Columbia SC Trivia
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47 free Columbia SC trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Columbia was laid out as a capital city on purpose in 1786, five years before Washington, and it has been collecting good trivia ever since: the secession convention that met in a downtown church, the night in 1865 when much of the city burned, the Army post that trains more new soldiers than any other, a zoo that outdraws everything else in the state, a stadium famous for a techno song, and a college band that met in a dorm shower and went 22-times platinum with its first album. This quiz covers the city's history, geography, landmarks, sports, colleges and famous names. Easy questions ask which rivers meet here and what the Gamecocks' mascot is called; the harder ones want the surveyor who drew the grid, the year the canal was dug, the record temperature, the founders of the two historically Black colleges and which famous 1942 mission the bomber crews at the airport volunteered for. It works for a Soda City trivia night, a USC family weekend or anyone settling an argument about whether Columbia is really Famously Hot. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the city, its institutions and its landmarks, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which two rivers meet at Columbia to form the Congaree?
The Broad and the Saluda
The Broad and the Saluda meet at the fall line, where rapids block boats heading upriver, so the spot grew into a frontier crossing and trading post long before Columbia existed.
Q 02Why did South Carolina's lawmakers found Columbia as a new capital in 1786?
To be closer to inland farmers
Moving the capital to be closer to inland farmers was a compromise meant to calm the feud between small Upcountry farmers and the Lowcountry's coastal planters.
Q 03What set Columbia's 1786 town plan apart from older American towns?
Very wide streets
Very wide streets were the plan's hallmark: its two main avenues ran 150 feet across, and lots were sold to settlers while sites were held for public buildings.
Q 04Columbia's nickname "Soda City" comes from what?
The shortening of its name to "Cola"
'Soda City' plays on 'Cola', the local shortening of Columbia's name, a pun on the soft drink; the Saturday Soda City Market on Main Street takes its name from it.
Q 05Which historically Black college in Columbia was founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church?
Allen University
Allen University began in 1870 as Payne Institute in rural Cokesbury, then moved to Columbia in 1880 and took the name of Richard Allen, the AME Church's founder.
Q 06Columbia is the seat of which county?
Richland
Columbia became Richland's county seat when a 1799 law ordered the district court to meet there, so the capital houses state, county and city government.
Q 07Which Spanish explorer's expedition passed through the site of Columbia, SC in May 1540?
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto's army was hunting Cofitachequi, a chiefdom rumoured to be rich, whose female chief received the Spaniards with food and freshwater pearls.
Q 08The South's earliest secession convention met in Columbia on December 17, 1860, in which building?
First Baptist Church
First Baptist Church hosted the opening session, but a smallpox outbreak moved the convention to Charleston, where South Carolina voted to secede on December 20.
Q 09Which Union general's army captured Columbia on February 17, 1865, the night much of the city burned?
William T. Sherman
William T. Sherman's army marched in after Columbia's mayor rode out under a flag of surrender; Union shells also scarred the unfinished State House.
Q 10What goods lay piled in Columbia's streets when Union troops arrived in February 1865?
Cotton bales
Cotton bales were already burning in places, and that night fire destroyed a third of the city, though who started the blaze is still disputed.
Q 11Which Savannah, Georgia, minor-league team moved to Columbia after the 2015 season and became the Fireflies?
The Sand Gnats
The Sand Gnats left Savannah's old Grayson Stadium for a new ballpark on Columbia's Bull Street, bringing professional baseball back to South Carolina's capital.
Q 12Which Major League club became the Columbia Fireflies' affiliate in the 2021 shake-up?
Kansas City Royals
The Kansas City Royals stepped in after baseball's 2021 minor-league overhaul led the New York Mets to drop Columbia as a farm club.
Q 13Which kind of training is Columbia's big Army post best known for?
Basic combat training
Q 21Which rock band, formed by University of South Carolina students in 1986, grew into a national phenomenon in the 1990s?
Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish signed with Atlantic Records, and their 1994 debut album, Cracked Rear View, became one of the best-selling albums in US history.
Q 22What was the South Carolina–Clemson football game called when it was played during Columbia's State Fair week?
Big Thursday
Big Thursday ended after 1959 because Clemson wanted the game to alternate between the two campuses, partly so it could share in the money the game brought in.
Q 23What did Columbia's Riverbanks Zoo add to its grounds in 1995?
A botanical garden
Basic combat training is the post's main mission: it trains roughly half of all soldiers entering the Army each year, and in 1968 Columbia annexed it into the city.
Q 14Columbia's big Army post was first established under what name in 1917?
Camp Jackson
Camp Jackson, named for President Andrew Jackson, reopened in 1939 and became Fort Jackson in 1940; a postwar plan to close it was halted by the Korean War.
Q 15Under what name was the state's flagship university founded in Columbia in 1801?
South Carolina College
South Carolina College opened in 1805; during Reconstruction it admitted Black students, until white leaders shut it in 1877 and reopened it as an all-white college.
Q 16What is the name of the University of South Carolina's costumed rooster mascot?
Cocky
Cocky debuted at the 1980 Homecoming game as the 'son' of Big Spur, the earlier rooster mascot, and then replaced him as the school's official mascot.
Q 17In which athletic conference does the University of South Carolina compete?
The SEC
The SEC split into two six-team divisions when South Carolina and Arkansas joined in the early 1990s, two decades after South Carolina quit the ACC in 1971.
Q 18Under what name did the University of South Carolina's football stadium, built with WPA money, open in 1934?
Columbia Municipal Stadium
Columbia Municipal Stadium became Carolina Stadium after the city deeded it to the university in 1941, and took the Williams-Brice name in 1972 after Martha Williams-Brice's bequest paid for an expansion.
Q 19Which venue on the University of South Carolina's Columbia campus opened in 2002?
Colonial Life
Colonial Life Arena replaced the Carolina Coliseum as the Gamecocks' basketball home, and the old Coliseum was later turned into practice courts for both basketball teams.
Q 20Which coach led South Carolina women's basketball to a perfect 2024 national title?
Dawn Staley
Dawn Staley left Temple in 2008 to rebuild a struggling South Carolina program, which beat Mississippi State in 2017 for its first national title.
A botanical garden opened in 1995, and Riverbanks later built an aerial lift to carry guests across the river between the zoo and the garden.
Q 24What problem did Columbia's Riverbanks Zoo face soon after opening in 1974?
It couldn't pay its own way
It couldn't pay its own way on visitor income alone, so a support society was created to help raise money for the zoo.
Q 25Congaree National Park, southeast of Columbia, protects the largest remaining US tract of what?
Old-growth bottomland hardwood forest
Old-growth bottomland hardwood forest here is often called a swamp, but it is mostly floodplain that the river covers only from time to time.
Q 26What threat spurred the grassroots campaign that led to Congaree's federal protection in 1976?
Logging
Logging: the Beidler family's lumber company had stopped cutting the tract by the 1910s, and renewed Beidler logging decades later sparked the campaign.
Q 27Why was Lake Murray, the big lake northwest of Columbia, created around 1930?
To generate electricity
To generate electricity, a power company dammed the river and moved about 5,000 people, along with churches and schools, out of the valley it flooded.
Q 28The South Carolina State House is built mainly of which stone?
Granite
Granite construction began under architect John Niernsee in the 1850s, but the Civil War stalled the work, and the dome wasn't added until the early 1900s.
Q 29What changed at South Carolina's State House in 2015?
The Confederate battle flag was permanently removed
The Confederate battle flag flew atop the dome from 1962, moved to a Confederate monument on the grounds in 2000, and was permanently removed by a 2015 law.
Q 30Who became Columbia's first African American mayor in 2010?
Stephen K. Benjamin
Stephen K. Benjamin, a former state cabinet official, won a 2010 special election, and after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting he initiated a city ban on bump stocks.