Cincinnati Trivia
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99 free Cincinnati trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
64 free Cincinnati trivia questions with answers. This Cincinnati trivia quiz is for anyone who knows the difference between a three-way and a four-way and would like to prove it. It covers how the city got its name and its nicknames (Queen City, Porkopolis, the Paris of America), the German immigrants who built Over-the-Rhine, and the companies that started here: the soap makers who accidentally named a TV genre, the grocer with $372, the potato chip in a tube. Sports fans get the Red Stockings of 1869, the Big Red Machine, the Nasty Boys, Pete Rose's hit record, Paul Brown's Bengals and the Ickey Shuffle. There are questions on the zoo (Martha, Fiona, Harambe), Union Terminal and the Hall of Justice, the Roebling bridge, Music Hall's ghosts, Kings Island's Beast, WKRP, and natives from William Howard Taft to Steven Spielberg and Bootsy Collins. Use it for a bar quiz, a family game or a newcomer's crash course. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic or primary source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Cincinnati sits on the Ohio River directly across from which state?
Kentucky
The city's airport, CVG, is actually in Hebron, Kentucky, and is one of the busiest cargo airports in the country.
Q 02Which of these is a nickname of Cincinnati?
The Queen City
The Queen City nickname was in print by 1819, when a local newspaper hailed Cincinnati as 'the fair Queen of the West'; the Gem City is Dayton, the Forest City Cleveland and the Rubber City Akron.
Q 03Which meat trade made 1840s Cincinnati the largest processing centre in the United States?
Pork packing
Pork packing earned Cincinnati the nickname 'Porkopolis': by the 1840s it slaughtered and packed more hogs than any other American city, a lead it lost after the Civil War.
Q 04Who was first president general of the Society of the Cincinnati, the city's namesake order?
George Washington
George Washington was the Society of the Cincinnati's first president general, from 1783 until his death in 1799; the Continental Army officers' order took its name from the Roman farmer-dictator Cincinnatus.
Q 05What was Cincinnati's original name when it was settled in 1788?
Losantiville
Losantiville was surveyor John Filson's 1788 coinage: 'L' for the Licking River, Latin 'os' (mouth), Greek 'anti' (opposite) and French 'ville' (town), meaning 'town opposite the mouth of the Licking'. It was renamed in 1790.
Q 06Because of its grand 19th-century architecture, Cincinnati was once nicknamed the what of America?
Paris
Cincinnati was called the 'Paris of America' for its 19th-century grandeur: Music Hall (1878), the Cincinnatian Hotel (1882) and the John A. Roebling bridge (1866) earned the comparison.
Q 07Which immigrant group most shaped 19th-century Cincinnati, founding many of its institutions?
German
German immigrants shaped 19th-century Cincinnati: by 1850 more than a quarter of its residents were German-born, and their Over-the-Rhine district took its name from the canal they crossed, nicknamed 'the Rhine'.
Q 08Over-the-Rhine is named for which waterway that immigrants crossed to reach the neighbourhood?
The Miami and Erie Canal
The Miami and Erie Canal, which ran along the route of today's Central Parkway, was nicknamed 'the Rhine' by the immigrants living beyond it; crossing it took you 'over the Rhine'.
Q 09Which Cincinnati company, founded in 1837 by a candlemaker and a soap maker, gave the radio serial genre its name?
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble, founded in 1837 by candlemaker William Procter and soap maker James Gamble, sponsored radio serials such as 'Ma Perkins' from 1933, which is why the genre is called soap opera.
Q 10Which quality of Ivory soap, launched in 1879, became a famous advertising slogan?
It floats
'It floats' became Ivory's best-known slogan because air whipped into the mix makes the bar float; its other slogan, '99 44/100 percent pure', came from an 1882 chemical analysis.
Q 11Which supermarket giant was founded in Cincinnati in 1883 by a 23-year-old with $372 in savings?
Kroger
Kroger began in 1883 when 23-year-old Bernard 'Barney' Kroger opened a grocery at 66 Pearl Street with his $372 savings; in 1901 it became the first grocery chain to run its own bakeries.
Q 12Which potato chip brand was created by a Cincinnati consumer-goods giant better known for soap?
Pringles
Pringles was developed in the 1960s by Cincinnati's soap-and-detergent giant; the saddle-shaped chips are pressed from dehydrated potato dough rather than sliced from whole potatoes, which is why they stack neatly in a tube.
Q 13Cincinnati chili, the city's best-known dish, is traditionally served over what?
Spaghetti
Q 21The Reds' first World Series win, in 1919, was tainted because which opponents threw the series?
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 Series for gamblers; eight players, including 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson, were banned for life in the Black Sox scandal.
Q 22Which Major League Baseball milestone happened at Cincinnati's ballpark in 1935?
The first night game
The first night game in the majors was played on 24 May 1935, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a button at the White House to switch on the lights and the Reds beat Philadelphia 2-1.
Q 23Which Reds pitcher threw no-hitters in consecutive starts in June 1938?
Johnny Vander Meer
Spaghetti is the base of Cincinnati chili, a thin meat sauce spiced with cinnamon, allspice and clove that Macedonian immigrants created in 1922 and ladled over a plate of pasta.
Q 14In Cincinnati chili parlour lingo, what does a 'three-way' add on top of a 'two-way'?
Cheese
A four-way adds onions or beans under the cheese, and a five-way piles on both.
Q 15The Kiradjieff brothers named their 1922 Cincinnati chili business after which neighbouring building?
A burlesque theatre called the Empress
A burlesque theatre called the Empress stood next to the Kiradjieff brothers' downtown stand, so they named their 1922 business Empress Chili, the original Cincinnati chili parlour.
Q 16In which Cincinnati neighbourhood did Skyline Chili open its first restaurant in 1949?
Price Hill
Price Hill was home to the first Skyline Chili, opened on Glenway Avenue in 1949 by Greek immigrant Nicholas Lambrinides, who named it for the downtown skyline visible from the spot.
Q 17Goetta, a Cincinnati breakfast staple, is a sausage-like mush of ground meat and which grain?
Steel-cut oats
Steel-cut oats, also called pinhead oats, are simmered with ground pork and beef to make goetta; immigrant families used the grain to stretch meat across several meals, much as scrapple uses cornmeal.
Q 18Cincinnati's Graeter's is known for which method that makes unusually dense ice cream?
The French pot process
The French pot process freezes just a few gallons at a time in a spinning chilled pot, folding in very little air, which gives Graeter's its dense texture; Oprah Winfrey praised it in 2002.
Q 19Findlay, founded in 1852 in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine, is Ohio's oldest continuously operating what?
Public market
Findlay is Ohio's oldest continuously operating Public market: its iron-framed market house was begun in 1852 and opened in 1855, and its Opening Day parade to the Reds' home opener is a city tradition.
Q 20In what year did the Cincinnati Red Stockings become baseball's first all-professional club?
1869
In 1869 the Cincinnati Red Stockings, managed by Harry Wright, went undefeated on a national tour as the first openly all-salaried team; after the club folded, Wright took his core players to Boston in 1871.
Johnny Vander Meer no-hit the Boston Bees 3-0 on 11 June 1938 and the Brooklyn Dodgers 6-0 four days later, consecutive starts that produced two no-hitters.
Q 24What nickname was given to the dominant Reds teams of the mid-1970s?
The Big Red Machine
The Big Red Machine, with Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Pérez and Pete Rose, won back-to-back World Series in 1975 and 1976 under manager Sparky Anderson.
Q 25Cincinnati native Pete Rose holds the MLB career record for hits with how many?
4,256
Pete Rose finished with 4,256 hits, passing Ty Cobb's career total in Cincinnati on 11 September 1985; he was banned from baseball in 1989 for betting on games, including his own team's.
Q 26Which relief trio helped the Reds sweep the 1990 World Series and were nicknamed 'the Nasty Boys'?
Dibble, Charlton and Myers
Dibble, Charlton and Myers — Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton and Randy Myers — were the Reds' 'Nasty Boys' bullpen of 1990; Dibble and Myers shared NLCS MVP honours before the team swept Oakland in the World Series.
Q 27Great American Ball Park replaced which venue the Reds shared with the Bengals?
Riverfront Stadium
Riverfront Stadium opened in 1970 and was renamed Cinergy Field in 1996; the Reds shared it with the Bengals through 1999 and played there until 2002, before Great American Ball Park opened next door in 2003.
Q 28Which legendary coach founded the Cincinnati Bengals in 1967?
Paul Brown
Paul Brown, fired by Cleveland owner Art Modell in 1963, founded the Bengals as an AFL expansion team in 1967 and coached them through 1975; he chose the same shade of orange his old team wore.
Q 29Which team beat the Bengals in the Super Bowl in both 1982 and 1989?
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers beat the Bengals 26-21 in Super Bowl XVI (January 1982) and 20-16 in Super Bowl XXIII (January 1989), the latter on Joe Montana's last-minute drive; the Bengals lost again to the Rams in 2022.
Q 30Which Bengals running back was famous for an end-zone dance called 'the Shuffle' in the late 1980s?
Ickey Woods
Ickey Woods, a rookie in 1988, ran for 1,066 yards and 15 touchdowns and celebrated each score with the Ickey Shuffle, helping the Bengals reach Super Bowl XXIII.