50 free Atlanta trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Atlanta started as a railroad milepost that its own chief engineer said would support one tavern and nothing else. It was burned by Sherman, rebuilt as the capital of the New South, became the organising centre of the civil rights movement, hosted the 1996 Olympics and now runs the world's busiest airport under the densest tree canopy of any major American city. These 50 questions move through that story: Terminus and the Western and Atlantic Railroad, John Bell Hood's retreat, Milledgeville, Henry Grady, the 1895 exposition, the 1939 Gone with the Wind premiere and the actress barred from it, Maynard Jackson and Shirley Franklin. Then the modern city: Delta, Ted Turner, Tyler Perry Studios, the Eastern Continental Divide, Buckhead, the Georgia Aquarium, the Varsity, Buford Highway, Outkast and the Sex Pistols' first US show. Sports questions cover the Braves, Falcons, Atlanta United, the departed Thrashers and the Peachtree Road Race. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something either way. Play it solo or print it for a Georgia trivia night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Atlanta is the county seat of which county?
Fulton
The city also extends into neighbouring DeKalb County.
Q 02The name 'Atlanta' derives from which railroad?
Western and Atlantic
It was supposedly a feminine version of 'Atlantic'.
Q 03What was the settlement's first name, reflecting its role as a railroad end point?
Terminus
It was later renamed Thrasherville after a local merchant, then Marthasville.
Q 04Who said the site was good for 'one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else'?
Stephen Harriman Long
He said it in 1837; the town was incorporated a decade later.
Q 05Which Union general burned Atlanta before the March to the Sea?
William T. Sherman
He ordered the civilian population to evacuate on September 7, 1864.
Q 06In which year was Atlanta captured by the Union Army?
1864
It followed a four-month siege and the Battle of Atlanta.
Q 07Which Confederate general ordered the retreat from Atlanta as Union forces closed in?
John Bell Hood
He ordered the destruction of public buildings; Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the next day.
Q 08Georgia's state capital moved to Atlanta in 1868 from which city?
Milledgeville
The move was due to Atlanta's superior rail network.
Q 09Which newspaper editor promoted Atlanta as the city of the 'New South'?
Henry W. Grady
He edited the Atlanta Constitution in the 1880s.
Q 10Which 1895 event drew nearly 800,000 attendees to Atlanta?
Cotton States and International Exposition
It promoted the New South's development to the world.
Q 11Atlanta surpassed which city as Georgia's largest in the 1880 census?
Savannah
Unlike that seaport, Atlanta grew up as a railroad town.
Q 12Leo Frank was lynched in 1915 in which town near Atlanta?
Marietta
The governor had commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment.
Q 13The Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 destroyed 1,938 buildings in what is now which neighbourhood?
Old Fourth Ward
It displaced 10,000 people but caused only one fatality.
Q 14Which 1939 film premiered at Atlanta's Loew's Grand Theatre?
Q 21Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympics in which year?
1996
A record 197 national Olympic committees all sent athletes.
Q 22During the Olympics, a bombing occurred at which downtown site?
Centennial Olympic Park
The park remains the centrepiece of the tourist district.
Q 23Atlanta's airport became the world's busiest by passenger traffic in which year?
1998
It has held the title every year since except 2020.
Q 24Which airline is headquartered in Atlanta and runs the world's largest hub there?
Gone with the Wind
Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland attended.
Q 15Which Oscar winner was barred from the 1939 Loew's Grand premiere by segregation laws?
Hattie McDaniel
She would win Best Supporting Actress for the film.
Q 16Which Atlanta author's house museum marks where she wrote her best-selling novel?
Margaret Mitchell
The Margaret Mitchell House is one of the city's historical museums.
Q 17Who was elected Atlanta's first Black mayor in 1973?
Maynard Jackson
Every mayor elected since has been Black; he also modernised the airport.
Q 18Who in 2001 became the first woman elected mayor of Atlanta?
Shirley Franklin
She was also the first African-American woman to lead a major Southern city.
Q 19Who became mayor of Atlanta in January 2022?
Andre Dickens
He is a Democrat elected on a nonpartisan ballot.
Q 20Which mayor dubbed Atlanta 'the city too busy to hate' in the 1960s?
Ivan Allen Jr.
The phrase originally referred to race relations.
Delta
It is also metro Atlanta's largest employer.
Q 25Which media mogul founded CNN, TNT and TBS in Atlanta?
Ted Turner
He launched the networks during the 1980s.
Q 26What nickname reflects Atlanta's growing IT sector?
Silicon Peach
As of 2013 it had the fourth-largest concentration of IT jobs in the US.
Q 27Which Atlanta film studio is one of the largest in the US?
Tyler Perry Studios
Georgia's 20% transferable tax credit drew productions to the city.
Q 28Atlanta has the highest elevation of any major city east of which river?
Mississippi
It sits about 1,050 feet above sea level in the Appalachian foothills.
Q 29Atlanta straddles which watershed boundary?
Eastern Continental Divide
Rain on one side flows to the Atlantic, on the other to the Gulf of Mexico.
Q 30Which river borders the far northwestern edge of the city?
Chattahoochee
Part of it is preserved as a National Recreation Area.