US State Capitals
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
145 free US State Capitals trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free US state capitals trivia questions with answers. Think you know your US state capitals? It's one of those things everyone learns in school but few people remember perfectly. Sure, you know Sacramento is California's capital and Albany is New York's — but can you name the capital of South Dakota? Or which state capital was originally called Pig's Eye? This 145-question quiz covers every state capital plus fascinating facts about their history, geography, and quirky origins.
30 of 145 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital of California?
Sacramento
Sacramento won the job in 1854, after the legislature had drifted from San Jose to Vallejo to Benicia; the Gold Rush town already had more than 10,000 people.
Q 02What is the capital of New York?
Albany
Albany became the permanent capital in 1797, ending two decades in which the legislature had moved between Kingston, Poughkeepsie, New York City and Albany itself.
Q 03What is the capital of Texas?
Austin
Austin began as the riverside village of Waterloo; Mirabeau B. Lamar, who had hunted buffalo there, had it chosen as the Republic of Texas's capital in 1839 and renamed for Stephen F. Austin.
Q 04What is the capital of Florida?
Tallahassee
Tallahassee became Florida's capital in 1824 as a compromise, sitting roughly midway between the two earlier capitals, St. Augustine and Pensacola.
Q 05What is the capital of Illinois?
Springfield
The legislature voted in 1837 to move Illinois's capital from Vandalia to Springfield, a campaign led by a young lawmaker named Abraham Lincoln, who lived there until he left for the White House.
Q 06Which city was Georgia's capital throughout the Civil War?
Milledgeville
Milledgeville was laid out as a purpose-built capital and named for Governor John Milledge; Georgia's convention voted to secede there in January 1861, to bonfires on Statehouse Square.
Q 07What is the capital of Ohio?
Columbus
Columbus has been the capital of Ohio since 1816. The city was founded in 1812 specifically to serve as the state capital and was named after explorer Christopher Columbus.
Q 08What is the capital of Pennsylvania?
Harrisburg
Harrisburg was a small river town when lawmakers picked it in 1812, partly for its strategic spot where pioneers heading west left the Susquehanna for the overland trail.
Q 09Juneau is the capital of which US state?
Alaska
Alaska's government moved from Sitka to Juneau in 1906: gold found there in 1880 had built a busy mining town, while Sitka faded with the fur and whaling trades.
Q 10Which US state capital was the first Confederate capital, before the government moved north in May 1861?
Montgomery
Jefferson Davis was sworn in as Confederate president on the steps of Alabama's State Capitol in February 1861; the government stayed in Montgomery only three months before relocating.
Q 11Which US state capital was named for a nearby mountain range?
Olympia, Washington
Olympia, Washington took its name in 1850 at Isaac Ebey's suggestion, for the town's view of the Olympic Mountains to the northwest, a range itself named for Greece's Mount Olympus.
Q 12What is the capital of Colorado?
Denver
Denver was named in 1858 by a land speculator hoping to win favour with James W. Denver, governor of Kansas Territory, which then stretched as far as the Rockies.
Q 13What is the capital of Michigan?
Lansing
Lansing was a patch of wilderness with fewer than 20 settlers when lawmakers, unable to agree on any established city, moved the capital there from Detroit in 1847.
Q 21Which US state capital was named after the seventh president of the United States?
Jackson
The city honoured Andrew Jackson for his 1815 victory at New Orleans, years before he reached the White House; Madison, Lincoln and Jefferson City honour presidents four, sixteen and three.
Q 22Which state capital sits on the banks of the Cumberland River?
Nashville
Nashville began on the Cumberland River's bluffs, where James Robertson's settlers arrived on Christmas Day 1779 and built the stockade later called Fort Nashborough.
Q 23Montpelier is the capital of which US state?
Vermont
Vermont's capital was named by its first settler, Colonel Jacob Davis, after the French city of Montpellier, when France's help in the Revolution had made all things French fashionable.
Q 14Which US state capital has the fewest residents?
Montpelier
Montpelier had only 8,074 residents at the 2020 census; it has fought off bids by bigger Burlington to take the capital, notably after fire gutted the State House in 1857.
Q 15What is the capital of Louisiana?
Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge is French for 'red stick': early French explorers found a red cypress post there marking the boundary between the lands of the Houma and the Bayougoula.
Q 16What is the capital of Minnesota?
Saint Paul
Saint Paul and neighbouring Minneapolis form the Twin Cities; the settlement took its name in 1841 from a small log chapel that Father Lucien Galtier built on the bluff above the river landing.
Q 17What is the capital of Arizona?
Phoenix
Phoenix is said to have been named for the mythical bird because settlers in the late 1860s rebuilt the canals of a vanished people, raising a town from ruins; by the 2020 census it was the most populous state capital.
Q 18What is the capital of Massachusetts?
Boston
Boston's Puritan founders first settled across the water at Charlestown, then moved to the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 after its lone English resident offered to share his fresh spring.
Q 19What is the capital of Nevada?
Carson City
Carson City was ready before Nevada existed: founder Abraham Curry had set aside a 10-acre plot for a capitol by the time it became the territorial capital in 1861; the name honours scout Kit Carson.
Q 20What is the capital of Missouri?
Jefferson City
Jefferson City has been Missouri's capital since 1826; it was named for Thomas Jefferson, whose Louisiana Purchase brought the territory into the United States.
Q 24What is the capital of Kentucky?
Frankfort
Frankfort is said to take its name from 'Frank's Ford', a Kentucky River crossing where pioneer Stephen Frank was killed in a skirmish; it was chosen as capital when Kentucky became a state in 1792.
Q 25What is the capital of South Carolina?
Columbia
Columbia was created in 1786 because upcountry settlers wanted a capital more central than far-off Charleston; it was laid out as a planned city on a two-mile-square grid.
Q 26What is the capital of New Jersey?
Trenton
Trenton has been the capital of New Jersey since 1790. It played a pivotal role in the American Revolution when George Washington famously crossed the Delaware River to attack Hessian forces there on Christmas night, 1776.
Q 27What is the capital of Connecticut?
Hartford
Hartford has been the sole capital of Connecticut since 1875. Before that, Connecticut had two co-capitals: Hartford and New Haven, with the legislature alternating between the two cities.
Q 28What is the capital of Maryland?
Annapolis
Annapolis has been Maryland's capital since 1694 and was briefly the nation's: Congress met in its State House in 1783–84, and George Washington resigned his army command there.
Q 29What is the capital of Wisconsin?
Madison
Madison was picked as Wisconsin's territorial capital in 1836, while only a paper plat, and kept the role at statehood in 1848; the city was named for James Madison, who had died that June.
Q 30Which state capital was settled in a single afternoon when the Land Run of 1889 opened?
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City went from a railway stop to a tent town of about 10,000 people on 22 April 1889, after a noon signal opened the Unassigned Lands to anyone who could stake a claim.