50 free Santa Fe trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Santa Fe has been a capital since 1610, longer than any other US state capital, and sits higher than all of them at 6,998 feet. This quiz covers four centuries of that history: Pedro de Peralta's founding, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and Diego de Vargas's reconquest, the Santa Fe Trail from Missouri, Kearny's Army of the West, the railroad that skipped the city for Lamy and statehood in 1912. The City Different's culture gets equal time: the Palace of the Governors, the Loretto Chapel's Miraculous Stair, Bishop Lamy's limestone cathedral, the Roundhouse capitol, the 1957 adobe ordinance, Zozobra and the Fiestas, the Santa Fe Opera, Canyon Road, the Indian Market, the O'Keeffe Museum, Meow Wolf and the Santa Fe Institute's complexity scientists. Every answer is sourced from Wikipedia pages on the city and its landmarks. Play in sets of ten, then try the Albuquerque or New Mexico quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does 'Santa Fe' mean in English?
Holy Faith
The full original name was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Q 02Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the United States, founded in which year?
1610
That makes it older than Plymouth Colony and the earliest European settlement west of the Mississippi.
Q 03Santa Fe holds which distinction among US state capitals?
Highest altitude
It sits at 6,998 feet in the foothills of the mountains east of town.
Q 04What is Santa Fe's elevation?
6,998 ft
The thin, dry air gives the city a daily temperature swing of more than 25 °F in every month.
Q 05Which mountain range rises behind Santa Fe?
Sangre de Cristo
Their name, 'Blood of Christ', refers to the red glow of the peaks at sunset.
Q 06What was Santa Fe's population at the 2020 census?
87,505
It is only the fourth-most populous city in New Mexico, well behind Albuquerque.
Q 07Which Spanish governor founded Santa Fe and made it the provincial capital in 1610?
Pedro de Peralta
Oñate had colonized the region in 1598 but was banished for his cruelty toward the Pueblo peoples.
Q 08Who led the first Spanish colonization of the region in 1598?
Juan de Oñate
His first capital was San Juan de los Caballeros near modern Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, north of Santa Fe.
Q 09In what year did the Pueblo Revolt drive the Spanish out of Santa Fe?
1640
The Pueblo peoples governed from the Palace of the Governors for twelve years until the Spanish returned.
Q 10Who retook Santa Fe for Spain in 1692 in the so-called 'Bloodless Reconquest'?
Diego de Vargas
The label was criticized as inaccurate even at the time; the Fiestas de Santa Fe commemorate the event.
Q 11The Palace of the Governors served as New Mexico's seat of government until what year?
1901
Construction began under Peralta around 1610, making it the oldest capitol building in the US.
Q 12Beginning in the 1820s, the Santa Fe Trail linked the city to which US frontier state?
Missouri
The route was pioneered in 1821, just as Mexico's independence opened trade with the United States.
Q 13Who pioneered the overland trail to Santa Fe in 1821?
William Becknell
He departed with Joseph R. Walker just as Mexico won independence and opened trade with the US.
Q 21The Loretto Chapel is famous for which feature?
A spiral staircase
The 'Miraculous Stair' makes two full turns to the choir loft with no central support; nuns credited Saint Joseph.
Q 22The Loretto Chapel's design was modeled on which Paris landmark?
Sainte-Chapelle
Architect Projectus Mouly's Gothic Revival chapel used sandstone and stained glass imported via the Santa Fe Trail.
Q 23San Miguel Chapel, built around 1610, is often called the oldest what in the lower 48?
Church
It was rebuilt twice, the second time in 1710 after the Pueblo Revolt.
Q 14The trail's eastern terminus was which town?
Franklin
The route connected the American frontier with what was then a provincial capital of Mexico.
Q 15Which US general marched into Santa Fe in 1846 to claim New Mexico?
Stephen W. Kearny
His Army of the West numbered about 1,700; the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made it official in 1848.
Q 16In which year did New Mexico become a state, with Santa Fe as capital?
1850
It was the 47th state; the city then had roughly 5,000 residents and adopted a City Beautiful plan.
Q 17Which railroad bypassed the city, routing its main line through Lamy instead?
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
A branch line reached the city in 1880, but the snub triggered a long economic decline.
Q 18Which Confederate general flew his flag over Santa Fe for a few days in March 1862?
Henry Sibley
He withdrew after Union troops destroyed his supply trains at the Battle of Glorieta Pass.
Q 19Which French-born bishop built Santa Fe's St. Francis Cathedral?
Jean Baptiste Lamy
He arrived in 1851 and shaped Catholicism across New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado until 1888.
Q 20In what style was St. Francis Cathedral built, in contrast to the adobe around it?
Romanesque Revival
It was built of yellow limestone by French architects and Italian masons starting in 1869.
Q 24New Mexico's State Capitol in Santa Fe is nicknamed what?
The Roundhouse
It is the only circular state capitol in the US and one of just eleven without a dome.
Q 25New Mexico's Roundhouse State Capitol in Santa Fe was built in which years?
1964–66
Designed by W.C. Kruger, it was the newest state capitol after Hawaii's and Florida's when it opened.
Q 26A 1957 ordinance requires new buildings in historic districts to use which styles?
Spanish Territorial or Pueblo
Many homes are stucco over concrete block, a look locals call 'faux-dobe'.
Q 27What are the exposed roof beams that poke through adobe walls called?
Vigas
Canales are the rain spouts cut into parapet walls; both features were borrowed from old adobe homes and churches.
Q 28Which giant effigy, 'Old Man Gloom', is burned each year before the Fiestas de Santa Fe?
Zozobra
People stuff the 50-foot marionette with written 'glooms' to burn away the year's worries.
Q 29Which artist created the first Old Man Gloom effigy in his backyard in 1924?
Will Shuster
He gave the rights to the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe in 1964, which still builds and burns it at Fort Marcy Park.
Q 30Roughly how tall is the Old Man Gloom effigy?
50 feet
The 2007 version was certified by Guinness as the world's largest marionette at 49 feet 10 inches.