This US landmarks trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and tours the whole country: the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge and Times Square, the White House, Capitol, Washington Monument and the memorials of the National Mall, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, the Alamo, Graceland and Route 66, the Gateway Arch, Willis Tower and Cloud Gate, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, the Golden Gate, Alcatraz and the Hollywood Sign, and natural icons from the Grand Canyon and Old Faithful to Half Dome, Delicate Arch, Devils Tower and Niagara Falls. Easy questions ask who gave America the Statue of Liberty and which river carved the Grand Canyon. Harder ones want the sculptor of the Lincoln statue, the architect of the White House, the year Alcatraz closed and the group that first called it the Liberty Bell. The expert tier covers the Las Vegas sign's designer, Faneuil Hall's weathervane, Fallingwater's stream and the man who first pointed at Plymouth Rock. Good for road-trip planning, classrooms and Fourth of July quiz nights. Every answer has been checked against the encyclopaedia entry for each landmark, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from the people of which country?
France
Sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed it and Gustave Eiffel built the iron framework inside.
Q 02Which four presidents are carved into Mount Rushmore?
Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln
They were chosen to stand for the nation's foundation, expansion, development and preservation; each head is about 60 feet tall.
Q 03The Golden Gate Bridge is painted in which officially named colour?
International Orange
Architect Irving Morrow picked it over the Navy's suggestion of black and yellow stripes.
Q 04Which waterway carved the Grand Canyon?
The Colorado
The canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and more than a mile deep.
Q 05How many stories tall is the Empire State Building?
102
It opened on May 1, 1931 after just thirteen and a half months of construction.
Q 06Hoover Dam sits on the border between which two states?
Nevada and Arizona
It backs up the Colorado River in Black Canyon; the Roosevelt administration briefly insisted on calling it Boulder Dam.
Q 07In which city does the Gateway Arch stand?
St. Louis
At 630 feet it is the world's tallest arch, designed by Eero Saarinen in 1947.
Q 08What was the first word originally spelled out by the Hollywood Sign in 1923?
Hollywoodland
It advertised a real-estate development; the last four letters came down in 1949.
Q 09What is the street address of the US president's official residence?
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Every president since John Adams in 1800 has lived there; the British burned it in 1814.
Q 10The Liberty Bell hangs in which city?
Philadelphia
Commissioned in 1752 from a London foundry, it cracked on its first ringing and was twice recast by John Pass and John Stow.
Q 11Alcatraz federal prison, on its island in San Francisco Bay, closed in which year?
1963
It had held Al Capone and the 'Birdman' Robert Stroud; Native American activists occupied the island for 19 months from 1969.
Q 12Seattle's Space Needle was built for which event?
The 1962 World's Fair
At 605 feet it was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi.
Q 13Which of the three waterfalls at Niagara is the largest, straddling the US-Canada border?
Horseshoe Falls
The falls sit at the southern end of Niagara Gorge between Ontario and New York.
Q 21Which president dedicated Hoover Dam on September 30, 1935?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Congress had named it for Hoover during construction, but Roosevelt's administration called it Boulder Dam for years.
Q 22Who designed the Gateway Arch, in 1947?
Eero Saarinen
The Finnish-American architect chose a weighted catenary curve clad in stainless steel.
Q 23How tall is the Washington Monument?
555 feet
It was the world's tallest structure from 1884 until the Eiffel Tower overtook it in 1889.
The Washington Monument's exterior is faced with three slightly different kinds of white marble. Why?
Q 14Which US national park was the world's first, created in 1872?
Yellowstone
President Grant signed it into law on March 1, 1872; Old Faithful had been named by the Washburn expedition two years earlier.
Q 15The Alamo, site of the famous 1836 siege, is in which Texas city?
San Antonio
Davy Crockett and James Bowie both died in the battle during the Texas Revolution.
Q 16What is Chicago's Cloud Gate, nicknamed 'The Bean'?
A mirrored steel artwork by Anish Kapoor
Kapoor disliked the nickname at first but came round to it.
Q 17On what date was the Statue of Liberty dedicated?
October 28, 1886
President Grover Cleveland presided; the tablet in her left hand reads JULY IV MDCCLXXVI.
Q 18Who sculpted Mount Rushmore, working from 1927 until his death in 1941?
Gutzon Borglum
His son Lincoln finished the job later that year; the sculptor called it the Shrine of Democracy.
Q 19Which New York crossing took the Golden Gate's title of world's longest suspension span in 1964?
The Verrazzano-Narrows
Its main span is 4,200 feet; the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge later took the height record too.
Q 20What crashed into the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945?
A B-25 bomber
It hit between the 79th and 80th floors in fog; the building reopened for business two days later.
Construction was interrupted repeatedly
Work stalled for decades in the mid-19th century, so the later stone never quite matched.
Q 25Who sculpted the seated Abraham Lincoln statue inside the Lincoln Memorial?
Daniel Chester French
Henry Bacon was the architect; the Piccirilli brothers carved French's design in marble, and the memorial was dedicated in 1922.
Q 26Which Irish-born architect designed the president's residence in Washington?
James Hoban
Its walls are Aquia Creek sandstone painted white; the British set it ablaze in 1814.
Q 27Which group first popularised the name 'Liberty Bell'?
Abolitionists
They adopted the bell and its inscription, 'Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land', as a symbol.
Q 28Which two founding documents were adopted in the Pennsylvania hall where the Continental Army was also created?
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
The Continental Army was also founded there, on June 14, 1775.
Q 29What was the first US national monument, proclaimed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906?
Devils Tower
The Wyoming butte later starred in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Q 30How tall is One World Trade Center, to the tip of its spire?
1,776 feet
The number is deliberate; it passed the Empire State Building as New York's tallest in April 2012.