50 free El Paso trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
El Paso sits where Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua meet, at the pass in the mountains that gave the city its name. This El Paso trivia quiz covers the geography first: the Rio Grande and Ciudad Juárez, the Franklin Mountains and the country's largest urban park, the Chihuahuan Desert, the Mountain Time Zone quirk and the 302 days of sunshine behind the Sun City nickname. Then it digs into the history and the landmarks. You will meet Juan de Oñate's 1598 Thanksgiving, the Ysleta Mission, Fort Bliss, the Taft-Díaz summit of 1909, the Chamizal settlement, John Wesley Hardin's last dice game and Concordia Cemetery, alongside UTEP's Bhutanese architecture, the 1966 Texas Western champions, the Sun Bowl, the Chihuahuas, the Wyler Aerial Tramway, the Plaza Theatre, Chico's Tacos, the Star on the Mountain and famous El Pasoans from Gene Roddenberry to Khalid and Beto O'Rourke. The 50 questions range from easy to hard, and every answer was checked against documented sources, so the answer key holds up whether you are a lifelong Chuco resident or planning a first visit.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01El Paso sits across the Rio Grande from which Mexican city?
Ciudad Juárez
Together with Las Cruces they form the Borderplex, a region of about 2.7 million people.
Q 02What does the name El Paso mean in Spanish?
The pass
It refers to the pass through the mountains carved by the Rio Grande.
Q 03El Paso keeps a different clock from Dallas and Houston. Which zone is it in?
Mountain Time
Ciudad Juárez used to be on Central Time, but both cities now keep the same clock.
Q 04On average, how many days a year does the sun shine in El Paso, earning it the "Sun City" nickname?
302
That works out to 83 percent of all daylight hours.
Q 05El Paso lies within which desert?
Chihuahuan
It is the easternmost part of the Basin and Range region.
Q 06Which mountain range runs through the middle of El Paso?
Franklin Mountains
The range runs 23 miles from El Paso into New Mexico.
Q 07How high is North Franklin Mountain, the highest peak inside the city?
7,192 feet
The city itself sits at about 3,740 feet, so the peak rises roughly 3,400 feet above downtown.
Q 08El Paso is home to a 24,000-acre state park that is one of the largest what in the nation?
Urban parks
At about 24,000 acres it lies entirely within the city limits.
Q 09The Mexican city across the river was known by what name until 1888?
Paso del Norte
Its full name was El Paso del Norte, the North Pass; it was renamed for Benito Juárez, whose republican forces had stopped there during the French intervention.
Q 10Which Spanish explorer celebrated a Thanksgiving Mass by the Rio Grande near El Paso in 1598?
Juan de Oñate
That is 23 years before the Pilgrims' feast at Plymouth, and locals still make the claim.
Q 11Which mission in El Paso is recognized as the oldest continuously operated parish in Texas?
Ysleta
The Tigua people built it in 1682 after fleeing the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico.
Q 12Why is the name of the Tigua mission community spelled with a Y rather than an I?
19th-century script did not distinguish capital Y from capital I
The Tigua's original home was Isleta Pueblo, south of Albuquerque.
Q 13El Paso County was established in 1850 with which town as its first county seat?
San Elizario
The county seat later moved to El Paso itself, which incorporated in 1873.
Q 21The Army post headquartered in El Paso covers roughly how much land across two states?
1,700 square miles
It has the largest maneuver area of any Army post and the biggest block of restricted airspace in the continental US.
Q 22Which general was stationed at El Paso's Army post in 1914 and later led the expedition against Pancho Villa?
John J. Pershing
The expedition followed Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916.
Q 23The Chamizal border dispute over the shifting Rio Grande was settled by a treaty ratified in which year?
1964
President Kennedy pushed for the settlement, and the land is now the Chamizal National Memorial.
Q 14Who was hired in 1859 to survey and lay out the street plan of downtown El Paso?
Anson Mills
The settlement had until then been known as Franklin, after an earlier landowner.
Q 15In what year was the city of El Paso incorporated?
1873
The railroads arrived in 1881 and the population hit 10,000 by 1890.
Q 16What lawless nickname did the boomtown earn in the 1880s?
Six-shooter Capital
Gambling and prostitution flourished until the Army forced a crackdown during World War I.
Q 17Which Old West gunfighter was shot dead in El Paso's Acme Saloon in 1895?
John Wesley Hardin
Constable John Selman walked up behind him and shot him in the head; his last words at the dice table were "Four sixes to beat".
Q 18Which 52-acre El Paso cemetery holds the gunfighter killed at the Acme Saloon?
Concordia
The 52-acre ground has sections for Buffalo Soldiers, Freemasons, Mormons and Jewish burials.
Q 19In 1909, El Paso hosted the first meeting between a US and a Mexican president. Who were they?
William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz
A would-be assassin with a palm pistol was disarmed a few feet from the two men on the day of the summit.
Q 20Which US Army post headquartered in El Paso is home to the 1st Armored Division?
Fort Bliss
The division came home in 2011 after 40 years in Germany.
Q 24Under what name was the University of Texas at El Paso founded in 1913?
State School of Mines and Metallurgy
A practice mineshaft still survives on campus, and the teams are still the Miners.
Q 25UTEP's campus buildings imitate the dzong architecture of which Himalayan kingdom?
Bhutan
The dean's wife saw photographs of its monasteries in a 1914 National Geographic and thought the mountain setting matched.
Q 26In 1966, Texas Western's all-Black starting five beat which team for the NCAA basketball title?
Kentucky
The Miners won 72-65 against Adolph Rupp's all-white Wildcats; the story became the film Glory Road.
Q 27Who coached the 1966 Texas Western champions?
Don Haskins
Nicknamed "the Bear", he entered the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1997.
Q 28El Paso's Sun Bowl is the second-oldest college bowl game after which one?
Rose
The first Sun Bowl in 1935 was actually played between Texas high school teams.
Q 29In what year did Sun Bowl Stadium open?
1963
Its playing field sits 3,910 feet above sea level, one of the highest in major college football.
Q 30El Paso's Triple-A baseball team is the Chihuahuas, an affiliate of which MLB club?
San Diego Padres
They moved from Tucson in 2014 to Southwest University Park, built on the site of the old city hall.