60 hard quiz questions (and answers) that are tough but fair

Looking for hard trivia questions that a good team can still crack? These 60 hard quiz questions come with answers and a one-line note on how you'd reason your way there, so nobody feels cheated when the answer is read out. They're grouped into six rounds, starting with a top 10 of the toughest, and they work for a pub quiz, a team night or a quiet evening of showing off.

If you want an easier warm-up first, try 50 easy quiz questions or our general knowledge quiz questions, then bring these out when the room is feeling confident.

What makes a good hard quiz question

Difficult quiz questions are easy to write badly. The lazy version is just obscure: "What's the third-longest river in Bolivia?" Nobody can reason towards that, so the room either knows it or shrugs. That's not a hard question, it's a lottery ticket.

A good hard question has a way in. Here's what we look for:

• A reasoning path. "Which city is the capital of Canada?" is easy for some teams, but "which city was chosen as the capital as a compromise between English and French Canada?" can be reasoned towards by anyone who knows a bit of the history. The best questions let two people half-remember different things and combine them.
• One clear answer. If three answers are defensible, you'll spend ten minutes arguing at the bar. Avoid "largest", "first" and "oldest" unless you're sure of the source, and put accepted alternatives in brackets.
• No number precision. "How many bones..." questions are a trap. Ask which, who and where, not exactly how many, unless the number is famous.
• A fair reveal. The answer should make people say "oh, of course" rather than "that's not even a real thing". The note under each answer below is there for that reason.
• Variety inside the round. Mix a couple of gettable questions in with the nasty ones so teams stay in the game.

If you want a full guide on pacing a night, see how to run a great pub quiz.

Top 10 hard quiz questions with answers

These are the ones that make teams groan. Put them in the last round, or use them as a tiebreaker sequence. Each is difficult, but there's a route to the answer.

1Which Roman emperor is said to have planned to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul?Use in quizUse

Answer:Caligula (the story comes from the ancient historian Suetonius, so some doubt it)(click to reveal)

2Which element has the chemical symbol W?Use in quizUse

Answer:Tungsten (its symbol comes from the German name, wolfram)(click to reveal)

3Which Russian author wrote the novel The Master and Margarita, in which the devil visits Moscow?Use in quizUse

Answer:Mikhail Bulgakov (written in secret, and not published until decades after he died)(click to reveal)

4What is the capital city of Myanmar, which replaced Yangon in 2006?Use in quizUse

Answer:Naypyidaw (a purpose-built capital, so it's worth remembering for exactly this reason)(click to reveal)

5In 1066, which battle in Yorkshire did King Harold win just days before he lost at Hastings?Use in quizUse

Answer:Stamford Bridge (he beat the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada, then marched south)(click to reveal)

6What do you call a word that can mean its own opposite, like "cleave" or "sanction"?Use in quizUse

Answer:A contronym (accept auto-antonym or Janus word; see the Wikipedia list)(click to reveal)

7Which is the only continent with land in all four hemispheres: north, south, east and west?Use in quizUse

Answer:Africa (the equator and the prime meridian both cross it)(click to reveal)

8Which composer's ballet The Rite of Spring caused a near-riot at its Paris premiere in 1913?Use in quizUse

Answer:Igor Stravinsky (the dissonant score and the dancing split the audience)(click to reveal)

9What is the longest river in Europe?Use in quizUse

Answer:The Volga (people guess the Danube, but it's far longer; see Britannica)(click to reveal)

10Which 1648 treaty ended the Thirty Years' War and is often seen as the birth of the modern state system?Use in quizUse

Answer:The Peace of Westphalia (see Britannica)(click to reveal)

Round 2: Hard geography questions

11Which is the only country that has coastline on both the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf?Use in quizUse

Answer:Iran (the other Caspian countries have no Gulf coast)(click to reveal)

12Which South American country has Sucre as its constitutional capital, even though its government sits in La Paz?Use in quizUse

Answer:Bolivia (a rare country with two capitals in practice)(click to reveal)

13What is the capital of Nigeria?Use in quizUse

Answer:Abuja (it replaced Lagos in 1991; Lagos is still the biggest city)(click to reveal)

14Which is the largest lake in Africa?Use in quizUse

Answer:Lake Victoria (shared by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania)(click to reveal)

15Which river flows through the Iraqi capital, Baghdad?Use in quizUse

Answer:The Tigris (the Euphrates is its twin, but it runs west of the city)(click to reveal)

16Which two countries share the island of Hispaniola?Use in quizUse

Answer:Haiti and the Dominican Republic (you need both)(click to reveal)

17What is the highest mountain in North America?Use in quizUse

Answer:Denali (accept Mount McKinley, its former official name)(click to reveal)

18Which desert covers much of Botswana?Use in quizUse

Answer:The Kalahari (not the Sahara, which is much further north)(click to reveal)

19Which strait separates Spain from Morocco at the entrance to the Mediterranean?Use in quizUse

Answer:The Strait of Gibraltar (only about 14 kilometres at the narrowest)(click to reveal)

20Timbuktu, long a byword for somewhere remote, is a real city in which West African country?Use in quizUse

Answer:Mali (it was once a centre of learning and trade)(click to reveal)

Round 3: Hard history trivia questions

21Which Carthaginian general famously crossed the Alps with war elephants to attack Rome?Use in quizUse

Answer:Hannibal (during the Second Punic War, around 218 BC)(click to reveal)

22Which English king died at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485?Use in quizUse

Answer:Richard III (he was the last English king to die in battle, and his body was found under a Leicester car park in 2012)(click to reveal)

23Which Chinese dynasty ruled from 1368 to 1644, between the Mongol Yuan and the Qing?Use in quizUse

Answer:The Ming dynasty (the one famous for its porcelain and for rebuilding the Great Wall)(click to reveal)

24Which Mughal emperor commissioned the Taj Mahal as a tomb for his wife?Use in quizUse

Answer:Shah Jahan (his wife was Mumtaz Mahal)(click to reveal)

25Which country, then a British colony, was the first to give women the vote in national elections, in 1893?Use in quizUse

Answer:New Zealand (Finland and Australia followed within about a decade)(click to reveal)

26Who was the last Tsar of Russia, executed with his family in 1918?Use in quizUse

Answer:Nicholas II (he abdicated in 1917)(click to reveal)

27Which ship carried Charles Darwin on his five-year voyage around the world?Use in quizUse

Answer:HMS Beagle (the Galápagos stop is the famous bit)(click to reveal)

28Which empire was ruled by Montezuma II when the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in 1519?Use in quizUse

Answer:The Aztec Empire (its capital, Tenochtitlan, stood where Mexico City is today)(click to reveal)

29Which English city was the capital of Wessex under Alfred the Great?Use in quizUse

Answer:Winchester (long before London took over as the seat of power)(click to reveal)

30Which island was Napoleon sent to after Waterloo, where he died in 1821?Use in quizUse

Answer:Saint Helena (not Elba, which was his first exile)(click to reveal)

Round 4: Science and nature

31What is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust?Use in quizUse

Answer:Aluminium (it's everywhere, but it's hard to extract, which is why it was once a luxury metal, used for Napoleon III's best cutlery)(click to reveal)

32Which organ of the body stores bile?Use in quizUse

Answer:The gallbladder (the liver makes the bile, it just sits in storage)(click to reveal)

33What word describes animals that are most active at dawn and dusk?Use in quizUse

Answer:Crepuscular (it comes from the Latin for twilight)(click to reveal)

34Which planet in our solar system has the shortest day?Use in quizUse

Answer:Jupiter (it spins once in roughly ten hours, despite being enormous; see NASA)(click to reveal)

35What is the SI unit of electrical resistance?Use in quizUse

Answer:The ohm (named after Georg Ohm)(click to reveal)

36Which vitamin does your skin make when exposed to sunlight?Use in quizUse

Answer:Vitamin D (which is why it's a common supplement in northern winters)(click to reveal)

37What is a group of crows traditionally called?Use in quizUse

Answer:A murder (one of the better-known collective nouns)(click to reveal)

38What is the main component of natural gas?Use in quizUse

Answer:Methane (the cooking gas in most kitchens)(click to reveal)

39What is the largest moon of Saturn?Use in quizUse

Answer:Titan (the only moon with a thick atmosphere)(click to reveal)

40Which living bird lays the largest egg?Use in quizUse

Answer:The ostrich (about the size of two dozen hen's eggs)(click to reveal)

Round 5: Arts and literature

41Which Colombian author wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude?Use in quizUse

Answer:Gabriel García Márquez (he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982)(click to reveal)

42Which Surrealist painted The Persistence of Memory, with its melting clocks?Use in quizUse

Answer:Salvador Dalí (the clocks are said to be inspired by melting Camembert)(click to reveal)

43In which Shakespeare play does the villain Iago appear?Use in quizUse

Answer:Othello (he's one of the great scheming characters in English drama)(click to reveal)

44Which Russian novelist wrote Crime and Punishment?Use in quizUse

Answer:Fyodor Dostoevsky (published in 1866)(click to reveal)

45Who painted The Night Watch, one of the most famous works of the Dutch Golden Age?Use in quizUse

Answer:Rembrandt (it hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam)(click to reveal)

46Which novel opens with the line "Call me Ishmael"?Use in quizUse

Answer:Moby-Dick (by Herman Melville, 1851)(click to reveal)

47Which composer wrote the Brandenburg Concertos?Use in quizUse

Answer:Johann Sebastian Bach (six concertos, dedicated to a margrave of Brandenburg)(click to reveal)

48Which architect designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao?Use in quizUse

Answer:Frank Gehry (the titanium-clad building opened in 1997)(click to reveal)

49Which Irish playwright wrote Waiting for Godot?Use in quizUse

Answer:Samuel Beckett (Godot never actually arrives)(click to reveal)

50Which poet wrote The Waste Land, published in 1922?Use in quizUse

Answer:T. S. Eliot (the same man who wrote the poems behind the musical Cats)(click to reveal)

Round 6: Sport

51Which country won the first men's football World Cup, in 1930?Use in quizUse

Answer:Uruguay (they were also the hosts)(click to reveal)

52In golf, what is the name for a score of three under par on a hole?Use in quizUse

Answer:An albatross (also called a double eagle)(click to reveal)

53Which athlete won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics?Use in quizUse

Answer:Jesse Owens (100m, 200m, long jump and the 4x100m relay)(click to reveal)

54In which athletics event would you see the Fosbury Flop?Use in quizUse

Answer:The high jump (Dick Fosbury introduced it in the 1960s)(click to reveal)

55What is considered the national sport of Japan?Use in quizUse

Answer:Sumo (wrestling that dates back centuries)(click to reveal)

56Which country has won the most men's Rugby World Cups?Use in quizUse

Answer:South Africa (four titles, most recently in 2023; Wikipedia has the full list)(click to reveal)

57In cricket, what is it called when a batter is out for nought on the very first ball they face?Use in quizUse

Answer:A golden duck (a plain duck is a score of zero)(click to reveal)

58Which race is nicknamed "the most exciting two minutes in sports"?Use in quizUse

Answer:The Kentucky Derby (held at Churchill Downs every May)(click to reveal)

59What colour jersey is worn by the overall leader in the Tour de France?Use in quizUse

Answer:Yellow (it's said to match the colour of the newspaper that founded the race)(click to reveal)

60Which city hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics?Use in quizUse

Answer:Barcelona (the Games helped transform the city's waterfront)(click to reveal)

Making hard general knowledge questions easier (or harder)

The same question can land very differently depending on how you read it out. If a round is going badly, you have a few levers that don't involve rewriting anything.

• Add a clue. "Which city is home to the Little Mermaid statue?" becomes much friendlier with "...in Scandinavia". Teams still earn it, they just get a nudge.
• Offer multiple choice. Reading out three options turns a blank stare into a debate, which is exactly what you want in a pub.
• Give a bonus point. Ask for the answer and a related detail, such as the country as well as the city.
• Go the other way for strong teams. Remove the clue, ask for the full name, or ask for the year as well. A tiebreaker where the closest guess wins works well here.

Remember that "hard" depends on who's in the room. A table of retired geography teachers will walk the geography round, and a group of twenty-somethings might not recognise half the arts questions. If you know your crowd, swap a couple of questions rather than running the set as written.

How to use hard pub quiz questions without losing the room

Don't open with them. Start with a round of gentler questions so teams settle in and feel clever, and put the toughest round in the middle or towards the end, once everyone has points on the board. A single hard round in a night of six is plenty.

Tell the room what's coming. A host who says "this next round is nasty, you won't get them all" gets a very different atmosphere than one who reads out an obscure capital city in silence. And keep scoring flat: don't make hard questions worth double, because it punishes the teams who needed the warm-up rounds.

If you're building your own, our pub quiz maker lets you paste these in, set the rounds and run the night with a live scoreboard on the big screen. For rounds that lighten the mood afterwards, see funny quiz questions and quiz round ideas.