These trivia questions about Greece come in five rounds: mountains, islands and the sea, the Bronze Age to Rome, Byzantium, Venice and the Ottomans, independence and the modern state, and language, music and the table.
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Greece after the ancient world
Byzantium, Venice and the Ottomans asks what the empire called itself and who recaptured Constantinople in 1261. Independence and the modern state runs from the Filiki Eteria and Navarino to the year Greece joined the European Communities.
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Choose an answer and the card labels the right one, with a sentence on why and the article behind it. Ten make a set, and Scored round keeps the marks back until all 20 are done.
Questions and answers
What are some easy Greek trivia questions and answers?
What is the official name of the country? What stands on the rock pillars of Meteora? In what are dolmades wrapped? The answers are the Hellenic Republic, medieval monasteries and vine leaves.
Are these Greek trivia questions about mythology?
No. They are about the country: its land, its history from the Cycladic culture to 1981, its language and its food. The gods and heroes are not asked here.
How were the answers checked?
Each was read on October 3, 2026 in the Wikipedia article Greece, linked under the question. The wars and dictatorships of the 20th century and disputes with neighboring states are left out.
What was the capital of Greece before Athens?
Nafplio, from 1829. The capital was moved to Athens, then a smaller town, under King Otto, a prince from Bavaria.
About how much of Greece consists of mountains or hills?Answer: 80 percent. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Mount Olympus reaches 2,918 meters at its highest peak. What is the peak called?Answer: Mytikas. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
The names Greece and Greek go back, by way of Latin, to an early tribe that settled in southern Italy. Which tribe?Answer: The Graeci. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
The Peloponnese is separated from the mainland by a canal cut through which isthmus?Answer: The Isthmus of Corinth. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
What is the official name of Greece?Answer: The Hellenic Republic. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
What stands on top of the rock pillars of Meteora?Answer: Medieval monasteries. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which autonomous area of Greece is known as the "Holy Mountain"?Answer: Mount Athos. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which big cat once lived in Greece but was wiped out there by human activity?Answer: The lion. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which Greek island is considered the southernmost point of Europe?Answer: Gavdos. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which group of Greek islands lies in the southeast, between Crete and Turkey?Answer: The Dodecanese. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which is the second-largest island of Greece, parted from the mainland by the narrow Euripus Strait?Answer: Euboea. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which mountain range dominates western Greece and has long been a barrier to travel between east and west?Answer: The Pindus. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Bronze Age to Rome 12
Ancient Greek sculptures were painted in a variety of colors. What is that feature called?Answer: Polychromy. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
In which cave of Greece are all three stages of the Stone Age represented?Answer: The Franchthi Cave. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
In which script, still undeciphered, did the Minoans write their language?Answer: Linear A. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Of these four rivers, which one did Alexander the Great reach on his march east, undefeated in battle?Answer: The Hydaspes. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Of which two materials were chryselephantine sculptures largely made?Answer: Gold and ivory. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Sappho was one of the two major lyric poets of classical Greece. Who was the other?Answer: Pindar. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Tragedy and comedy were two of the three kinds of drama of Classical Athens. What was the third?Answer: The satyr play. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Under which name did Augustus make the rest of Greece a Roman province in 27 BC?Answer: Achaea. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Where was Philip II of Macedon assassinated in 336 BC?Answer: Aigai. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which battle of 168 BC signaled the end of Antigonid power in Macedon?Answer: Pydna. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which city-state led the Hellenic League that Greek states formed in 481 BC?Answer: Sparta. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which culture, the earliest of the advanced civilizations of Greece, left an abundance of marble figurines with folded arms?Answer: The Cycladic culture. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Byzantium, Venice and the Ottomans 10
The akritic folk songs tell of the akrites of the Byzantine Empire. Who were the akrites?Answer: Frontier guards. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Byzantine chant is sung to a single line of melody. What else marks it out?Answer: It has no instrumental accompaniment. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Erotokritos, a verse romance written around 1600, is the masterpiece of the Renaissance of which island?Answer: Crete. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Under which dynasty did Byzantium enjoy the cultural revival that has been called its "Golden Age"?Answer: The Macedonian dynasty. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Until which year did Crete remain under Venetian rule?Answer: 1669. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
What was the Byzantine Empire called in its own time?Answer: The Kingdom of the Romans. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which crusade captured Constantinople in 1204?Answer: The Fourth Crusade. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which Greek successor state recaptured Constantinople in 1261?Answer: The Empire of Nicaea. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which power governed the Ionian Islands until 1797?Answer: Venice. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Who were the Phanariots?Answer: Greeks of Constantinople who gained power in the Ottoman administration. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Independence and the modern state 12
After which wars had the territory and population of Greece doubled by 1913?Answer: The Balkan Wars. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
At which battle did an allied fleet of Britain, France and Russia destroy the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet?Answer: Navarino. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
From which German state did Otto, the first king of modern Greece, come?Answer: Bavaria. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Greek Independence Day is one of four mandatory public holidays. When does it fall?Answer: March 25. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
In which year did Greece become the tenth member of the European Communities?Answer: 1981. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Under which agreement of 1830 was the new Greek state recognized?Answer: The London Protocol. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which holiday do Greeks keep on October 28?Answer: Ohi Day. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which islands did King George I bring with him in the 1860s, as a coronation gift from Britain?Answer: The Ionian Islands. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which republic was declared in Greece in 1924, after a referendum abolished the monarchy?Answer: The Second Hellenic Republic. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which secret organization, formed in 1814, worked for a Greek nation?Answer: The Filiki Eteria. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which town was the capital of Greece from 1829, before the capital moved to Athens?Answer: Nafplio. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Who was chosen in 1827 as the first governor of the First Hellenic Republic?Answer: Ioannis Kapodistrias. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Language, music and the table 12
At a Greek table, what are meze?Answer: Small dishes for sharing. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
For which color are the houses of Cycladic architecture known?Answer: White. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Greek law makes one day of every week a public holiday. Which?Answer: Every Sunday. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
In Greece, what are koutoukia?Answer: Underground restaurants. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
In what are dolmades wrapped?Answer: Vine leaves. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Pasteli, a sweet that goes back to ancient Greece, is made with honey and which seeds?Answer: Sesame seeds. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Tsakonian, still spoken in villages of the southeastern Peloponnese, descends from which ancient form of Greek?Answer: Doric Greek. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
What is skordalia?Answer: A thick purée of nuts, crushed garlic and olive oil. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
What was the Diafotismos?Answer: The Greek expression of the Age of Enlightenment. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which "sweet" spices do many Greek recipes, above all in the north, add to meat stews?Answer: Cinnamon and cloves. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which alternative English name for Greece comes from the ancient and formal Greek name of the country?Answer: Hellas. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
Which style of Greek music was the base of the later laïkó, the "song of the people"?Answer: Rebetiko. Source: Wikipedia: Greece
How this list was compiled
Written for this site; nothing was copied from another list. Every answer was read on October 3, 2026 in the English Wikipedia article Greece (text under CC BY-SA 4.0), which is linked beside each question; the questions, wrong choices and explanations are in our own words. Left out on purpose: population figures and ranks, current office-holders and living people, sports teams, song and film titles, companies and brands, drink, religion as a round, the wars, occupation and dictatorships of the 20th century, disputes with neighboring states, and the facts the site's ancient Greece and history packs already ask (Marathon and Thermopylae, the first Olympic Games, Homer, the Parthenon, the three orders, the fall of Constantinople). Levels are our estimate. Licence: own work