Q 01/05

Santa Barbara's Mediterranean climate and south-facing coastline have earned it what nickname?

A) The Golden Coast

B) California's Côte d'Azur

C) The American Riviera

D) The Sunshine Shore

Answer · why

C) The American Riviera

Santa Barbara is marketed as the American Riviera; its east-west coastline faces south and is backed by mountains, echoing the sheltered, sunny shore ...

Q 02/05

Which mountain range rises steeply right behind Santa Barbara?

A) The Santa Ynez Mountains

B) The San Gabriel Mountains

C) The Santa Lucia Range

D) The Sierra Madre

Answer · why

A) The Santa Ynez Mountains

The Santa Ynez Mountains run east to west, so the city at their foot faces south across the water and sits squeezed between steep slopes and the sea.

Q 03/05

Which Native people had villages along the Santa Barbara shore long before the Spanish arrived?

A) The Tongva

B) The Ohlone

C) The Miwok

D) The Chumash

Answer · why

D) The Chumash

The Chumash traded between the mainland and the Channel Islands in tomols, seagoing canoes built from redwood planks and sealed with pine pitch and na...

Q 04/05

Which explorer, sailing for Spain, led the first European ships up the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542?

A) Sebastián Vizcaíno

B) Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo

C) Francisco Vázquez de Coronado

D) Hernán Cortés

Answer · why

B) Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo met the coast's villagers that October but never made it home; he died on the voyage in January 1543, and his crew pushed on n...

Q 05/05

Which religious order founded Mission Santa Barbara in 1786 and has never left?

A) The Jesuits

B) The Dominicans

C) The Franciscans

D) The Benedictines

Answer · why

C) The Franciscans

The Franciscans never left Mission Santa Barbara, even after Mexico took the mission lands in the 1830s, so friars and novices still live beside an ar...