Vermont
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7correct to beat the crowd
Challenge yourself with our comprehensive Vermont trivia quiz featuring 145 free questions with answers about America's Green Mountain State. From its rich history and natural landmarks to famous residents and local traditions, this quiz covers everything Vermont. Whether you're a longtime resident or a curious traveler, see how much you really know about Vermont!
30 of 145 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which city serves as Vermont's state capital?
Montpelier
Montpelier has fewer than 9,000 people, the smallest of any US state capital; it was chosen in 1805, and its townspeople paid for the first State House themselves.
Q 02Which horse breed, developed in Vermont, became the official state animal in 1961?
Morgan Horse
The Morgan Horse breed traces to one stallion, Figure, foaled in 1789 and handed to Justin Morgan three years later as payment of a debt; the breed took his new owner's name.
Q 03Vermont became the 14th state in 1791; which state followed as the 15th the next year?
Kentucky
Kentucky won approval from Congress two weeks before Vermont did, in February 1791, but its statehood was set for June 1792, so Vermont got in first.
Q 04What is the highest natural point in Vermont?
Mount Mansfield
Mount Mansfield's ridge looks like a face in profile, so its summits are called the Forehead, Nose, Chin and Adam's Apple; unlike on most faces, the Chin is the highest, at 4,393 feet.
Q 05Vermont sugar-on-snow parties pair hot maple syrup with doughnuts and what?
Pickles
Pickles, sour dills by tradition, are there to cut the intense sweetness of the syrup, which sets into chewy taffy on the snow; Vermont makes more maple syrup than any other state.
Q 06What is the popular name for the legendary monster said to inhabit Vermont's largest lake?
Champy
Champy, also called Champ, is the monster said to live in Lake Champlain; more than 300 sightings have been reported, and the legend draws tourists to Burlington and Plattsburgh.
Q 07Vermont was one of the first states to ban what form of outdoor advertising statewide?
Billboards
Billboards have been outlawed along Vermont's roads since 1968, on the argument that they hid the scenery visitors came for; only Hawaii, Alaska and Maine have similar statewide bans.
Q 08What is the most populous city in Vermont?
Burlington
Burlington has only about 45,000 people, the least populous 'largest city' of any state; Bernie Sanders became its mayor in 1981 by a margin of just ten votes.
Q 09What is the official state motto of Vermont?
Freedom and Unity
Freedom and Unity sits on Vermont's Great Seal, designed by Ira Allen, Ethan's brother, and accepted in 1779, twelve years before statehood; it asks Vermonters to guard their liberty yet work together.
Q 10Which bird is designated as Vermont's official state bird?
Hermit Thrush
The Hermit Thrush won only after a fight in the legislature: opponents objected that it leaves Vermont every winter, and many lawmakers wanted the blue jay instead.
Q 11What is Vermont's official state flower?
Red Clover
Red Clover is not a Vermont native: it comes from Europe and western Asia, was planted as a forage crop, and escaped into the state's hayfields and roadsides.
Q 12What type of tree is Vermont's official state tree?
Sugar Maple
Sugar Maple sap flows only when freezing nights are followed by thawing days, which is why Vermont's sugaring season is squeezed into four to six weeks at winter's end.
Q 13Which U.S. President was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont?
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge, the only president born on the Fourth of July, came home as president in 1924 and ran his Summer White House from the dance hall over the village store.
Q 21What is Vermont's official state beverage?
Milk
Milk became the state beverage in 1983, when dairying led Vermont's farm economy; since 1947 the state has lost about 95 percent of its dairy farms.
Q 22Which president, sworn in after James Garfield's assassination in 1881, was born in Fairfield, Vermont?
Chester A. Arthur
Chester A. Arthur's opponents spread a rumor that he had really been born on foreign soil, which would have kept him from the presidency; the story never took hold.
Q 23What is the official state fruit of Vermont?
Apple
The apple became Vermont's state fruit in 1999; the state's orchards mostly grow McIntosh, and many have shifted to cider and pick-your-own as consumer tastes moved to newer varieties.
Q 14Ethan Allen's militia formed around 1770 mainly to do what?
Defending land grants against New York claims
Defending land grants against New York claims meant driving off that colony's surveyors and settlers, sometimes with arson and mob violence; New York had re-granted farms that settlers already held.
Q 15Which large lake forms much of Vermont's western border?
Champlain
Lake Champlain was officially a Great Lake for 18 days in March 1998: one line in a federal funding bill said so, until an uproar got the title withdrawn.
Q 16Vermont's three official state rocks are granite, marble and which other?
Slate
Slate was named beside granite and marble in a 1992 law; the slate belt around Poultney drew so many quarrymen from Wales in the 1800s that Welsh surnames are still common there.
Q 17Which Vermont dairy cooperative, started by 94 farmers in its namesake town, is best known for cheddar?
Cabot Creamery
Cabot Creamery began when 94 farmers pooled $3,700, each paying by the size of his herd; it churned butter for about a decade before making any cheese.
Q 18What is the official state insect of Vermont?
Honey Bee
The Honey Bee, state insect since 1978, is not native to America at all: the first hives were shipped from England to Virginia in 1622.
Q 19Which Vermont company opened in 1978 in a renovated gas station after its founders gave up on selling bagels?
Ben & Jerry's
Ben & Jerry's founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield found bagel equipment too expensive, so they took a Penn State correspondence course in ice-cream making instead.
Q 20The Revolutionary War's Battle of Bennington largely took place in which present-day state, near Vermont's border?
New York
New York's hamlet of Walloomsac saw the fighting in August 1777; the battle carries Bennington's name because the supply depot there, about ten miles east, was the raiders' target.
Q 24Vermont's 1777 constitution was the first in North America to take what step?
Abolish slavery
Abolish slavery: the 1777 constitution barred holding men past 21 or women past 18 in bondage, a first in North America, though violations went on for years.
Q 25In 2019, nearly all the electricity generated inside Vermont came from which type of source, the highest share of any state?
Renewable
Renewable power made up 99.9% of the electricity generated in Vermont, yet the state used about three times more than it made and had to import the rest.
Q 26What is Vermont's official state reptile?
Painted Turtle
The Painted Turtle became Vermont's state reptile in 1994 after pupils at Cornwall Elementary School suggested it to the legislature.
Q 27What is the official state pie of Vermont?
Apple Pie
Apple Pie became the state pie in 1999; the act asks for a 'good faith' effort to serve it with a slice of cheddar of at least half an ounce or a large scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Q 28Which of these states shares a border with Vermont?
Massachusetts
Massachusetts built Vermont's first permanent European settlement: its militia raised Fort Dummer near Brattleboro in 1724, on land that colony then administered.
Q 29Which of these states has less land than Vermont, the 43rd-largest?
New Jersey
New Jersey has roughly 7,400 square miles of land to Vermont's 9,200, yet it is the most densely populated state in the country.
Q 30At the 2020 census, which was the only state with fewer residents than Vermont?
Wyoming
Wyoming counted about 577,000 people in 2020 to Vermont's 643,000, even though it is the tenth-largest state by area and roughly ten times Vermont's size.