Jacksonville Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
This Jacksonville trivia quiz has 47 free questions with answers and covers Florida's biggest city, from the Timucua and the French at Fort Caroline to the Jaguars at EverBank Stadium. It takes in the St. Johns River that runs backwards through downtown, the 1968 consolidation that made Jacksonville the largest city by land area in the contiguous U.S., the Great Fire of 1901, the decade when the city was the 'Winter Film Capital of the World', the Navy bases at Mayport, and the beaches, museums and landmarks that give the River City its character. Early questions suit anyone who has driven I-95 through town. Later ones are for locals: who the city is named after, what it was first called, and where Florida's oldest plantation house still stands. Use it for a Jacksonville trivia night, a First Coast newcomer quiz or a Florida geography lesson. Every answer has been checked against a documented source shown under the explanation.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Jacksonville is the county seat of which Florida county?
Duval
Duval County and Jacksonville merged their governments in the 1960s, so the city now runs the whole county apart from three beach towns and little Baldwin.
Q 02Jacksonville holds what distinction among cities in the contiguous United States?
Largest by total area
Largest by total area in the lower 48, Jacksonville covers more than 800 square miles because a 1960s merger with its county turned almost the whole county into one city.
Q 03Settlers named Jacksonville in 1822 for Andrew Jackson, who had briefly held which Florida post?
Military governor
Military governor was Jackson's job for a few months of 1821, as Spain handed Florida over; he had already resigned when settlers named the town for him, and he never visited it.
Q 04Before it was named for a president, the settlement was known by what name?
Cow Ford
British colonists named it for a shallow spot where cattle crossed the St. Johns.
Q 05The St. Johns River, which runs through Jacksonville, is unusual among American rivers for flowing in which direction?
North
North is the odd heading of Florida's longest river, which crawls 310 miles up the peninsula and drops less than 30 feet on the way before turning east to the sea at Jacksonville.
Q 06The area around Jacksonville was originally home to which Native American people?
The Timucua
The Timucua met the first French explorers here in 1562, but disease and warfare brought by Europeans cut them down so fast that by 1800 hardly any remained.
Q 07In 1564 the French founded which short-lived colony near the mouth of the St. Johns River?
Fort Caroline
Fort Caroline fell in 1565 after a storm scattered the French fleet sent to defend it, letting Spanish troops march up from newly founded St. Augustine and storm the weakly guarded fort.
Q 08Which disaster swept 146 blocks of downtown Jacksonville in eight hours on 3 May 1901?
The Great Fire
The Great Fire began when a spark caught Spanish moss laid out to dry, and it went on to burn more than 2,300 buildings; its glow was reportedly visible from Savannah, Georgia.
Q 09In the 1910s more than 30 movie studios earned Jacksonville which nickname?
Winter Film Capital of the World
Winter Film Capital of the World suited a city where New York studios escaped the snow to keep shooting all year; Oliver Hardy got his start on screen in Jacksonville before the industry left for Hollywood.
Q 10Which surviving silent-film studio in Jacksonville's Arlington neighbourhood is now preserved as a museum?
Norman Studios
Norman Studios made some of the first films with all-Black casts in positive, non-stereotyped roles; Richard Norman bought the five-building complex in 1920 and it still stands in Arlington.
Q 11Which team joined the NFL with the Jaguars in 1995?
Carolina Panthers
The Carolina Panthers had been voted in five weeks earlier; Jacksonville was a long shot that had even quit the bidding for a month that summer, while St. Louis and Baltimore were the favourites.
Q 12The Jaguars' first-ever draft pick, a Hall of Fame offensive tackle, was who?
Tony Boselli
Tony Boselli went second overall in 1995 and made five straight Pro Bowls, but shoulder injuries cut his career to just 91 games, and he waited until 2022 for his Hall of Fame call.
Q 13Which businessman bought the Jaguars from original owner Wayne Weaver in 2012?
Shahid Khan
Q 21Jacksonville sits in which region of northeastern Florida?
The First Coast
The First Coast sounds like an old name but is an advertising slogan: a Jacksonville agency hired by the Chamber of Commerce coined it in 1983 to promote the five counties around the city.
Q 22By 2024 Census estimates, Jacksonville was the most populous city not only in Florida but in which wider region?
The Southeast
The Southeast's biggest city passed one million residents in 2024, more than double Miami's count, because a 1960s merger put almost its whole county inside the city limits.
Q 23Which agreement handed Spanish Florida to Britain in 1763, after the Seven Years' War?
The Treaty of Paris
Shahid Khan landed in America from Pakistan at 16 and washed dishes for $1.20 an hour; he made his fortune in car bumpers and became the Jaguars' second owner.
Q 14With the top overall pick in the 2021 draft, the Jaguars chose which Clemson quarterback?
Trevor Lawrence
Trevor Lawrence lost only two of his 36 starts at Clemson, neither in the regular season, and won a national title as a freshman, which made him the obvious first pick.
Q 15Naval Station Mayport, near Jacksonville, has a basin built to berth which kind of warship?
Aircraft carriers
Aircraft carriers were based at Mayport from the 1950s until USS John F. Kennedy retired there in 2007; the newer carriers are nuclear-powered, and the station lacked the facilities to service one.
Q 16What was Jacksonville's Friendship Fountain billed as when it opened in 1965?
World's largest and tallest
World's largest and tallest was the 1965 billing for a fountain that could throw 17,000 gallons a minute as high as 120 feet; it later fell into disrepair and needed long, costly repairs.
Q 17The riverfront art museum and gardens on Jacksonville's Riverside Avenue grew from whose bequest?
Ninah Cummer
Ninah Cummer died in 1958 and left her riverside gardens and some 60 artworks to start a museum on the site of her home; it opened in 1961 and now holds more than 5,000 pieces.
Q 18Which of these stands at the Kingsley site on Jacksonville's Fort George Island?
Florida's oldest surviving plantation house
Florida's oldest surviving plantation house was built by enslaved craftsmen in 1798, years before Zephaniah Kingsley moved in; a semicircle of tabby slave cabins still stands nearby.
Q 19Maxwell House coffee, roasted in downtown Jacksonville for generations, was named for a hotel in which city?
Nashville
Nashville's Maxwell House Hotel was an early customer for Joel Cheek's blend and gave it a name; by 2019 the Jacksonville plant had outlasted every other to become the brand's last in the country.
Q 20Which disease sent thousands of Jacksonville residents fleeing by train and steamer in the summer of 1888?
Yellow fever
Yellow fever struck more than 4,000 people in Jacksonville that year and killed about one in ten of them; nobody yet knew that mosquitoes carried it, so those who could simply ran.
The Treaty of Paris let Spain swap Florida for Havana, which Britain had captured during the war; two decades later the peace that ended the American Revolution handed Florida back to Spain.
Q 24Little Talbot Island State Park near Jacksonville protects maritime forests, salt marshes and what else?
Sand dunes
Sand dunes survive here because the beach was never built on: the state park covers the whole island, and its Dune Ridge Trail crosses them to reach more than five miles of wild shore.
Q 25Which Jacksonville rock band named itself after a high-school gym teacher who enforced a ban on long hair?
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd respelt the name of Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High School who policed its long-hair rule in the 1960s; by his son's account he came to enjoy the fame.
Q 26Which running back, a first-round pick in 1998, retired as the Jacksonville Jaguars' career rushing leader?
Fred Taylor
Fred Taylor ran for 1,223 yards as a rookie, the first 1,000-yard season by a Jaguar, and piled up 11,271 for the team, yet made only one Pro Bowl, in his tenth season.
Q 27Through the 2025 NFL season, the Jacksonville Jaguars were one of four teams that had never done what?
Played in a Super Bowl
Played in a Super Bowl: the Jaguars came within one win of it three times, losing the AFC title game after the 1996, 1999 and 2017 seasons; the Browns, Lions and Texans were the other three.
Q 28Which world-famous hospital opened its first campus outside its home state in Jacksonville in 1986?
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic had never left Minnesota until the Davis family, owners of the Winn-Dixie supermarkets and grateful Mayo patients, donated the land and led the fund-raising to bring it south.
Q 29By 2024 estimates Jacksonville was Florida's most populous city, yet its metro area ranked only fourth; which city anchored the largest?
Miami
Miami's metro area held about 6.5 million people in 2024 against roughly 1.8 million around Jacksonville, which tops the city table only because its limits take in almost a whole county.
Q 30Which interstate, running the length of the East Coast from Florida to Maine, passes through Jacksonville?
I-95
I-95 starts in Miami, about 350 miles to the south, and Jacksonville is its last big city before the Georgia line, so Florida's biggest city lies far nearer Georgia than South Florida.