Indiana Trivia
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116 free Indiana trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
65 free Indiana trivia questions with answers. Indiana is the state that gave the world the Indy 500, the Jackson 5, Wonder Bread, the Coca-Cola bottle and the word 'Hoosier', which nobody can fully explain. This quiz covers all of it: how the state was born at Corydon in 1816, why the capital moved, what the motto 'Crossroads of America' means, and which tiny town beat a school ten times its size to inspire a Hollywood film. The easy questions ask about the state bird, the capital's famous race and the NFL team; the medium ones move on to Purdue's astronauts, Elkhart's RVs and the Battle of Tippecanoe; the hard and expert ones want the year Indiana finally adopted daylight saving time, the first governor's name and the number of counties on Central Time. It works for a Hoosier family game night, a classroom unit on the state, or a bar quiz anywhere in the Midwest. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the state, its cities, teams and people, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 116 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which neighbor became a state in 1818, two years after Indiana?
Illinois
Illinois. It had been split off from the Indiana Territory in 1809, so the two neighbors shared one territorial government before either became a state.
Q 02Which Indiana poet wrote 'Little Orphant Annie' and gave his name to Indianapolis's children's hospital?
James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley. He meant the title to be 'Little Orphant Allie', after an orphan who had lived with his family, but a typesetter's slip made her Annie and he let it stand.
Q 03Which town was Indiana's first state capital, before the seat of government moved in 1825?
Corydon
Corydon. The delegates who wrote the 1816 constitution escaped the June heat by working under a huge elm, and its trunk still stands in town as the Constitution Elm.
Q 04What is Indiana's state motto?
Crossroads of America
Crossroads of America. Lawmakers made it the state motto by resolution in 1937, and Indianapolis, a hub where rail lines and main roads met, claims the same phrase as its city slogan.
Q 05Which bird is Indiana's state bird?
Northern cardinal
Northern cardinal. Seven states chose it, more than any other bird, and in 1977 Amtrak named its Cardinal train for the state bird of every state then on the route.
Q 06Which flower replaced the zinnia as Indiana's state flower in 1957?
Peony
Peony. Lawmakers named no particular variety or color, so any peony counts, whether red, pink or white; the zinnia had held the title since 1931.
Q 07Which species did Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee all adopt as their official arboreal emblem?
Tulip tree
Tulip tree. Despite its tulip-shaped blooms and the lumber trade's name for it, yellow poplar, it is neither a tulip nor a poplar: it belongs to the magnolia family.
Q 08Parke County, one of Indiana's 92, calls itself the world capital of which structures?
Covered bridges
Covered bridges. Parke County has 31 of them; the roofs were built to keep rain and snow off the timber trusses, which is why such wooden spans can last a century or more.
Q 09Which waterway is the official state river of Indiana?
The Wabash
The Wabash. Indiana's river actually rises just across the Ohio line, and below the dam at Huntington it runs free for 411 miles, the longest such stretch east of the Mississippi.
Q 10What is the highest natural point in Indiana?
Hoosier Hill
Hoosier Hill. The summit is a wooded rise on private farmland, and the trail to it was rebuilt in 2005 by a teenager as his Eagle Scout project.
Q 11In which county, at the state's far southwestern tip, is Indiana's lowest point?
Posey
Posey. Water runs downhill to it: the low point is the riverbank where the two rivers that trace Indiana's western and southern borders finally meet.
Q 12The first Indianapolis 500 winner replaced his riding mechanic with which device?
Rear-view mirror
Rear-view mirror. In 1911 rivals protested that Ray Harroun's single-seat Marmon Wasp had nobody aboard to watch for cars coming up behind, so he mounted a mirror and was allowed to race.
Q 13Why is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway nicknamed 'the Brickyard'?
Its racing surface was first paved in brick
Q 21The Indiana Pacers' name nods to the Indianapolis 500 pace car and to which other Indiana sporting tradition?
Harness racing
Harness racing. A pacer is a horse that races in harness, and the founders picked the name for that tradition, a passion of one investor, as much as for the 500's pace car.
Q 22Which WNBA star was Finals MVP when the Indiana Fever won the 2012 title?
Tamika Catchings
Tamika Catchings. She spent her whole 15-year career with the Fever and scored 25 in the clincher as they upset the defending champion Minnesota Lynx, who held home-court advantage.
Q 23The 1986 film Hoosiers was inspired by which tiny high school's 1954 state basketball title?
Milan
Its racing surface was first paved in brick in the fall of 1909, after the original crushed stone and tar proved deadly in the opening races; one yard of that brick still marks the finish line.
Q 14What does the winner of the Indianapolis 500 traditionally drink in victory lane?
Milk
Milk. Three-time winner Louis Meyer drank buttermilk in victory lane in the 1930s, and dairy promoters who saw their chance made sure a bottle was waiting for later winners.
Q 15How many cars make up the traditional starting grid of the Indianapolis 500?
33
33. They line up in eleven rows of three, where most races start two abreast, and a qualifier 'bumped' by a faster car on the final day loses the seat altogether.
Q 16Which Brazilian joined Foyt, Al Unser and Mears as a four-time Indy 500 winner in 2021?
Hélio Castroneves
Hélio Castroneves. Nicknamed Spider-Man for scaling the catch fence after his wins, he took his fourth in 2021, twelve years after his third.
Q 17Which TV star sang 'Back Home Again in Indiana' before nearly every Indianapolis 500 from 1972 to 2014?
Jim Nabors
Jim Nabors. Track owner Tony Hulman recognized him at the 1972 race and asked him to sing, so he performed that first time with the lyrics written on his hand.
Q 18From which city did the Colts move to Indianapolis in 1984?
Baltimore
Baltimore. With Maryland lawmakers moving to seize the team by eminent domain, owner Robert Irsay had fifteen Mayflower moving trucks load everything overnight and leave for Indianapolis.
Q 19Which team did the Indianapolis Colts beat in Super Bowl XLI?
Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears. Devin Hester ran the opening kickoff back for a Bears touchdown, but Peyton Manning's Colts shrugged it off to win 29-17 in steady Miami rain.
Q 20In which league did the Indiana Pacers win three championships in the early 1970s?
ABA
ABA. The Pacers were its most successful club, with titles in 1970, 1972 and 1973, and one of only four teams the NBA took in when the two leagues merged in 1976.
Milan. With only 161 students, it beat a city school ten times its size after Bobby Plump held the ball for minutes in the fourth quarter, then hit the winning shot in the final seconds.
Q 24Which sophomore led Indiana University to the 1981 NCAA title?
Isiah Thomas
Isiah Thomas. The final went ahead only after officials learned that President Reagan, shot that afternoon, would survive; Thomas was then named Most Outstanding Player of Indiana's fourth national title.
Q 25Which Butler University arena is nicknamed 'Indiana's Basketball Cathedral'?
Hinkle Fieldhouse
Hinkle Fieldhouse. The 1954 state final that later inspired a Hollywood film was played there, and three decades on the movie's championship scenes were shot on the same floor.
Q 26Which future NBA legend led Indianapolis's Crispus Attucks High School to state titles in 1955 and 1956?
Oscar Robertson
Oscar Robertson. His 1955 Tigers brought Indianapolis its first state title, yet after the usual parade the players were steered to a park away from downtown to celebrate.
Q 27Larry Bird grew up in which Indiana town?
French Lick
French Lick. It gave him his nickname, 'the Hick from French Lick'; he found Indiana University overwhelming, went home, quit a local junior college too, and only then started over at Indiana State.
Q 28Which Indiana university is nicknamed the 'Cradle of Astronauts'?
Purdue
Purdue. Neil Armstrong, the first person on the Moon, and Eugene Cernan, the last, both studied there, at a school that had earlier helped pay for the plane in which Amelia Earhart vanished.
Q 29Which Olympic swimming champion trained at Indiana University under coach Doc Counsilman?
Mark Spitz
Mark Spitz. Unhappy with his 1968 Games, he moved to Indiana to train under Counsilman, a choice he called the biggest decision of his life, and won seven golds in Munich in 1972.
Q 30Which Notre Dame football coach gave the famous 'Win one for the Gipper' speech?
Knute Rockne
Knute Rockne. He used the plea, which he said star George Gipp made on his deathbed, to rally Notre Dame to a 12-6 upset of unbeaten Army in 1928; Ronald Reagan later played Gipp on film.