San Francisco Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
49 free San Francisco trivia questions with answers. San Francisco packs a lot of landmarks into seven square miles, and this quiz covers them. Fifty questions run through the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the cable cars, Lombard Street and the Painted Ladies; the 1906 earthquake and the Gold Rush that built the city; sourdough, Ghirardelli and Rice-A-Roni; Haight-Ashbury and the Summer of Love; and the 49ers, Giants and Warriors. Easy questions ask which bridge is painted International Orange and which island held a famous prison; the hard ones want who engineered the bridge, how many hairpin turns Lombard Street has, and what the Giants' World Series years were. Good for a trivia night, a class on California, or anyone who loves the city by the bay. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city and its landmarks, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What colour is the Golden Gate Bridge painted?
International Orange
International Orange was chosen by consulting architect Irving Morrow; the vermilion shade stands out against fog and complements the Marin headlands.
Q 02The Golden Gate Bridge opened to the public in which year?
1937
The Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrians on 27 May 1937 and to cars the next day; its 4,200-foot main span was then the longest in the world.
Q 03Who served as chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge?
Joseph Strauss
Joseph Strauss was the Golden Gate Bridge's chief engineer and its leading promoter; Charles Ellis and Leon Moisseiff did much of the detailed structural design under him.
Q 04Alcatraz Island served as a federal prison from 1934 until which year?
1963
Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary on 21 March 1963 after 29 years; the cold water and strong tides had made escape nearly impossible.
Q 05Which famous gangster was held at Alcatraz?
Al Capone
Al Capone arrived at Alcatraz in August 1934 and spent about four and a half years there; Robert 'Birdman' Stroud and 'Machine Gun' Kelly were also inmates.
Q 06In 1969, Alcatraz was occupied for over 19 months by protesters from which group?
Native Americans
Native Americans organised as Indians of All Tribes held the island from 20 November 1969 to 11 June 1971, claiming it under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.
Q 07San Francisco is home to the world's last manually operated version of which transit vehicle?
Cable car
A gripman on each San Francisco cable car clamps the moving underground cable by hand; of the 23 lines built from 1873, three survive.
Q 08The city's first successful cable car line, the Clay Street Hill Railroad, opened in which year?
1873
Andrew Hallidie's Clay Street Hill Railroad made its first run on 2 August 1873; its design became the template for cable systems everywhere.
Q 09Lombard Street is famous for a steep block with how many hairpin turns?
Eight
Eight switchbacks were built in 1922 to tame Lombard Street's natural 27 percent grade, which was too steep for the cars of the day.
Q 10The colourful Victorian houses known as the 'Painted Ladies' stand across from which park?
Alamo Square
The Painted Ladies on Steiner Street face Alamo Square, whose hilltop lawn gives the classic view of the Victorians with downtown behind them.
Q 11The 1906 San Francisco earthquake had an estimated magnitude of what?
7.9
The 1906 quake is estimated at magnitude 7.9; it ruptured about 296 miles of the San Andreas Fault, and the fires that followed destroyed over 80 percent of the city.
Q 12The 1989 earthquake that struck during a World Series game is named for which peak?
Loma Prieta
The Loma Prieta earthquake of 17 October 1989, magnitude 6.9, hit minutes before Game 3 of the Giants-A's World Series at Candlestick Park; it is named for a peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Q 13San Francisco takes its name from which saint?
Francis of Assisi
The city is named for Saint Francis of Assisi; Mission San Francisco de Asís, better known as Mission Dolores, was founded in 1776.
Q 21The Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood became the centre of which 1960s movement?
The hippie counterculture
Haight-Ashbury became the hub of the hippie counterculture in 1967, when tens of thousands of young people arrived; the Grateful Dead lived at 710 Ashbury Street.
Q 22The famous burst of 1960s idealism centred on the Haight is known as what?
The Summer of Love
The Summer of Love peaked in 1967, when as many as 100,000 young people converged on Haight-Ashbury after January's Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park.
Q 23Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf is famous for a colony of which animals?
Sea lions
California sea lions began hauling out on Pier 39's marina docks in the winter of 1989-90, soon after that October's earthquake; the herd has peaked at more than 1,700 animals.
Q 14San Francisco was founded by settlers from where in 1776?
New Spain
Settlers from New Spain on the Anza expedition founded the Presidio at the Golden Gate and Mission Dolores a few miles away in 1776.
Q 15The California Gold Rush began in 1848 when gold was found at a sawmill owned by whom?
John Sutter
James W. Marshall spotted it at Sutter's Mill in Coloma on January 24, 1848.
Q 16What nickname was given to the gold-seekers who flooded into California during the Gold Rush?
Forty-niners
Forty-niners took their name from 1849, the peak year of Gold Rush immigration, when San Francisco grew from a village of about 1,000 people to a boom town of 25,000.
Q 17San Francisco's signature bread is which tangy variety?
Sourdough
French bakers brought the technique during the Gold Rush; the 49ers mascot is even called Sourdough Sam.
Q 18The Transamerica Pyramid was San Francisco's tallest building from 1972 until which year?
2017
The 48-storey Transamerica Pyramid lost the title in 2017, when the 1,070-foot Salesforce Tower topped out and overtook its 853 feet.
Q 19Coit Tower overlooks the bay from which San Francisco neighbourhood?
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower rises 210 feet atop Telegraph Hill; Lillie Hitchcock Coit's 1929 bequest paid for it, and despite legend it was not designed to resemble a fire-hose nozzle.
Q 20The Palace of Fine Arts was built for which 1915 world's fair?
The Panama-Pacific International Exposition
Bernard Maybeck designed the Palace of Fine Arts for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which celebrated the Panama Canal's opening; its rotunda beside a lagoon was rebuilt in concrete in the 1960s.
Q 24One famous San Francisco park covers how many acres, making it larger than New York's Central Park?
1,017
The park covers 1,017 acres, about 20 percent more than Central Park's 843, stretching three miles from Stanyan Street to the Pacific.
Q 25Which NFL team has represented San Francisco since 1946?
The 49ers
The 49ers, founded in 1946 and named for the Gold Rush prospectors, won five Super Bowls between the 1981 and 1994 seasons; Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara became their home in 2014.
Q 26Which quarterback led the 49ers to four of their Super Bowl titles in the 1980s?
Joe Montana
Joe Montana quarterbacked the 49ers to wins in Super Bowls XVI, XIX, XXIII and XXIV, covering the 1981 to 1989 seasons; Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott and coaches Bill Walsh and George Seifert were part of that dynasty.
Q 27The San Francisco Giants moved to the city in 1958 from where?
New York
They had been the New York Giants, playing at the Polo Grounds.
Q 28The Giants won three World Series in a five-year span in which years?
2010, 2012 and 2014
The Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 under manager Bruce Bochy, beating the Rangers, Tigers and Royals in turn.
Q 29The Golden State Warriors moved to the Bay Area in 1962 from which city?
Philadelphia
The Philadelphia Warriors, champions in 1947 and 1956, became the San Francisco Warriors in 1962 and took the name Golden State in 1971.
Q 30The boxed pasta dish advertised as 'the San Francisco treat' is called what?
Rice-A-Roni
Rice-A-Roni, a rice-and-vermicelli mix launched in 1958 by the DeDomenico family's Golden Grain company in San Francisco, came from an Armenian pilaf recipe shared by immigrant Pailadzo Captanian.