US Geography
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119 free US Geography trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
66 free US geography trivia questions with answers, easy to hard. They run from the ones every American should get (the largest state, the Windy City, the Grand Canyon's state) to the ones that separate map nerds from the rest: the oldest state capital, the driest state, which state's subdivisions are parishes, and where the geographic centre of the lower 48 actually sits. The hard US geography trivia at the end is meant to be genuinely difficult: the exclave that is the only part of the lower 48 north of the 49th parallel, the southernmost speck of the contiguous US, the state capital with no road out, the four capitals with no interstate, the two states that each touch eight neighbours, and the region the ice sheets missed. Expect rivers, lakes, mountains, deserts, national parks, capitals and borders, plus a little history where it explains the map. It suits classrooms, road trips and quiz nights. Every answer is checked against an encyclopaedic or official source and the sentence that establishes it is shown under each question.
30 of 119 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the largest state in the United States by area?
Alaska
Alaska is larger than the next three biggest states combined; the United States bought the whole territory from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million.
Q 02Which river drains the Great Lakes into the Atlantic?
St. Lawrence
The St. Lawrence River drains the Great Lakes to the Atlantic; since its Seaway opened in 1959, ocean ships have been able to sail more than 2,300 miles inland, as far as Duluth.
Q 03Which state is nicknamed the Buckeye State, after a native tree?
Ohio
The Ohio buckeye's shiny brown nut is said to resemble a deer's eye, and it is also the mascot of the state's flagship university.
Q 04The Grand Canyon is located in which US state?
Arizona
Arizona's Grand Canyon was made a national monument by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, eleven years before Congress agreed to turn it into a national park.
Q 05What is the capital of California?
Sacramento
Sacramento became the permanent capital in 1854, after California's legislature had moved from San Jose to Vallejo to Benicia in barely three years.
Q 06Which river is the longest tributary in the United States?
Missouri
The Missouri runs more than 2,300 miles from the mountains of southwestern Montana to the Mississippi just north of St. Louis; by some measurements the tributary is longer than the river it joins.
Q 07Mount Rushmore is located in which US state?
South Dakota
South Dakota's state historian, Doane Robinson, dreamed up the carving in the 1920s to lure tourists to the Black Hills, then recruited sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who picked the mountain.
Q 08Which state consists of two peninsulas separated by the Straits of Mackinac?
Michigan
Michigan's two peninsulas were joined only by ferries until the Mackinac Bridge, about five miles long, opened in 1957.
Q 09What is the smallest US state by area?
Rhode Island
Rhode Island, the smallest state, is mostly mainland: its name first belonged to an island in Narragansett Bay, now usually called Aquidneck, and only later spread to the whole colony.
Q 10Yellowstone National Park is primarily located in which state?
Wyoming
Wyoming holds about 96 percent of Yellowstone, which became America's first national park in 1872, eighteen years before Wyoming itself became a state.
Q 11Which two US states do not share a border with any other state?
Alaska and Hawaii
Alaska and Hawaii are the only US states that do not share a land border with any other US state. Alaska borders Canada, and Hawaii is an island chain in the Pacific.
Q 12What is the highest point in the United States?
Denali
Denali rises 20,310 feet in Alaska; in 2025 the federal government switched its official name back to Mount McKinley, though the state of Alaska has called the peak Denali since 1975.
Q 13Which state is known as the Empire State?
New York
New York was widely called the Empire State by about 1820, though nobody is sure who coined the name; George Washington is often credited, and Manhattan's most famous skyscraper borrowed it in 1931.
Q 21Which US state has the most national parks?
California
California has nine national parks; it was level with Alaska on eight until 2013, when Congress upgraded Pinnacles from a national monument.
Q 22Which hot desert, the only place giant saguaro cactus grows wild, straddles the US–Mexico border?
Sonoran
The Sonoran Desert has mild winters and two rainy seasons, which suits the saguaro: the giant cactus cannot survive hard freezes, so cold marks the edge of its range.
Q 23Which state is nicknamed the Keystone State?
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's nickname is usually explained by its place in the middle of the original thirteen colonies, like the keystone at the top of an arch that locks the other stones in place.
Q 14The Mississippi River empties into which body of water?
Gulf of Mexico
The Mississippi reaches the Gulf of Mexico below New Orleans after draining about 40 percent of the continental United States; since 2025 US federal agencies have called it the Gulf of America.
Q 15Which is the second-most populous city in the United States?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles counted about 3.9 million residents in the 2020 census; it overtook Chicago for second place during the 1980s and now trails only New York.
Q 16Which US state contains the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states?
Kansas
Kansas holds the center of the 48 adjoining states, near the town of Lebanon; count the two newest states as well and the center of the whole country jumps north to western South Dakota.
Q 17What is the capital of Texas?
Austin
Austin was a riverside hamlet called Waterloo until 1839, when it was picked as the site of the capital and renamed for Stephen F. Austin.
Q 18Which Great Lake is the largest by surface area?
Superior
Superior is big enough to brew ocean-sized storms: one sank the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald with all 29 of her crew in 1975, the wreck Gordon Lightfoot turned into a hit song.
Q 19Which New York Harbor island, called Bedloe's Island until 1956, is home to Bartholdi's most famous statue?
Liberty Island
Liberty Island got its present name from Congress in 1956; the water around it belongs to New Jersey, but an 1834 agreement between the two states keeps the island itself in New York.
Q 20Which US territory is located in the Caribbean Sea?
US Virgin Islands
The US Virgin Islands were the Danish West Indies until 1917, when the United States paid Denmark $25 million in gold for them, fearing Germany might seize the islands as a submarine base.
Q 24The Appalachian Mountains reach their southern end in which state?
Alabama
Alabama: the Appalachian Trail stops at Springer Mountain in Georgia, but the mountains themselves carry on to the southwest and only run out in central Alabama.
Q 25Which US state was the last to join the union?
Hawaii
Hawaii became the 50th state in August 1959, seven months after Alaska, which is why the 49-star flag was official for just one year.
Q 26What is the deepest body of fresh water in the United States?
Crater Lake
Crater Lake in Oregon is more than 1,900 feet deep; it fills the hole left when the volcano Mount Mazama collapsed about 7,700 years ago, and rain and snow are its only water supply.
Q 27Which four states meet at a single point called the Four Corners?
Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico
Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico: the four meet at a marker that surveyors now place about 1,800 feet from the spot Congress described, yet the marker itself remains the legal corner.
Q 28What is the capital of Florida?
Tallahassee
Tallahassee became the territorial capital in 1824, roughly midway between the older capitals of St. Augustine and Pensacola, and was the only Confederate state capital east of the Mississippi never captured during the Civil War.
Q 29Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, lies in which national park?
Death Valley
Death Valley drops to 282 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin, yet Telescope Peak, in plain view to the west, stands more than two miles above the salt flats.
Q 30Which US state borders just one other state?
Maine
Maine borders only New Hampshire; it was part of Massachusetts until 1820, when it became a state of its own under the Missouri Compromise.