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60 free Zurich trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Zurich trivia quiz covers Switzerland's largest city from a Roman customs post to a global banking hub. The easy questions are ones any visitor could answer: the lake and river, whether it is the Swiss capital, the church whose twin towers dominate the skyline, the football body headquartered here, and the chocolate makers of Paradeplatz. The harder end is for travellers and history readers: the Roman name Turicum, the year Zurich joined the Old Swiss Confederacy, the reformer who preached from the Grossmünster and died at Kappel, the abbess who once ruled the city, the moat that became Bahnhofstrasse, the snowman burned every April and what its exploding head is supposed to foretell, the cabaret where Dada was born a few doors from Lenin's flat, the university with 22 Nobel laureates, the Irish novelist buried at Fluntern, and the British politician who called Swiss bankers gnomes. Grasshoppers, FC Zürich, the Street Parade, Weltklasse, Chagall's windows and the Uetliberg get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the city and its landmarks before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Switzerland, Geneva and Vienna quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which river flows out of Lake Zurich through the city centre?
Limmat
The Sihl joins it at the tip of the Platzspitz park by the National Museum.
Q 02Is Zurich the capital of Switzerland?
No, Bern is the federal city
It was briefly federal capital in 1839–40 and 1845–46 under the old rotating system.
Q 03What did the Romans call Zurich?
Turicum
It was a customs post collecting a 2.5 percent tax on goods moving along the Limmat.
Q 04On which small hill did the Romans build their castellum in the city centre?
Lindenhof
It remains the geographic and historic centre, on the west bank of the Limmat.
Q 05Which Carolingian king founded the Fraumünster abbey in 853 for his daughter?
Louis the German
In 1045 the abbess was granted markets, tolls and a mint, effectively ruling the city.
Q 06In what year did Zurich become the fifth member of the Old Swiss Confederacy?
1351
Guild rule had been established in 1336.
Q 07Who launched the Swiss Reformation as chief preacher at the Grossmünster in 1519?
Huldrych Zwingli
His first public controversy attacked fasting during Lent.
Q 08Where did Zwingli die in 1531?
On the battlefield at Kappel
Catholic cantons attacked after his alliance imposed a food blockade.
Q 09According to legend, whose horse knelt over the graves of Zurich's patron saints, prompting the Grossmünster?
Charlemagne
The saints were Felix, Regula and Exuperantius.
Q 10Which artist designed the five stained-glass windows in the Fraumünster choir, installed in 1970?
Marc Chagall
The church organ, with 6,959 pipes, is the largest in the canton.
Q 11What was Bahnhofstrasse called before it was laid out in 1867?
Fröschengraben
The name means Ditch of the Frogs; it had been the city moat.
Q 12How long is Bahnhofstrasse from the station to Bürkliplatz?
1.4 km
A 2011 study ranked it Europe's most expensive retail street and third worldwide.
Q 13Which mountain, at 869 metres, is the highest point around Zurich?
Uetliberg
Its summit is reached by the Uetlibergbahn.
Q 14How many districts, or Kreise, is the city of Zurich divided into?
Q 21How many Nobel laureates are associated with ETH Zurich?
22
Albert Einstein is the most famous of them.
Q 22In which year did the Swiss federal government found ETH Zurich?
1854
Its sister institution is EPFL in Lausanne.
Q 23What distinction in Europe does the University of Zurich of 1833 claim?
Earliest created by a state, not a monarch or church
It is Switzerland's largest university, with about 28,700 students.
Q 24Which world sports body is headquartered in Zurich?
12
Kreis 1 is the Altstadt on both banks of the Limmat.
Q 15What is the traditional spring holiday at which Zurich's guilds parade and burn a snowman?
Sechseläuten
The effigy has been burned officially since 1902.
Q 16What is the effigy of winter burned at the April guild festival called?
Böögg
The word is cognate with bogey; the doll now represents winter itself.
Q 17On which day is the guild parade and effigy-burning usually held?
Third Monday of April
The name means the six o'clock ringing of the bells.
Q 18Which art movement was founded at Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire in 1916?
Dada
It opened at Spiegelgasse 1 in February 1916.
Q 19Which revolutionary lived at Spiegelgasse 14, a few doors from Cabaret Voltaire, from 1916?
Vladimir Lenin
He moved in sixteen days after the cabaret opened and left for Russia in April 1917.
Q 20Who founded Cabaret Voltaire?
Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings
It closed in the summer of 1916 but was revived in the same building this century.
FIFA
Its new headquarters, designed by Tilla Theus, opened in 2007.
Q 25Which Zurich football side, founded in 1886, holds the record of 27 Swiss league titles?
Grasshoppers
Its city rival FC Zürich was founded ten years later.
Q 26What is the Weltklasse Zürich athletics meeting nicknamed?
The one-day Olympics
As many as 24 world records have been set at the Letzigrund.
Q 27Roughly how many people attend Zurich's Street Parade techno festival?
1 million
It began in 1992 as a demonstration for love, peace, liberty, generosity and tolerance.
Q 28Who initiated the first Street Parade in September 1992?
A student, Marek Krynski
The parade runs along the northern edge of Lake Zurich each August.
Q 29The chocolatier Lindt & Sprüngli is based in which lakeside town just south of Zurich?
Kilchberg
Its main factory and museum are there; the Sprünglis had moved to Paradeplatz in 1845.
Q 30Whose disparaging phrase gnomes of Zurich for Swiss bankers came out of a British crisis meeting in 1964?
Labour politicians
They feared speculation against the pound; the phrase stuck.