50 free Ann Arbor trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free Ann Arbor trivia questions with answers. Ann Arbor is a college town with an outsized story, and this quiz covers it from the two founders' wives named Ann to the spinning cube outside the Michigan Union. There is the founding and the lost bid to be state capital, the university's 1837 arrival, the Huron River, Tree Town's 50,000 street trees, and the nicknames from A2 to '25 square miles surrounded by reality'. The Big House gets its due: the capacity, the first game, the record crowds for football, hockey and soccer. So do the town's exports and institutions: Domino's, Borders, Zingerman's, Duo Security, the Stooges, Hill Auditorium, the Michigan Theater's organ, the Art Fairs, the Film Festival, Hash Bash and the fairy doors. Plus the moments that made news: JFK's 2 a.m. Peace Corps speech, the first Vietnam teach-in, and Jonas Salk's Michigan years. Easy questions suit newcomers and freshmen; harder ones will test townies. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city, the university and its landmarks, and the source sentence appears under each question after you answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ann Arbor was founded in 1824 by which two land speculators?
John Allen and Elisha Rumsey
They paid $800 for 640 acres of federal land at $1.25 an acre.
Q 02The 'Ann' in Ann Arbor honours what?
The founders' wives, both named Ann
The 'Arbor' refers to the stands of bur oak on the founders' land.
Q 03The 'Arbor' part of the name refers to groves of which tree?
Bur oak
The Ojibwa called the settlement kaw-goosh-kaw-nick, after the sound of Allen's sawmill.
Q 04Ann Arbor is the seat of which Michigan county?
Washtenaw
It became county seat in 1827 and was chartered as a city in 1851.
Q 05With about 123,851 residents in 2020, Ann Arbor ranked where among Michigan's most populous cities?
Fifth
It is the principal city of its own metro area and part of the Detroit combined statistical area.
Q 06Ann Arbor lost a bid to become Michigan's state capital to which city?
Lansing
The 40 acres set aside for a capitol went instead to the University of Michigan in 1837.
Q 07In what year did the University of Michigan move to Ann Arbor?
1837
It had been founded in Detroit in 1817 and is the oldest university in the state.
Q 08Ann Arbor's nickname 'Tree Town' reflects roughly how many street trees?
50,000
The emerald ash borer wiped out many of its 10,500 ash trees in the early 2000s.
Q 09Which river runs through Ann Arbor?
Huron
The Border-to-Border Trail follows it to the neighbouring city to the east.
Q 10Which pizza chain is headquartered at a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired complex just outside Ann Arbor?
Domino's
Its founder Tom Monaghan also started a Catholic law school in the city before moving it to Florida.
Q 11The Monaghan brothers took over DomiNick's pizzeria in 1960 in which town next to Ann Arbor?
Ypsilanti
The original owner would not let them keep the DomiNick's name, so it was renamed in 1965.
Q 12Which bookstore chain was founded in Ann Arbor in 1971 by two brothers?
Borders
Kmart bought it in 1992; the chain was liquidated in 2011 and its name went to Barnes & Noble.
Q 13Zingerman's Delicatessen, founded in 1982, was originally going to be named after what?
A regular customer
'Greenberg's' was dropped after another business objected, and Zingerman's grew into a bakehouse, creamery and roadhouse.
Q 21The 2013 Michigan v Notre Dame game set an NCAA single-game record with what attendance?
115,109
It beat the previous record of 114,804, set two years earlier by the same matchup.
Q 22What is Ann Arbor's annual cannabis rally, held on the first Saturday of April, called?
Hash Bash
The first one, on April 1 of its founding year, followed a Michigan Supreme Court ruling that freed activist John Sinclair.
Q 23The Ann Arbor Art Fairs, drawing upwards of half a million visitors, are held in which month?
July
They are actually several concurrent juried fairs; the original dates from 1960.
Q 14Ann Arbor ranks first among US cities for what per capita?
Booksellers and books sold
It is also home to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Q 15Which US president's presidential library is in Ann Arbor?
Gerald Ford
Ford graduated from Michigan in 1935 and used 'The Victors' instead of 'Hail to the Chief' as his entrance music.
Q 16On the steps of which Ann Arbor building did JFK first float the Peace Corps in a 2 a.m. speech?
Michigan Union
The date was October 14, 1960; a plaque marks the spot.
Q 17Michigan Stadium's official capacity is what?
107,601
It has hosted crowds over 115,000 and is the largest American football stadium in the world.
Q 18What is Michigan Stadium's nickname?
The Big House
It opened in 1927 with a capacity of 72,000 and footings built for future expansion.
Q 19Which two NHL teams played the 2014 Winter Classic at Michigan Stadium before a record crowd of 105,491?
Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings
The same year a Real Madrid v Manchester United friendly there drew 109,318, a US soccer record.
Q 20Michigan Stadium's first game, in October 1927, was against which opponent?
Ohio Wesleyan
Michigan won 33-0; the formal dedication came three weeks later against Ohio State.
Q 24The Ann Arbor Film Festival (1963) is North America's oldest festival of what kind of film?
Experimental
It is one of a handful of Academy Award-qualifying festivals in the US.
Q 25What tiny works of installation art are scattered around downtown Ann Arbor?
Fairy doors
They appear on the outsides and insides of shops and are a favourite children's hunt.
Q 26Endover, the spinning black steel cube on the U-M campus, is by which sculptor?
Tony Rosenthal
A 1936 Michigan graduate, he also made the similar Alamo cube at Astor Place in New York.
Q 27Roughly how much does the Endover cube weigh, despite spinning with relative ease?
2,400 lb
It measures 15 feet on each side and sits in Regents' Plaza next to the Michigan Union.
Q 28Which proto-punk band was formed in Ann Arbor in 1967 by Iggy Pop and the Asheton brothers?
The Stooges
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Q 29Iggy Pop got his stage name from which earlier Ann Arbor-area band he drummed in?
The Iguanas
His bandmates in the Prime Movers coined the nickname.
Q 30Which national left-wing campus group held its first major meetings in Ann Arbor in 1960?
Students for a Democratic Society
Five years later the city hosted the first US teach-in against the Vietnam War.