50 free Baton Rouge trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Baton Rouge is named after a fish-bone-covered pole, has been ruled by France, Britain, Spain, a 74-day republic and the United States, and built America's tallest capitol in 14 months only to have its governor shot inside it. This quiz has 49 free Baton Rouge trivia questions with answers. It covers the city's history from Iberville's 1698 expedition through the 1779 and 1862 battles, the Old State Capitol that Mark Twain hated, the Kingfish, the 1953 bus boycott that Montgomery copied, and the modern city: LSU and Mike the Tiger, Southern University and the Bayou Classic, the ExxonMobil refinery, the port, Raising Cane's first store and the USS Kidd sitting high and dry each autumn. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city, its landmarks and its universities, and each question carries a citation. Use it for a Louisiana pub quiz, a classroom, or to test a Tiger fan who thinks they know their town.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does the French name 'le bâton rouge' mean in English?
The red stick
It translated a native place name, Istrouma, for a painted pole that marked a boundary between tribal hunting grounds.
Q 02The 'red stick' that named the city was reportedly a pole how tall, adorned with fish bones?
About 30 feet
Iberville's 1698-99 expedition up the Mississippi recorded the landmark.
Q 03Which French explorer led the 1698 expedition up the Mississippi that recorded the red stick?
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
His younger brother Bienville went on to found New Orleans in 1718.
Q 04In what year did European settlement of Baton Rouge begin with a French military and trading post?
1721
The city was not incorporated until 1817.
Q 05From 1763 to 1783, Baton Rouge belonged to which British colony?
West Florida
Britain got it from France after the Seven Years' War, then lost it to Spain in 1779.
Q 06Which Spanish commander captured Baton Rouge from the British in September 1779?
Bernardo de Gálvez
The victory cleared the lower Mississippi of British forces, and Galveston, Texas is named after him.
Q 07The rebels who stormed Baton Rouge's Spanish fort in 1810 declared a republic with its capital in which town?
St. Francisville
The Republic of West Florida lasted about two and a half months before the US annexed it.
Q 08What design did the 1810 rebels' flag carry?
A single white star on a blue field
Melissa Johnson, wife of Major Isaac Johnson, sewed it; the design was later famous as the Bonnie Blue Flag.
Q 09In what year did the Louisiana legislature first designate Baton Rouge as the state capital?
1846
Government left during the Civil War and Reconstruction and returned for good in 1882.
Q 10Who designed the Old Louisiana State Capitol, begun in 1847?
James Dakin
He gave it turrets, crenellations and stained glass, in Neo-Gothic style overlooking the Mississippi.
Q 11Which author mocked the Old State Capitol as a 'whitewashed castle, with turrets and things'?
Mark Twain
The jab appears in Life on the Mississippi, where he blamed Sir Walter Scott's romances for the taste.
Q 12What has the Old Louisiana State Capitol housed since its 1994 reopening?
The Museum of Political History
After burning twice under Union occupation, it was rebuilt in 1882 with a cast-iron spiral staircase and stained-glass dome, and reopened as a museum in 1994.
Q 13How tall is the current Louisiana State Capitol, the tallest capitol building in the US?
450 feet
Q 21Baton Rouge is the third-southernmost continental US capital, after Tallahassee and which?
Austin
Its climate is humid subtropical, and it ranks fifth on the list of wettest US cities.
Q 22About how much rain does Baton Rouge get in an average year?
62 inches
Snow averages a tenth of an inch.
Q 23Which 2008 hurricane is described as the worst ever to hit the Baton Rouge area?
Gustav
Three years earlier the city had absorbed as many as 200,000 people displaced by Katrina.
Q 24Where was Louisiana State University founded in 1860, before moving to Baton Rouge?
Its 34 storeys went up in about 14 months and cost $5 million.
Q 14In what year was the current State Capitol inaugurated?
1932
Construction had started in December 1930 under Governor Huey Long.
Q 15Who shot Huey Long inside the State Capitol on September 8, 1935?
Dr. Carl Weiss
Long died two days later and is buried in front of the building beneath his own statue.
Q 16What was Huey Long's famous nickname?
The Kingfish
His slogan was 'Every Man a King' and his Share Our Wealth plan promised every family a basic income.
Q 17On which floor of the State Capitol is the public observation deck?
27th
It gives views of the city and the Mississippi River.
Q 18What was Baton Rouge's population at the 2020 census?
227,470
That made it Louisiana's second-most populous city, in a metro area of 870,569.
Q 19Which compass direction is in the name of the parish where Baton Rouge sits?
East
It is Louisiana's most populous parish, and in 2024 the state supreme court let the city of St. George secede from it.
Q 20Roughly how far is Baton Rouge from New Orleans?
79 miles
It sits on the east bank of the Mississippi, about 56 feet above sea level.
Near Pineville
It began as the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy, hence the nickname 'Ole War Skule'.
Q 25Which future Union general was LSU's first superintendent?
William Tecumseh Sherman
He resigned when Louisiana seceded, then burned his way across Georgia.
Q 26In what year did LSU move to its current Baton Rouge campus?
1926
The university had first relocated to the city in 1869; the Italian Renaissance campus came later.
Q 27What is the nickname of LSU's Tiger Stadium?
Death Valley
It holds 102,321 fans, and its noise once registered on a campus seismograph.
Q 28The LSU Campus Mounds on the northwest of campus are estimated to be how old?
Over 5,000 years
They may be among the oldest human-made structures in the Americas.
Q 29The first Mike the Tiger was bought in 1936 with $750 raised by students from which zoo?
Little Rock Zoo
He was named after Mike Chambers, the athletic trainer who did most to bring him to campus.
Q 30Since the death of Mike VI in 2016, what has changed about LSU's live tiger on game days?
He no longer leaves his habitat
For decades his wheeled cage, topped by cheerleaders, rode through Tiger Stadium before kickoff.