Arkansas Trivia
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97 free Arkansas trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Arkansas is the only state with a diamond mine open to the public, the only one whose legislature voted on how to say its own name, and the home of the world's largest company by revenue. This quiz has 50 Arkansas trivia questions with answers covering all of it: the Quapaw origins of the name, statehood in 1836, the Civil War capital that moved to Washington, the Little Rock Nine, the flag's 25 stars and diamond, and the official state everything from mockingbird to Dutch oven. You will also meet the people and places that put the state on the map: Bill Clinton's Hope, Johnny Cash's Kingsland, Sam Walton's five-and-dime in Bentonville, Hot Springs' gangster-era bathhouses, the Buffalo National River, Mount Magazine and the Razorbacks' porcine nickname. Questions run from easy ones any Arkansan can answer to a few that will test lifelong residents, with the difficulty marked on each. It works for a classroom, a bar quiz round or a family road trip through the Ozarks. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles for Arkansas and its landmarks, and each question shows its source, so you can settle any argument on the spot.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The name Arkansas comes from a French rendering of a word for which Native American people?
The Quapaw
The Quapaw: the French took the name from Algonquian-speaking neighbours such as the Illinois, so it was never what the Quapaw called themselves.
Q 02How did the Arkansas legislature officially rule the state's name should be pronounced in 1881?
With the final "s" silent
With the final "s" silent: lawmakers made the Arkansaw sound official, an ending that may come from the French pronunciation.
Q 03Which Spanish explorer crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas in 1541?
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto: he had passed himself off to local people as an immortal 'Son of the Sun', so after he died in 1542 his men secretly sank his body in the Mississippi.
Q 04What was the first European settlement in the future state, founded by Henri de Tonti in 1686?
Arkansas Post
Arkansas Post, set up by Henri de Tonti in 1686 near the Arkansas River's mouth, was the Arkansas Territory's first capital until 1821 and saw the state's only Revolutionary War action, an April 1783 raid.
Q 05Which country sold Arkansas to the United States in 1803?
France
France sold the whole Louisiana Purchase territory, Arkansas included, to the United States in 1803 for about $15 million, three years after Spain had handed Louisiana back to Napoleon.
Q 06After Little Rock fell in 1863, Arkansas's Confederate government spent the rest of the war in which town?
Washington
Washington: after the war the new Cairo and Fulton Railroad bypassed the town, which then began a slow decline.
Q 07Which president ended the 1874 Brooks-Baxter War by ordering Brooks's militia dispersed?
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant: Elisha Baxter had asked for federal help, and Grant backed his government as the lawful one.
Q 08Which Ozark resort town, famed for the 1886 Crescent Hotel, boomed on its healing springs?
Eureka Springs
Eureka Springs: settlers credited its water with cures, yet there's no evidence the Osage who hunted there thought the springs special.
Q 09The 1919 Elaine massacre began with shooting at a meeting of Black sharecroppers organizing what?
A farmers' union
A farmers' union: in the mob violence that followed, estimates of Black people killed run into the hundreds, and five white people died.
Q 10About how many Japanese Americans were held at Arkansas's two WWII camps, Rohwer and Jerome?
About 16,000
About 16,000: many were American citizens, forcibly removed from their homes on the West Coast.
Q 11Which governor used the National Guard to block nine Black students from Little Rock Central High in 1957?
Orval Faubus
Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to turn the students away on 4 September 1957; Eisenhower federalised the Guard and sent Army troops three weeks later to escort the Little Rock Nine in.
Q 12Which Army division did Eisenhower send to escort the Little Rock Nine into Central High in September 1957?
The 101st Airborne
The 101st Airborne Division's troops escorted the Little Rock Nine into Central High on 25 September 1957 and stayed for weeks; Ernest Green became the school's first Black graduate in May 1958.
Q 13Which state lies along Arkansas's northern border?
Missouri
Q 21Arkansas leads all US states in growing which grain?
Rice
Rice: rice growing took off there around 1900, thanks partly to farmer William Fuller, who became known as its legendary father.
Q 22Which Grand Prairie town draws hunters from around the world to its duck-hunting grounds on the Mississippi Flyway?
Stuttgart
Stuttgart: German immigrants led by a Lutheran minister, Adam Buerkle, founded it and named it after the city in Germany.
Q 23Arkansas's official nickname, "The Natural State", began as a slogan created for what purpose?
Tourism advertising
Tourism advertising: state promotions made the slogan popular, and lawmakers later adopted it as the official state nickname.
Missouri: its Bootheel dips below the straight border line, and landowner John Hardeman Walker was behind the push to keep that land in Missouri.
Q 14Arkansas's highest point, at 2,753 feet, is which flat-topped mountain in the Ouachitas?
Mount Magazine
Mount Magazine: French hunters are said to have named it for its barn-like shape, from the French magasin, a storehouse.
Q 15The Arkansas town of Bauxite takes its name from the ore of which metal?
Aluminum
Aluminum: the town's mines supplied ore through two world wars, but after World War II the mining faded and the town nearly disappeared.
Q 16Which 40-carat diamond turned up near Murfreesboro, Arkansas, in 1924?
Uncle Sam
Uncle Sam: the stone took the nickname of its finder, workman Wesley Oley Basham, and it is the largest diamond ever found in the United States.
Q 17Visitors to Arkansas's Crater of Diamonds State Park may do what with any diamonds they find?
Keep them
Keep them: after decades of struggling mining ventures, the site's owners turned it into a tourist attraction where visitors dig for themselves.
Q 18What was notable about the Hot Springs area that Congress set aside in 1832?
The first federal land reserved for recreation
Hot Springs Reservation of 1832 was the first federal land reserved for recreation, 40 years before Yellowstone; it became a national park in 1921 and got the first America the Beautiful quarter in 2010.
Q 19Which gangster was a regular visitor to the spa town of Hot Springs, Arkansas?
Al Capone
Al Capone: the town's illegal gambling made it a haven for gangsters, among them Lucky Luciano.
Q 20Which Arkansas waterway became the first National River in the United States in 1972?
The Buffalo
The Buffalo River was designated the first national river on 1 March 1972, ending repeated Army Corps of Engineers plans to dam it; its 135 protected free-flowing miles run through the Ozarks.
Q 24Which retailer, founded in Arkansas in 1962, has its headquarters in Bentonville?
Walmart
Walmart grew from Sam Walton's first discount store, opened in 1962, into a company with annual revenue past $600 billion, run from its headquarters in Bentonville.
Q 25In which Arkansas town did Sam Walton open the very first Wal-Mart Discount City in 1962?
Rogers
Rogers: to reach his stores in isolated small towns, Sam Walton had learned to fly his own plane.
Q 26In which Arkansas town did Sam Walton buy his first store, a Ben Franklin franchise, after WWII?
Newport
Newport: the store did so well that the landlord refused to renew the lease and gave the shop to his own son, so Walton moved to Bentonville.
Q 27Which meat-processing giant is headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas?
Tyson Foods
Tyson Foods: the business grew during World War II, when beef was rationed but chicken was not.
Q 28Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville was founded by which retail heiress?
Alice Walton
Alice Walton: she founded the museum, which opened in 2011 in Ozark forest, and an endowment keeps general admission free.
Q 29Bill Clinton was born in 1946 in which Arkansas town?
Hope
Hope: he was born there as William Jefferson Blythe III, and later took the surname of his stepfather, Roger Clinton.
Q 30Bill Clinton's overlong speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention nominated which candidate?
Michael Dukakis
Clinton's 33-minute nominating speech for Michael Dukakis drew cheers when he said 'in conclusion'; some journalists thought it had wrecked his ambitions, yet four years later he won the presidency with 43% of the vote.