Q 01/05

Santa Barbara's Mediterranean climate and 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

Its stretch of coast is the longest south-facing section on the US West Coast outside Alaska, which is why the sun sets over the ocean to the west of ...

Q 02/05

Which mountain range rises steeply directly behind the city?

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 east-west range tops 4,000 feet, gets a dusting of snow about once every three years and hides the Los Padres National Forest behind it.

Q 03/05

Which Native people lived in at least five villages on the site of Santa Barbara?

A) The Tongva

B) The Ohlone

C) The Miwok

D) The Chumash

Answer · why

D) The Chumash

At least 25,000 of them lived in the region; the village of Syukhtun stood where the Los Baños pool is now, and their plank canoe was called a tomol.

Q 04/05

Which Spanish explorer sailed through the channel in 1542 and anchored briefly off the future city?

A) Sebastián Vizcaíno

B) Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo

C) Gaspar de Portolà

D) Hernán Cortés

Answer · why

B) Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo

The name Santa Barbara came 60 years later, when Vizcaíno christened the channel and one of the islands in 1602.

Q 05/05

Mission Santa Barbara was founded on 4 December 1786. Where did it fall in the sequence of California missions?

A) First

B) Tenth

C) Fifteenth

D) Twenty-first

Answer · why

B) Tenth

It was dedicated by Padre Fermín Lasuén, who succeeded Junípero Serra as head of the mission chain, and it is still run by Franciscans.