San Jose Trivia
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46 free San Jose trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This San Jose trivia quiz covers the biggest city in the Bay Area from its founding as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe in 1777 to its 1988 motto, "Capital of Silicon Valley". It asks about the two years San Jose spent as California's first state capital, the mercury mines of Almaden, the orchards of the Valley of Heart's Delight, the world's first scheduled radio broadcasts, IBM's hard disk drive and the tech giants headquartered downtown today. There are questions on the landmarks and teams too: Sarah Winchester's ever-growing mansion, Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose State's Speed City sprinters, the Sharks and their Shark Tank, the Earthquakes and the first goal in MLS history, and the Bacharach song that made everyone ask for directions. Easy questions ask which county San Jose sits in; the hard end wants dates, mayors and record-book details. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on San Jose, its history, its institutions and its sports teams, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01San Jose is the county seat of which California county?
Santa Clara
San Jose is the seat of Santa Clara County; it sits in the Santa Clara Valley at the southern end of San Francisco Bay and covers about 180 square miles.
Q 02In which year was San Jose founded as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe?
1777
Founded on 29 November 1777 by José Joaquín Moraga, the pueblo was Alta California's first civilian settlement; Los Angeles followed in 1781.
Q 03San Jose's pueblo was founded to grow food for which two Spanish presidios?
San Francisco and Monterey
The pueblo was established to supply the presidios of San Francisco and Monterey with crops, ending their dependence on supply ships from Mexico.
Q 04What distinction did San Jose hold when California joined the Union in 1850?
It was the first capital
It was the first capital of the new state: legislators met in San Jose from December 1849 to 1851 before decamping to Vallejo; a marker on Plaza de César Chávez records the capitol site.
Q 05California's legislative sessions held in San Jose in 1850 and 1851 earned what boozy nickname?
Legislature of a Thousand Drinks
The 'Legislature of a Thousand Drinks' took its name from senator Thomas Jefferson Green's habit of adjourning with a call for a drink; poor buildings and rain soon drove the capital to Vallejo.
Q 06Who was San Jose's first mayor after incorporation in 1850?
Josiah Belden
Belden had crossed the California Trail with the Bartleson Party in 1841 and made a fortune; Fallon had captured the pueblo in 1846.
Q 07Which mayor adopted the motto "Capital of Silicon Valley" in 1988?
Tom McEnery
Tom McEnery, mayor through most of the 1980s, adopted the 'Capital of Silicon Valley' branding to tie the city's downtown revival to the booming tech industry.
Q 08According to which census did San Jose first surpass San Francisco in population?
1990
The 1990 census counted about 782,000 people in San Jose against 724,000 in San Francisco, making it the Bay Area's most populous city for the first time.
Q 09Before San Jose, which was the only US city to fall back below one million residents?
Detroit
Detroit, which peaked near 1.85 million in 1950, fell below one million in the 2000 census; San Jose's 2022 estimate of 971,233 made it the second such city.
Q 10Before the tech boom, the orchard-filled region around San Jose went by what nickname?
Valley of Heart's Delight
The 'Valley of Heart's Delight' was once the world's largest fruit-packing region, rich in prunes, apricots and cherries; suburbs and tech campuses replaced the orchards from the 1950s on.
Q 11Which vegetable was first farmed commercially in the United States in San Jose in 1922?
Broccoli
Brothers Stefano and Andrea D'Arrigo planted the first commercial broccoli in the United States at San Jose in 1922 and later sold it under their Andy Boy label.
Q 12San Jose's Almaden Valley is named for mines producing which metal, vital to gold-rush ore processing?
Mercury
New Almaden was North America's richest mercury mine, named after Almadén in Spain; its quicksilver was used to amalgamate gold from Sierra ore, and the site is now Almaden Quicksilver County Park.
Q 13Which company was the city's largest employer for years until its cannery closed in 1999?
Del Monte
Del Monte's Plant No. 3 canned the valley's fruit for most of the 20th century; its 1999 closure ended San Jose's cannery era, which had employed thousands each summer.
Q 21Where is James Lick, the observatory's benefactor, buried?
Under the telescope
He was interred there in 1887 beneath the future site of the 36-inch refractor, with a brass plaque reading "Here lies the body of James Lick".
Q 22Which moon of Jupiter, the first found since Galileo's time, was discovered at Lick Observatory in 1892?
Amalthea
Amalthea was spotted by Edward Emerson Barnard with Lick's 36-inch refractor in September 1892; Charles Perrine later found Himalia and Elara there in 1904 and 1905.
Q 23What kind of institution was San Jose State University when it was founded in 1857?
A normal school for teachers
Q 14Which company opened San Jose operations in 1943 and later invented the hard disk drive there?
IBM
Reynold Johnson's team built the RAMAC 305 at the IBM lab opened in 1952, launching the city's tech economy.
Q 15What was Charles Herrold's 1909 station, regarded as the first with scheduled radio programming, called?
San Jose Calling
Herrold's station announced itself as 'San Jose Calling'; his wife Sybil played records on air from 1912, and the station evolved into KQW and finally KCBS in San Francisco.
Q 16Which of these tech companies is headquartered in San Jose?
Adobe
Adobe has been headquartered in downtown San Jose since 1996; Cisco, eBay, PayPal and Zoom are also based in the city, while Apple is in Cupertino and Google in Mountain View.
Q 17San Jose's mansion tourist attraction was built over decades by the widow of which kind of magnate?
A firearms maker
Sarah Winchester's husband William Wirt Winchester was heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune; she moved west in 1886.
Q 18When Sarah Winchester died in 1922, how many rooms did her San Jose house contain?
160
The house had 160 rooms at her death, along with some 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways and 13 bathrooms, spread over four storeys.
Q 19What destroyed the seven-story tower of the Winchester house?
The 1906 earthquake
The 1906 earthquake toppled the tower and the top three floors; Sarah Winchester had the damage boarded up rather than rebuilt, leaving doors that open onto nothing.
Q 20Lick Observatory, east of San Jose, sits on top of which mountain?
Mount Hamilton
Lick Observatory, completed in 1888 on the 4,200-foot summit of Mount Hamilton, was the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory; San Jose adopted sodium street lamps to limit its light pollution.
San Jose State began as Minns' Evening Normal School, a normal school for teachers, in San Francisco in 1857; it moved to San Jose in 1871 and became the founding campus of the California State University system.
Q 24What nickname did San Jose State's track team earn while producing Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans?
Speed City
'Speed City' was the 1960s nickname of coach Bud Winter's sprint programme; Smith and Carlos gave their raised-fist salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and a statue of them stands on campus.
Q 25Which two San Jose State alumni won a combined four Super Bowls as NFL head coaches?
Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeil
Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeil both played at San Jose State; Walsh won three Super Bowls with the 49ers and Vermeil one with the 1999 Rams.
Q 26What is the mascot name of San Jose State's sports teams?
Spartans
The Spartans compete in the Mountain West Conference; the football team plays at CEFCU Stadium, known for decades as Spartan Stadium.
Q 27In which season did the San Jose Sharks begin play in the NHL?
1991-92
The Sharks entered the NHL for the 1991-92 season, spending two years at the Cow Palace in Daly City before moving into the San Jose Arena in 1993.
Q 28Which name beat 'Sharks' in the fan vote to name San Jose's NHL team?
Blades
The Gund brothers worried "Blades" sounded like weapons; more than 5,000 names were mailed in.
Q 29Which software company bought the naming rights to the Sharks' arena, the Shark Tank, in 2013?
SAP
It opened in 1993 as San Jose Arena, became Compaq Center in 2001 and HP Pavilion in 2002 before SAP's 2013 deal.
Q 30Which team beat the Sharks in their first Stanley Cup Final appearance, in 2016?
Pittsburgh Penguins
The Pittsburgh Penguins won the 2016 final in six games; San Jose had won the Presidents' Trophy in 2008-09 without reaching a final.