80 free Connecticut trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
74 free Connecticut trivia questions with answers. Connecticut is small enough to drive across in two hours and dense enough with history to fill a much longer quiz. This one covers the Fundamental Orders and the Charter Oak legend, the first English settlements, the Amistad case, the whaling and submarine towns of the shoreline, and the factories that made Hartford the world capital of revolvers and typewriters. It also gets into the fun stuff: the New Haven lunch wagon that claims the first hamburger, the pie company behind the Frisbee, Wiffle ball, PEZ, ESPN's Bristol studios, Lake Compounce, Foxwoods, the UConn women's 111-game streak, Yale's bulldog, and the state symbols from the sperm whale to the 2024 state candy. Easy questions suit family game night; the hard ones will test lifelong Nutmeggers. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the state, its towns and its people, and each question shows the sentence that backs it up.
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Q 01Hartford is the capital, but which city is Connecticut's most populous?
Bridgeport
Hartford is only the state's fourth-largest city; Bridgeport, on Long Island Sound, has led the population table for decades.
Q 02The 'Constitution State' nickname refers to the Fundamental Orders, adopted by Connecticut in what year?
1639
Some historians call the Fundamental Orders the first written constitution in Western history, which is why the phrase ended up on the state's license plates.
Q 03Which spice gives Connecticut its unofficial nickname?
Nutmeg
One tongue-in-cheek origin story says Yankee peddlers sold carved wooden knobs as the real spice to unsuspecting customers.
Q 04Which song is Connecticut's official state song?
Yankee Doodle
It was adopted in 1978, and the tune's Revolutionary-era history fits a state that sent thousands of troops to the Continental Army.
Q 05The state's name comes from a Mohegan-Pequot word translated as what?
Long tidal river
The word refers to the river that roughly bisects the state and empties into Long Island Sound between Old Saybrook and Old Lyme.
Q 06Connecticut's high point sits on the slope of which peak, whose summit lies across the state line?
Mount Frissell
The US Geological Survey settled the matter in the 1940s: the 2,380-foot high point is a slope, not a summit, which annoys peak-baggers to this day.
Q 07Which body of water, created behind a hydroelectric dam in the 1920s, is the largest in Connecticut?
Candlewood Lake
Nearly 1,400 men worked on the project, and pumping from the Housatonic River began filling the valley in February 1928.
Q 08Which of these states does not share a border with Connecticut?
Vermont
The fourth side of the state is water: Long Island Sound, which separates it from New York's Long Island.
Q 09Connecticut has no true oceanfront because Long Island Sound is what kind of water body?
An estuary
Being sheltered behind Long Island means the shoreline is relatively protected from big storm waves.
Q 10Bear Mountain, the highest summit entirely within Connecticut, stands in which northwestern town?
Salisbury
The peak is part of the southern Taconic range and rises 2,316 feet.
Q 11How many counties does Connecticut have?
8
They are little more than lines on a map: almost all county government functions were abolished in 1960.
Q 12When Connecticut ratified the US Constitution in January 1788, which number state did it become?
Fifth
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Georgia had already signed on when Connecticut's convention voted on January 9.
Q 13Which Dutch navigator was the first European to explore Connecticut, in 1614?
Adriaen Block
Block Island, off Rhode Island, is named after him too; the Dutch later built a fort called the House of Hope at what is now Hartford.
Q 21Which New Haven pizzeria is credited with inventing the white clam pie?
Frank Pepe's
New Haven-style 'apizza' dates to 1925 and is charred rather than burnt, as locals insist.
Q 22In 2021 Connecticut named which dish its official state food?
Pizza
New Haven's coal-fired apizza made the case; the steamed cheeseburger of Meriden was left waiting.
Q 23In 2024 Connecticut adopted which sweet as its official state candy?
Lollipop
George Smith of New Haven is credited with putting hard candy on a stick in 1908 and trademarking the name.
Q 14Thomas Hooker led his followers from which colony to found the Connecticut Colony?
Massachusetts Bay
His 1638 sermon on the consent of the governed helped inspire the Fundamental Orders adopted the following year.
Q 15By legend, colonists hid Connecticut's 1662 charter in the Charter Oak in 1687 to keep it from which official?
Sir Edmund Andros
The story goes that the candles were doused during the meeting and Captain Joseph Wadsworth slipped out with the document.
Q 16The Charter Oak was commemorated on Connecticut's coin in the 50 State Quarters program in what year?
1999
The tree itself was blown down in a storm in 1856 after standing for roughly 700 years.
Q 17What species of tree was the Charter Oak, Connecticut's official state tree since 1947?
White oak
It was designated in 1947, nearly a century after the original tree fell.
Q 18The world's first telephone directory, issued in New Haven in February 1878, listed how many subscribers?
50
It was a single piece of cardboard, not a book.
Q 19Louis' Lunch in New Haven claims to have served the first hamburger; how are its burgers still served?
On toasted white bread
They are cooked on the original vertical cast-iron gas broilers from 1898, and asking for ketchup is a mistake.
Q 20Louis' Lunch, the New Haven restaurant that claims to have invented the hamburger, opened in what year?
1895
Founder Louis Lassen was a Danish immigrant; the business is still run by his family.
Q 24PEZ candy's US factory and visitor center are in which Connecticut town?
Orange
The Austrian company built the plant in 1973 and opened a 4,000-square-foot visitor center there in 2011.
Q 25Wiffle ball was invented in 1953 in which Connecticut town?
Fairfield
David N. Mullany designed the perforated ball so his 12-year-old son could throw curves without hurting his arm.
Q 26The Frisbee is named after a Connecticut company whose tins students tossed. What did it make?
Pies
Workers at the Frisbie Pie Company tossed the tins on their breaks, and the habit spread to nearby campuses.
Q 27ESPN broadcasts from studios in which Connecticut town?
Bristol
Getty Oil put up the money for the land in 1979, and the network's first program was SportsCenter.
Q 28In what year did ESPN launch from Connecticut with the first telecast of SportsCenter?
1979
That first show reached 1.4 million cable subscribers.
Q 29Lake Compounce, opened in 1846, is the oldest continuously operating what in the United States?
Amusement park
Its wooden coaster Boulder Dash won the Golden Ticket Award for best wooden coaster five years running.
Q 30Foxwoods, once the largest casino in the Western Hemisphere, sits on the reservation of which tribe?
Mashantucket Pequot
Rival Mohegan Sun opened four years later in 1996; the two casinos are among the state's largest employers.