50 free Palm Springs trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Palm Springs trivia quiz covers the desert resort from the people who lived beside its hot springs for two thousand years, through the health seekers, stagecoach stops and railroad checkerboard of the 1800s, to the Hollywood hideaways, tennis clubs and glass-walled houses that made it famous. You will find questions on the mountains that shelter the city, the wind farm at its doorstep, the record heat, the ride up to alpine forest in ten minutes, and the festivals, parades and Thursday street fair that fill the calendar. There are questions on the celebrity neighbourhoods and the architects who built for the stars, on the entertainer who became mayor and started an annual film event, on the movies that used the city as a backdrop, and on the community's more recent history as an LGBTQ destination with a first-of-its-kind city council. Easy questions suit a house-party or a Modernism Week gathering; the harder ones on dates, names and numbers will challenge locals and long-time snowbirds. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia entries and local institutions, and each question shows its explanation and source after you answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Palm Springs lies in which California county?
Riverside
At roughly 94 square miles it is the largest city in the county by land area.
Q 02Which Native American people settled the Palm Springs area about 2,000 years ago?
Cahuilla
They spent summers in the cooler canyons and winters beside the hot springs downtown, and their surnames survive on many city streets.
Q 03What does the tribal name Agua Caliente mean?
Hot water
The reservation was established in 1876 and the tribe is the city's largest landowner.
Q 04Why is the Agua Caliente Reservation laid out in a checkerboard pattern across the city?
Alternating sections were granted to a railroad
The Southern Pacific got the alternating 640-acre sections as an incentive to lay track through the desert.
Q 05The palm in the city's name refers to which native species?
Fan
Early Spanish explorers may also have called the area La Palma de la Mano de Dios, the palm of God's hand.
Q 06The first European resident of Palm Springs, Jack Summers, ran what kind of business there in 1862?
A stagecoach station
When the railroad was laid six miles to the north in 1876, his stop on the Bradshaw Trail was left isolated.
Q 07In which year was the city of Palm Springs established by election?
1938
Voters later adopted a charter in 1994; the high school built the same year the city incorporated is still the district's oldest.
Q 08Which mountain range shelters Palm Springs on the west, casting the afternoon shadow that cools the city?
San Jacinto Mountains
The city is boxed in by four ranges, which also block cold winter winds coming through the gap to the northwest.
Q 09What is the highest temperature ever recorded in Palm Springs?
124 °F
It came on July 5, 2025; the previous October the city had tied the US record for the hottest October day at 117 °F.
Q 10Most of the snowbirds who triple Palm Springs' winter population come from which country?
Canada
The 2020 census counted 44,575 permanent residents.
Q 11The Palm Springs ride up Chino Canyon is the world's largest example of what?
Rotating aerial tramway
The car floors turn twice during the ten-minute ride so everyone gets every view.
Q 12In which year did the Aerial Tramway open?
1963
Before that the only way to the top of the mountain was a hike of several hours from Idyllwild.
Q 13Roughly how high above sea level is the tramway's Mountain Station?
8,516 feet
The ride climbs through five life zones, and the air at the top can be 40 degrees cooler than the desert floor.
Q 21Which entertainer served as mayor of Palm Springs from 1988 to 1992 before being elected to Congress?
Sonny Bono
He got into politics after being frustrated by red tape while trying to open a restaurant in town.
Q 22Which January event, a leading US showcase for world cinema, did that mayor start in 1989?
The Film Festival
Founded by Sonny Bono, it is billed as the largest festival for world cinema in the United States and screens most of the foreign Oscar contenders.
Q 23Which interstate running north of the city carries the late mayor's name as a memorial freeway?
I-10
It links the valley to Los Angeles in one direction and the Colorado River in the other.
Q 14In which year were the rotating cars added to the tramway?
2000
On a clear day the view from the top stretches more than 200 miles, to Mount Charleston near Las Vegas.
Q 15Which architect designed the 1946 Kaufmann Desert House, the mostly-glass modernist landmark?
Richard Neutra
Its client had also commissioned Fallingwater a decade earlier; Barry Manilow later owned the house.
Q 16Which photographer's 1970 image "Poolside Gossip" made the Kaufmann House an icon of desert glamour?
Slim Aarons
Julius Shulman had already photographed the house in 1947, and Robert Doisneau shot the city's golf lifestyle for Fortune in 1960.
Q 17In which month does Palm Springs hold its annual Modernism Week celebration of mid-century architecture?
February
The eleven-day festival mixes tours, lectures and films across the Coachella Valley.
Q 18Which architect designed the butterfly-roofed Twin Palms tract for the Alexander Construction Company?
William Krisel
Built in 1957–58 and originally called Smoke Tree Valley Estates, every lot came with two palm trees.
Q 19Which two actors founded the Racquet Club, the tennis resort that became a Hollywood hangout, in 1934?
Charles Farrell and Ralph Bellamy
Future mayor Frank Bogert was an early manager; the club burned in 2014 and was demolished.
Q 20In which Palm Springs neighbourhood did Hope, Sinatra and Crosby build homes in the 1930s?
The Movie Colony
Liberace, Jerry Lewis and William Holden preferred Deepwell, further south.
Q 24The city's Walk of the Stars embeds sidewalk markers of what colour and shape?
Golden palms
Since the first five were unveiled in 1992, nearly 480 have been dedicated, including to US presidents.
Q 25On which evening of the week does the downtown VillageFest street fair take over Palm Canyon Drive?
Thursday
The city launched it together with downtown businesses.
Q 26The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, which closed after 2013–14, was famous for performers of what age?
Over 55
The stage show ran for years at the historic Plaza Theatre and got its own 1997 documentary, Still Kicking.
Q 27Which 26-foot Seward Johnson statue, showing a famous 1955 movie scene, stands in downtown Palm Springs?
Forever Marilyn
It recreates the subway-grate moment from The Seven Year Itch and weighs about 34,000 pounds.
Q 28What was the early-1960s Warner Bros. comedy that glamorised the city as a spring-break destination?
Palm Springs Weekend
Troy Donahue, Stefanie Powers and Connie Stevens starred; a few years later a spring-break concert saw 300 arrests.
Q 29Who plays Nyles, the wedding guest reliving November 9, in the 2020 comedy Palm Springs?
Andy Samberg
Cristin Milioti co-stars; the film premiered at Sundance and went out on Hulu during the pandemic.
Q 30The city's main art institution, founded in the late 1930s, originally carried what name?
Palm Springs Desert Museum
It began in the La Plaza arcade focusing on the desert and its Indigenous peoples, and shifted to design and contemporary art decades later.