Aztecs Maya and Inca Quiz
Tenochtitlan, Chichén Itzá, Machu Picchu: 15 questions on the great civilizations of the Americas before 1492.
The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan stood on the site of which modern city?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Mexico City
The Spanish levelled Tenochtitlan after its fall in 1521 and built their own capital on the ruins, so the Aztec Templo Mayor now sits beside the cathedral in the heart of Mexico City.
The Aztecs called themselves the Mexica, and that name, not Aztec, is the root of the modern country name Mexico.
Machu Picchu, the famous Inca citadel in the Andes, is in which modern country?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Peru
Machu Picchu sits on a ridge about 2,430 metres (7,970 feet) above the Urubamba valley in southern Peru and was brought to world attention by Hiram Bingham in 1911.
The Spanish never found the site, which is why its stonework survived largely intact under centuries of jungle.
Which Spanish conquistador led the expedition that toppled the Aztec Empire between 1519 and 1521?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Hernán Cortés
Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519 with a few hundred men, won over Indigenous allies who resented Aztec rule, and captured Tenochtitlan after a brutal siege in August 1521.
His Nahua interpreter and adviser Malinche, baptised Doña Marina, was essential to the whole campaign.
Which city, high in the Andes, was the capital of the Inca Empire?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Cusco
Cusco was the political and religious heart of the Inca world, home to the sun temple of Coricancha and the fortress of Sacsayhuamán, and its name is often translated as navel of the world.
The Spanish built churches directly on Inca foundations, and the earthquake-proof Inca walls are still visible along Cusco's streets.
Which of these civilizations developed a full writing system of hieroglyphic glyphs that recorded history, dates and astronomy?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Maya
The Maya script combined logograms and syllabic signs and could write anything that could be spoken, making it the most complete writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas.
Only four Maya books survived the Spanish burnings, and the script was not substantially deciphered until the second half of the 20th century.
Who was the Aztec emperor when Cortés and his men marched into Tenochtitlan in 1519?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Moctezuma II
Moctezuma II received Cortés as a guest in November 1519 but was soon seized as a hostage and died in June 1520 during the uprising that briefly drove the Spanish out of the city.
His nephew Cuauhtémoc led the final defence of Tenochtitlan and was later tortured and executed by Cortés.
Which Inca emperor was captured by Pizarro at Cajamarca in 1532 and executed the following year?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Atahualpa
Francisco Pizarro ambushed Atahualpa in the square at Cajamarca in November 1532, held him for a ransom of a room filled with gold and silver, then had him killed in July 1533 anyway.
Atahualpa had only just defeated his half-brother Huáscar in a civil war, which left the empire badly weakened when the Spanish arrived.
Tenochtitlan was built on an island in which lake?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Lake Texcoco
According to legend the Mexica founded Tenochtitlan in 1325 where they saw an eagle on a cactus, on a marshy island in Lake Texcoco, and linked it to the shore with long causeways.
The lake was drained over the centuries after the conquest, which is why modern Mexico City suffers from sinking ground.
Claims that the Maya had predicted the end of the world focused on 21 December of which year?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
2012
A major cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar, the 13th baktun, ended on 21 December 2012, and the date was widely hyped as a doomsday even though Maya texts treated it as a calendar rollover.
The Long Count counts days from a creation date in 3114 BC, and the Maya recorded dates far beyond 2012 at sites such as Palenque.
What did the Inca call their system of knotted strings used to keep records?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Quipu
A quipu used knots of different types and positions on coloured cords to record numbers such as census counts, tribute and storehouse stock across an empire with no written script.
Chasqui relay runners carried quipus along the Inca roads, covering up to 240 km (150 miles) a day between stations.
Which Maya city in the Yucatán is dominated by the stepped pyramid known as El Castillo?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Chichén Itzá
El Castillo, the Temple of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá, has four stairways of 91 steps that with the top platform add up to 365, and at the equinoxes a shadow serpent appears to slide down it.
The site also has the largest ball court in Mesoamerica, roughly 168 metres (551 feet) long.
Which language, still spoken by millions in the Andes, was the administrative language of the Inca Empire?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Quechua
The Inca spread Quechua across their territories as the language of government, and it remains an official language of Peru and Bolivia with speakers from Colombia to Argentina.
Everyday English words such as condor, puma, llama, jerky and quinine all entered the language from Quechua by way of Spanish.
What were the artificial island plots the Aztecs built in shallow lake water to grow crops called?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Chinampas
Chinampas were rectangular beds of mud and vegetation piled up in the shallows and anchored by willow trees, producing several harvests of maize, beans and squash a year to feed Tenochtitlan.
Working chinampas still exist at Xochimilco in southern Mexico City, where tourists ride painted boats along the old canals.
Which Inca ruler, who reigned from about 1438, turned a small kingdom into an empire and is credited with building Machu Picchu?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Pachacuti
Pachacuti defeated the rival Chanka, rebuilt Cusco and launched the conquests that created the Inca Empire, and most archaeologists believe Machu Picchu was built around 1450 as his royal estate.
His name is usually translated as earth shaker or he who overturns the world, a fitting title for a ruler who redrew the map of the Andes.
What name did the Inca give to their empire, meaning the four parts together?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Tawantinsuyu
Tawantinsuyu was divided into four regions, or suyus, radiating out from Cusco, and at its height it stretched some 4,000 km (2,500 miles) along the Andes from Colombia to central Chile.
The word Inca properly referred to the ruler and his nobility, not to the millions of ordinary subjects of the empire.
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All History quizzes →About the Aztecs Maya and Inca Quiz
Before the Spanish arrived, the Americas were home to civilizations that rivalled anything in Europe. The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan rose from an island in a lake and housed perhaps 200,000 people, the Maya tracked the planets with a calendar accurate to within minutes, and the Inca ran an empire of 40,000 km (25,000 miles) of roads without wheels or writing.
These 15 questions range across all three cultures: the cities and their modern locations, the emperors who met Cortés and Pizarro, the quipu and the chinampas, and the names these peoples gave themselves. It starts gently with Mexico City and Machu Picchu and finishes with the kind of detail that rewards anyone who has toured the ruins or read a little further.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Medium. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
Does the quiz cover all three civilizations equally?
Roughly. There are six questions on the Aztecs, four on the Maya and five on the Inca, with the Spanish conquest appearing in several of them.
Is this a good quiz for school revision?
Yes. It covers the standard topics such as Tenochtitlan, the conquest, Maya writing and the Inca road and record systems, with explanations for each answer.
How is the difficulty balanced?
The first questions ask about famous places and names, the middle ones about rulers and inventions, and the last few about Inca and Aztec vocabulary.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan stood on the site of which modern city?
Mexico City The Spanish levelled Tenochtitlan after its fall in 1521 and built their own capital on the ruins, so the Aztec Templo Mayor now sits beside the cathedral in the heart of Mexico City. The Aztecs called themselves the Mexica, and that name, not Aztec, is the root of the modern country name Mexico. - Machu Picchu, the famous Inca citadel in the Andes, is in which modern country?
Peru Machu Picchu sits on a ridge about 2,430 metres (7,970 feet) above the Urubamba valley in southern Peru and was brought to world attention by Hiram Bingham in 1911. The Spanish never found the site, which is why its stonework survived largely intact under centuries of jungle. - Which Spanish conquistador led the expedition that toppled the Aztec Empire between 1519 and 1521?
Hernán Cortés Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519 with a few hundred men, won over Indigenous allies who resented Aztec rule, and captured Tenochtitlan after a brutal siege in August 1521. His Nahua interpreter and adviser Malinche, baptised Doña Marina, was essential to the whole campaign. - Which city, high in the Andes, was the capital of the Inca Empire?
Cusco Cusco was the political and religious heart of the Inca world, home to the sun temple of Coricancha and the fortress of Sacsayhuamán, and its name is often translated as navel of the world. The Spanish built churches directly on Inca foundations, and the earthquake-proof Inca walls are still visible along Cusco's streets. - Which of these civilizations developed a full writing system of hieroglyphic glyphs that recorded history, dates and astronomy?
Maya The Maya script combined logograms and syllabic signs and could write anything that could be spoken, making it the most complete writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas. Only four Maya books survived the Spanish burnings, and the script was not substantially deciphered until the second half of the 20th century. - Who was the Aztec emperor when Cortés and his men marched into Tenochtitlan in 1519?
Moctezuma II Moctezuma II received Cortés as a guest in November 1519 but was soon seized as a hostage and died in June 1520 during the uprising that briefly drove the Spanish out of the city. His nephew Cuauhtémoc led the final defence of Tenochtitlan and was later tortured and executed by Cortés. - Which Inca emperor was captured by Pizarro at Cajamarca in 1532 and executed the following year?
Atahualpa Francisco Pizarro ambushed Atahualpa in the square at Cajamarca in November 1532, held him for a ransom of a room filled with gold and silver, then had him killed in July 1533 anyway. Atahualpa had only just defeated his half-brother Huáscar in a civil war, which left the empire badly weakened when the Spanish arrived. - Tenochtitlan was built on an island in which lake?
Lake Texcoco According to legend the Mexica founded Tenochtitlan in 1325 where they saw an eagle on a cactus, on a marshy island in Lake Texcoco, and linked it to the shore with long causeways. The lake was drained over the centuries after the conquest, which is why modern Mexico City suffers from sinking ground. - Claims that the Maya had predicted the end of the world focused on 21 December of which year?
2012 A major cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar, the 13th baktun, ended on 21 December 2012, and the date was widely hyped as a doomsday even though Maya texts treated it as a calendar rollover. The Long Count counts days from a creation date in 3114 BC, and the Maya recorded dates far beyond 2012 at sites such as Palenque. - What did the Inca call their system of knotted strings used to keep records?
Quipu A quipu used knots of different types and positions on coloured cords to record numbers such as census counts, tribute and storehouse stock across an empire with no written script. Chasqui relay runners carried quipus along the Inca roads, covering up to 240 km (150 miles) a day between stations. - Which Maya city in the Yucatán is dominated by the stepped pyramid known as El Castillo?
Chichén Itzá El Castillo, the Temple of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá, has four stairways of 91 steps that with the top platform add up to 365, and at the equinoxes a shadow serpent appears to slide down it. The site also has the largest ball court in Mesoamerica, roughly 168 metres (551 feet) long. - Which language, still spoken by millions in the Andes, was the administrative language of the Inca Empire?
Quechua The Inca spread Quechua across their territories as the language of government, and it remains an official language of Peru and Bolivia with speakers from Colombia to Argentina. Everyday English words such as condor, puma, llama, jerky and quinine all entered the language from Quechua by way of Spanish. - What were the artificial island plots the Aztecs built in shallow lake water to grow crops called?
Chinampas Chinampas were rectangular beds of mud and vegetation piled up in the shallows and anchored by willow trees, producing several harvests of maize, beans and squash a year to feed Tenochtitlan. Working chinampas still exist at Xochimilco in southern Mexico City, where tourists ride painted boats along the old canals. - Which Inca ruler, who reigned from about 1438, turned a small kingdom into an empire and is credited with building Machu Picchu?
Pachacuti Pachacuti defeated the rival Chanka, rebuilt Cusco and launched the conquests that created the Inca Empire, and most archaeologists believe Machu Picchu was built around 1450 as his royal estate. His name is usually translated as earth shaker or he who overturns the world, a fitting title for a ruler who redrew the map of the Andes. - What name did the Inca give to their empire, meaning the four parts together?
Tawantinsuyu Tawantinsuyu was divided into four regions, or suyus, radiating out from Cusco, and at its height it stretched some 4,000 km (2,500 miles) along the Andes from Colombia to central Chile. The word Inca properly referred to the ruler and his nobility, not to the millions of ordinary subjects of the empire.
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