Q 01/05

What is the capital and largest city of Iowa?

A) Des Moines

B) Davenport

C) Iowa City

D) Cedar Rapids

Answer · why

A) Des Moines

Its name comes from the French Rivière des Moines, probably 'River of the Monks'.

Q 02/05

Which two rivers form almost all of Iowa's eastern and western borders?

A) The Ohio and the Platte

B) The Des Moines and the Cedar

C) The Mississippi and the Missouri

D) The Wisconsin and the Kansas

Answer · why

C) The Mississippi and the Missouri

It is the only state whose east and west borders are almost entirely rivers; the Big Sioux completes the western edge.

Q 03/05

Iowa takes its name ultimately from which Indigenous people?

A) The Sioux

B) The Meskwaki

C) The Ioway

D) The Sauk

Answer · why

C) The Ioway

The Ioway are a Chiwere-speaking Siouan nation once part of the Ho-Chunk Confederation.

Q 04/05

Iowa's nickname, the Hawkeye State, comes from a character in which author's work?

A) Mark Twain

B) Washington Irving

C) Herman Melville

D) James Fenimore Cooper

Answer · why

D) James Fenimore Cooper

Hawkeye is the hero of The Last of the Mohicans; the name was officially adopted by the territorial governor in 1838.

Q 05/05

Iowa became the 29th state in December of which year?

A) 1850

B) 1861

C) 1846

D) 1856

Answer · why

C) 1846

President James K. Polk signed the admission bill on 28 December.