Us States
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This state trivia quiz covers all 50 US states in 145 questions with answers: capitals and nicknames, which state borders only one other, whose motto is "Live Free or Die", which two states share the white oak as their state tree, and which one has the most lighthouses. The easy ones (Sacramento, the Lone Star State) warm you up; the hard ones will surprise even people who can recite the capitals in order. It works as a classroom geography warm-up, a road-trip game, or a quick round for pub trivia hosts who need US state trivia questions and answers they can trust. Every answer has been checked against a primary source such as the state's official website or a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you answer. Play through once for a score you can share, then come back and see if you can beat it.
30 of 145 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital city of California?
Sacramento
Sacramento became the capital in 1854 only after the legislature had tried three other towns; Benicia, the third, lasted barely a year.
Q 02What is the official state nickname of Florida?
The Sunshine State
The Sunshine State has been the official nickname since 1970, yet no part of the country has more thunderstorms: parts of the peninsula hear thunder on more than 80 days a year.
Q 03Which Kentucky city hosts the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs each May?
Louisville
Louisville's race was founded in 1875 by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of the explorer William Clark, who modelled it on England's Epsom Derby after a visit there.
Q 04What is the capital of Rhode Island, the smallest US state by area?
Providence
Providence only became the sole capital in 1900; before that the legislature alternated its sessions with Newport, and earlier still it rotated among five towns.
Q 05Which US state is the largest by total area?
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by total area, encompassing 665,384 square miles.
Q 06Which state was the first to ratify the U.S. Constitution?
Delaware
Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 7, 1787.
Q 07Which giant cactus produces the white blossom that is Arizona's state flower?
Saguaro
Saguaro blossoms open at night and close by the next afternoon, so bats, birds and insects have less than a day to pollinate each one.
Q 08Which Great Lake lies farthest east, with New York as its only US state?
Ontario
Lake Ontario is the last in the chain: the other four drain into it down the Niagara River, and it is the only Great Lake that Michigan never touches.
Q 09Which US state has the largest population?
California
California is the most populous state in the United States.
Q 10Which president is carved on Mount Rushmore alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was sculptor Gutzon Borglum's choice to stand for the nation's development, for work such as the Panama Canal; the other three mark its birth, growth and preservation.
Q 11Which ice cream brand began in 1978 in a converted gas station in Burlington, Vermont?
Ben & Jerry's
Ben & Jerry's started as two friends with a single scoop shop; in 2000 the company was sold to the multinational Unilever for roughly $326 million.
Q 12The first shots of the Civil War were fired at which fort in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina?
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter took some 3,000 shells over 34 hours, yet no one on either side was killed in the bombardment; the only deaths came from an accident during the surrender salute.
Q 13Which state is widely known by the nickname "The Lone Star State"?
Texas
The single star on the flag recalls its years as the independent Republic of Texas.
Q 21Which US state has the largest number of national parks?
California
California boasts the most national parks of any state, with nine, including Yosemite, Sequoia, and Death Valley.
Q 22Which hiking trail runs about 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine?
The Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail was dreamed up in 1921 by forester Benton MacKaye and built by private citizens, who finished it in 1937; volunteers still maintain it.
Q 23Which lake in Oregon is the deepest in the United States?
Crater Lake
Crater Lake fills the hollow left by a collapsed volcano; no rivers run in or out, so its famously clear water is nothing but rain and melted snow.
Q 14Which state capital is nicknamed the Mile High City?
Denver
Denver's official elevation is taken on the State Capitol steps, where the 13th step is marked as exactly one mile above sea level; earlier surveys had put the mark on other steps.
Q 15Which park, lying mostly in Wyoming, became the first national park in the United States in 1872?
Yellowstone
Yellowstone was created while the region was still federal territory, so no state could run it; the US Army moved in from 1886 and guarded the park for three decades.
Q 16Which US state has the most electoral votes in presidential elections?
California
Its 54 electoral votes follow from having the largest population; from 1952 through 1988 the state went Republican in nine of ten elections.
Q 17Which state is widely known as the "Peach State"?
Georgia
Georgia earned the nickname in the three decades after the Civil War, but by 2014 it ranked only third among peach-growing states.
Q 18Which state is home to the Great Salt Lake?
Utah
It is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and a remnant of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, which once covered much of the state's west.
Q 19What is the capital of Pennsylvania?
Harrisburg
Harrisburg has been the capital since 1812; the world heard of it in 1979, when the Three Mile Island plant nearby suffered the worst accident at a US nuclear power station.
Q 20Vermont produces about half of the United States' supply of which sweet product?
Maple syrup
Maple syrup is boiled down from the sap of the sugar maple, Vermont's state tree, which needs a spell of real cold before the sap will run.
Q 24Kentucky distillers make about 95% of the world's supply of which spirit?
Bourbon
Bourbon has been made in Kentucky since the first settlers arrived in the late 1700s, many of them Scots and Scots-Irish farmers who brought their distilling skills with them.
Q 25Which New Jersey resort city built the world's first boardwalk in 1870?
Atlantic City
Atlantic City laid its boardwalk so that hotel owners and the railroad could stop beachgoers tracking sand indoors; the first one was taken up at the end of each summer.
Q 26Which national park protects 1.5 million acres of wetland at the southern tip of Florida?
Everglades
Everglades broke the mould in 1947: it was the first US national park created to protect wildlife and a fragile ecosystem rather than spectacular scenery.
Q 27What is New Hampshire's state motto, stamped on its license plates?
Live Free or Die
'Live Free or Die' comes from a toast that Revolutionary War general John Stark sent by letter in 1809, when he was too ill to attend a reunion of his old soldiers.
Q 28Which soft drink was invented by a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1886?
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola was the work of pharmacist John Pemberton, who carried his syrup to Jacobs' Pharmacy in downtown Atlanta, where the first glass was poured at the soda fountain.
Q 29On which Hawaiian island is the state capital, Honolulu?
Oahu
Oahu is home to about two-thirds of the state's residents as well as Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, though it is only the third-largest of the islands.
Q 30Which natural wonder gives Arizona its state nickname?
The Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon averages only about 10 miles across, yet the drive from the South Rim village round to the North Rim covers about 212 miles and takes four and a half hours.