US Territories
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50 free US Territories trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The United States is more than fifty states. Millions of Americans live on islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific that fly the Stars and Stripes yet send no voting members to Congress, and a scattering of uninhabited reefs and atolls belongs to the country too. This quiz covers Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, along with the remote outposts few people could find on a map. Expect questions on how each place came under the American flag, what its residents can and cannot vote for, local wildlife and food, wartime history and the people who put these islands on the world stage. It suits geography fans, students of American history and civics, travellers planning an island trip, and anyone with roots in the territories. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which European country sold the US Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million in 1917?
Denmark
Denmark was paid in gold coin for the islands. Washington pushed the deal through during World War I, fearing an enemy navy might seize the harbours as a submarine base.
Q 02Which road rule makes the US Virgin Islands unique among every state and territory of the United States?
Driving on the left
Driving on the left survived the 1917 handover to the United States. Most cars are imported from the mainland, though, so the steering wheel sits on the left as well.
Q 03Which tiny frog, an unofficial symbol of Puerto Rico, is named after the loud call males make at night?
Coquí
Coquí frogs never swim as tadpoles. They hatch from their eggs as tiny, fully formed frogs, skipping the free-living larval stage altogether.
Q 04Which invasive reptile reached Guam by accident after World War II and wiped out most of Guam's native forest birds?
Brown tree snake
The brown tree snake met almost no natural predators on Guam, so its numbers exploded. It has also caused thousands of power outages across the island.
Q 05People born in American Samoa, unlike those born in Guam or Puerto Rico, hold which legal status at birth?
US nationals
As US nationals, American Samoans may live and work anywhere in the country, and they can apply for full citizenship after three months of residency in a state.
Q 06Which country beat American Samoa 31–0 in 2001, the widest winning margin ever recorded in international soccer?
Australia
Australia striker Archie Thompson scored 13 of the goals, itself a record for one player in an international match. The rout pushed FIFA to bring back a preliminary round.
Q 07Which US founding father spent his teenage years on St. Croix, clerking for a firm that traded with New York?
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton proved so capable that he was left in charge of the trading firm for five months while still a teenager. He later sailed north to study in New York.
Q 08US citizens living in Guam or Puerto Rico are shut out of the general election for which office?
President
President is off the ballot in the territories each November, yet their voters still help pick each party's nominee in the primaries.
Q 09Which creamy rum cocktail did Puerto Rico proclaim as its official drink in 1978?
Piña colada
Piña colada means strained pineapple. A hotel and a restaurant on the island each still claim that one of their bartenders mixed the very first one.
Q 10Which 2017 hurricane destroyed Puerto Rico's power grid and caused the worst blackout in US history?
Maria
Maria had weakened only to a high-end Category 4 storm when it struck, and it left all 3.4 million residents without electricity.
Q 11Puerto Rico and Guam both passed to the United States under the treaty that ended which war?
Spanish–American War
The Spanish–American War reached Guam before the news did. The garrison there had no idea fighting had begun and surrendered to a single US cruiser without resistance.
Q 12Which Puerto Rican capital, founded in 1521, is the oldest European-established city under the US flag?
San Juan
San Juan was originally the name of the whole island, while the city was called Ciudad de Puerto Rico. Visiting traders gradually swapped the two names around.
Q 13Which Portuguese navigator became the first European to reach Guam, sighting the island in March 1521?
Ferdinand Magellan
Q 21Amelia Earhart vanished in 1937 while trying to reach which tiny, uninhabited US outpost in the central Pacific?
Howland Island
Howland Island had airstrips built specially for her refuelling stop. They were never used for it, and a stone tower on the shore is still called Earhart Light.
Q 22From which island in the Northern Mariana Islands did the Enola Gay take off to bomb Hiroshima in 1945?
Tinian
Tinian was almost entirely covered by the largest airbase of World War II. Navy builders laid out its roads like the streets of Manhattan.
Q 23Which seabed depression, about 190 miles southwest of Guam, is the deepest known point in Earth's oceans?
Challenger Deep
Ferdinand Magellan was sailing for the King of Spain on the first voyage around the world. Even so, Spain did not officially claim Guam until 1565.
Q 14Which explorer named the Virgin Islands in 1493 after Saint Ursula and her legendary 11,000 followers?
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus sighted the islands on his second voyage and gave them a long name honouring the saint. It was later shortened to the Virgin Islands.
Q 15American Samoa is the only inhabited US territory lying south of which imaginary line?
The Equator
The Equator runs about fourteen degrees north of American Samoa, the southernmost reach of the United States. Uninhabited Jarvis Island is the only other territory below the line.
Q 16Which Puerto Rican baseball star died in a 1972 plane crash while flying earthquake relief to Nicaragua?
Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente had collected his 3,000th hit in his final regular-season at-bat three months earlier. The Hall of Fame changed its waiting rule so he could be inducted quickly.
Q 17Which Puerto Rican singer joined the boy band Menudo at twelve and later topped charts with Livin' la Vida Loca?
Ricky Martin
Ricky Martin was already a screen veteran when he joined the group, having appeared in television commercials from the age of nine.
Q 18The name Puerto Rico, which US officials long spelled Porto Rico, translates into English as what?
Rich port
Rich port is the literal meaning, though many islanders call themselves Boricua, a word drawn from the island's Indigenous name, Borinquen.
Q 19Which US territory won statehood in August 1959, a few months after Alaska was admitted to the Union?
Hawaii
Hawaii had been an independent republic until the United States annexed it in 1898, the same year the country gained Guam and Puerto Rico.
Q 20Which Asian archipelago was a US territory from 1898 until its independence was recognised on July 4, 1946?
Philippines
The Philippines now marks its independence on June 12 instead, the anniversary of a declaration made in 1898 before American rule began.
Challenger Deep is named after HMS Challenger, a British survey ship that sounded it in 1875 after contrary winds stopped the crew from landing at Guam.
Q 24Guam is the largest island in which Pacific region, which also takes in Palau and the Marshall Islands?
Micronesia
Micronesia is made up of about 2,000 small islands. Guam, the biggest of them, is also the westernmost territory of the United States.
Q 25Monica Puig won Puerto Rico's first Olympic gold medal in 2016 by competing in which sport?
Tennis
Tennis gold came against the odds. Puig was unseeded in Rio, and no unseeded woman had won the singles since the sport returned to the Games in 1988.
Q 26Puerto Rico's flag was modelled in 1895 on the flag of which neighbouring country, with the colours inverted?
Cuba
Cuba and Puerto Rico were both struggling to break from Spain. Puerto Rican exiles adopted the design, with its red and blue swapped, at a meeting in Manhattan.
Q 27An 1856 law still lets Americans claim uninhabited islands for the United States if they hold deposits of what?
Guano
Guano, the built-up droppings of seabirds, was prized in the 1840s and 1850s as a farm fertilizer and as a source of saltpeter for gunpowder.
Q 28Canning which fish is described as the backbone of the economy in American Samoa?
Tuna
Tuna from the territory's StarKist cannery is shipped to the United States, several hundred million dollars' worth of it each year.
Q 29Which capital of American Samoa sits on one of the deepest natural harbours in the South Pacific?
Pago Pago
Pago Pago is pronounced roughly pahngo pahngo, because the letter g sounds like ng in Samoan.
Q 30Which Indigenous people settled Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands roughly 3,500 years ago?
Chamorro
Chamorro society traditionally ran through the mother's line, with a mother's brothers taking a leading part in raising her children.