia
China, Laos and Cambodia are Vietnam's only land neighbours: China lies to the north and the other two along the western border, which is why Thailand, though close, never touches Vietnam.
Q 03What is Vietnam's currency?
The dong
The dong is Vietnam's currency, issued by the State Bank of Vietnam; a single unified dong replaced the separate northern and southern currencies in 1978.
Q 04Which mountain near Sa Pa, the highest in Vietnam, is nicknamed the Roof of Indochina?
Fansipan
Fansipan was remeasured in 2019 at 3,147.3 m, about four metres taller than the figure French surveyors recorded in 1909; it is the highest peak on the whole Indochinese peninsula.
Q 05What does the name of Ha Long Bay mean?
Descending dragon
Descending dragon is what Ha Long means: in one telling of the legend, dragons sent by the gods to defend the coast spat out jewels that became the bay's limestone islets; UNESCO listed it in 1994.
Q 06Which is Vietnam's largest island?
Phu Quoc
Phu Quoc is Vietnam's largest island, yet it lies in the Gulf of Thailand just off Cambodia's coast, several times closer to it than to the Vietnamese mainland.
Q 07Which large mammal was declared extinct in Vietnam after the last one was reportedly shot in 2010?
Javan rhinoceros
The Javan rhinoceros was declared extinct in Vietnam in 2011 after the last animal in Cat Tien National Park was found shot for its horn in 2010; the species survives only in Java's Ujung Kulon.
Q 08The Dong Son culture, which flourished from about 1000 BC, is best known for elaborate cast-metal what?
Drums
The drums spread across Southeast Asia; the culture grew from wet-rice farming on the Red and Ma rivers.
Q 09Where did Ngo Quyen defeat the Southern Han in AD 938, winning full independence from China?
On the Bach Dang River
On the Bach Dang River, near Haiphong, Ngo Quyen planted iron-tipped stakes in the riverbed so the Southern Han fleet was impaled as the tide fell; the victory ended a millennium of Chinese domination.
Q 10Under which ruling house did Dai Viet twice repel Kublai Khan's armies in the 1280s?
The Tran
The Tran dynasty, with Tran Hung Dao commanding, beat back Kublai Khan's armies in 1285 and again in 1288, the second time by trapping the Yuan fleet on stakes hidden in a tidal river.
Q 11Gia Long, who unified Vietnam in 1802, founded which last imperial dynasty?
The Nguyen
The Nguyen dynasty began when Nguyen Anh, nephew of the last southern Nguyen lord, beat the Tay Son after a quarter-century of war and reigned as Gia Long; his line held the throne until 1945.
Q 12In which part of French Indochina did the emperor keep his throne at Hue under a French protectorate?
Annam
Annam, the central region, kept its emperor at Hue as a French protectorate, while Cochinchina in the far south had been ceded to France and was ruled directly as a colony.
Q 13Which movement urged starving peasants to seize the rice granaries during northern Vietnam's famine of 1945?
The Viet Minh
Q 21Which 1964 naval clash was the US pretext for escalating its military role in Vietnam?
The Gulf of Tonkin incident
The Gulf of Tonkin incident of August 1964, a clash between the destroyer USS Maddox and North Vietnamese torpedo boats plus a disputed second attack, led Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August.
Q 22The Ho Chi Minh Trail, which supplied the Viet Cong, ran largely through which country?
Laos
Laos carried most of the Ho Chi Minh Trail: the network of roads and paths ran down the Laotian panhandle west of the Truong Son mountains, and the US secretly bombed it for years trying to cut the supply line.
Q 23The 1968 Tet Offensive failed militarily but had what decisive effect?
The Viet Minh turned anger over the famine, which killed between 400,000 and two million people, against French and Japanese rule, and by September Ho Chi Minh was proclaiming independence.
Q 14Ho Chi Minh opened his 1945 speech founding Vietnam's new republic by quoting which American text?
Declaration of Independence
Declaration of Independence: its line 'All men are created equal' opened his speech; he then cited France's Declaration of the Rights of Man, turning both countries' ideals against colonial rule.
Q 15Before turning to politics, the young Ho Chi Minh worked abroad in which trade?
Cook and pastry chef
Cook and pastry chef: he left Saigon in 1911 as a kitchen hand on a French steamer and is said to have later worked as a pastry chef on a cross-Channel ferry, before settling in Paris and turning to politics.
Q 16Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body lies in a mausoleum despite his own wish for what?
Cremation
Cremation was the wish Ho set down in his will, with his ashes to be spread across north, centre and south; instead his embalmed body lies in a granite mausoleum inspired by Lenin's in Moscow.
Q 17The 1954 French defeat that ended the First Indochina War came at which place?
Dien Bien Phu
Dien Bien Phu, a remote valley base in the north-west, fell to General Giap's besieging army on 7 May 1954; ten weeks later the Geneva Accords ended French rule in Indochina.
Q 18The Geneva Accords of 1954 divided Vietnam along which line of latitude?
The 17th parallel
The 17th parallel was meant as a temporary military line until nationwide elections in July 1956; the vote was never held, and the line hardened into the border between two states.
Q 19Which US Navy operation helped some 900,000 northerners move south in the 300 days of free movement after 1954?
Passage to Freedom
Passage to Freedom, run by the US Navy from August 1954 to May 1955, carried over 300,000 of the roughly 900,000 northerners, most of them Catholics, who moved south before the demarcation line closed.
Q 20How did Ngo Dinh Diem topple Bao Dai and proclaim the Republic of Vietnam in October 1955?
A fraudulent referendum
A fraudulent referendum on 23 October 1955, run by Diem's brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, credited Diem with over 98 per cent of the vote and counted more ballots in Saigon than the city had registered voters.
It turned US public opinion against the war
It turned US public opinion against the war: the attacks on more than 100 towns and cities were beaten back, yet they shattered official claims that victory was near, and Johnson soon chose not to run again.
Q 24Lieutenant William Calley led a platoon of which US Army company at My Lai in March 1968?
Charlie Company
Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry did the killing in My Lai itself; helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson landed between the troops and fleeing villagers to stop it.
Q 25Which president ordered William Calley moved from the stockade to house arrest days after his My Lai murder conviction?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon stepped in within days of the 1971 verdict; Calley's life sentence was then cut in stages, and he served about three years under house arrest before going free in 1974.
Q 26Which North Vietnamese negotiator refused the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize shared with Henry Kissinger?
Le Duc Tho
Le Duc Tho declined the prize he was to share with Kissinger, saying the truce was being violated and there was still no real peace in Vietnam; the fighting went on for two more years after the Paris accords.
Q 27Which 1975 operation flew more than 7,000 people out of Saigon in the largest helicopter evacuation in history?
Frequent Wind
Frequent Wind lifted Americans and South Vietnamese from the US embassy and the Defense Attaché compound to ships waiting offshore on 29-30 April 1975, hours before the city fell.
Q 28Which dioxin-laced chemical did US aircraft spray over South Vietnam's forests from 1962 to 1971?
Agent Orange
Agent Orange was a defoliant meant to strip away the jungle cover hiding Viet Cong fighters; Vietnam says up to four million people were exposed, and a US-funded dioxin clean-up began in 2012.
Q 29In 1978 Vietnam invaded which country and overthrew its government?
Cambodia
Cambodia was invaded on 25 December 1978 after Khmer Rouge attacks on Vietnamese border villages; Phnom Penh fell within two weeks, and China, the regime's backer, struck northern Vietnam in February 1979.
Q 30What name was given to the market reforms launched at the Communist Party's Sixth Congress in 1986?
Doi Moi
Doi Moi, meaning 'renovation', was adopted at the Sixth Party Congress in December 1986, opening Vietnam's state-run economy to private enterprise, market prices and foreign investment.