Amish Trivia
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This Amish trivia quiz has 48 free questions with answers and covers the history, beliefs and everyday life of the Old Order Amish. It starts with the Anabaptist roots in Zwingli's Zürich, the 1693 split led by Jakob Ammann and the migration to William Penn's Pennsylvania, then follows the church through the Old Order division, the Beachy and New Order groups and the Supreme Court's Wisconsin v. Yoder ruling. The rest is about how the Amish live: the Ordnung and church districts, worship every other Sunday in homes, Rumspringa and adult baptism, shunning, why men grow beards but never moustaches, hooks and eyes instead of buttons, one-room schools, the Pennsylvania Dutch language, the largest settlements in Lancaster County and Holmes County, whoopie pies and shoofly pie, plus the film Witness and the extraordinary forgiveness after the Nickel Mines shooting. About a third of the questions are easy; the rest reward people who have read beyond the tourist brochures. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Amish and related topics, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Amish are named for which Anabaptist leader, whose followers split from the Swiss Mennonites in 1693?
Jakob Ammann
Jakob Ammann, a Swiss-born elder, split the church in 1693 by demanding stricter discipline, down to untrimmed beards and plain dress for his followers.
Q 02The Anabaptist movement from which the Amish emerged began in 1525 in which Swiss city?
Zürich
Conrad Grebel and George Blaurock performed the first adult rebaptisms in Zürich in January 1525, breaking with the city council's official Reformation.
Q 03Which hymnbook, first printed in 1564, do the Amish sing from in worship?
The Ausbund
The Ausbund grew from hymns written by Anabaptists held in the dungeons of Passau castle in the 1530s, and Amish congregations still sing from it today.
Q 04What do the Amish call the set of church rules that governs dress, technology and daily life?
The Ordnung
The Ordnung is each church district's mostly unwritten code covering dress, buggies and permitted technology; what it allows differs noticeably from district to district.
Q 05Which war brought a 1757 raid on the Amish at Northkill?
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War: when raiders struck the Hochstetler farm, the father forbade his sons to shoot back, holding to Amish non-resistance, and three of the family were killed.
Q 06Mid-19th-century Amish immigrants settled mostly in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and which Canadian province?
Ontario
Ontario drew Amish settlers from the 1820s; most of the 19th-century arrivals across North America later joined less conservative Amish Mennonite groups.
Q 07As of 2025, roughly how many Amish live in the United States?
About 400,000
About 400,000: the 2025 estimate was roughly 405,000 in more than 30 states, and it keeps climbing because about 85 percent of Amish children choose to join the church.
Q 08The Amish population doubles roughly how often?
Every 20 years
Every 20 years or so: families average five or more children and about 85 percent of the young join the church, so the community grows with almost no converts.
Q 09What do the Amish generally call non-Amish people?
English
The Amish call all outsiders 'English', whatever their ethnicity, because the world beyond the church speaks English rather than the dialect used at home.
Q 10Which language, a form of German, do most Old Order Amish speak at home?
Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch is a dialect of German with roots in the Palatinate; despite its name it has nothing to do with the Netherlands.
Q 11In the Amish church, adult baptism is a requirement for which other step in life?
Marriage
Marriage: both partners must be baptised members before an Amish wedding, one reason most young people choose to join the church by their early twenties.
Q 12What do the Amish call the period from around age 16 when youth experience the outside world before baptism?
Rumspringa
Rumspringa means 'running around' in the Amish dialect; elders see it mainly as a time for courtship, whatever the popular image of teenage rebellion.
Q 13How often do Old Order Amish hold worship services?
Every other Sunday
Amish districts meet every other Sunday, rotating among members' homes and barns; the off-Sunday is spent visiting family or attending another district's service.
Q 21As of 2020, in which Ohio county were the Amish nearly half of all residents, the highest share anywhere?
Holmes
Holmes County was about 48 percent Amish in 2020, up from 42 percent in 2010, and the community has made tourism one of the mainstays of the local economy.
Q 22As of 2024, the world's largest single Amish settlement was centred on which Pennsylvania county?
Lancaster
Lancaster County's settlement, begun around 1760, is the oldest still going; its grey-topped buggies now mark daughter communities in several other states.
Q 23The Amish are formally exempt from which US government programme, having a religious objection to it?
Social Security
Self-employed Amish have been exempt from Social Security since 1965, and Amish employees of Amish employers since 1988; they neither pay in nor draw benefits, relying on mutual aid instead.
Q 14What does an Amish church district do when it outgrows members' homes?
Divides in two
It divides in two: with no church building to move into, a district is kept to about 20 to 40 households so that everyone still fits into one home for worship.
Q 15How are Amish bishops, ministers and deacons chosen?
By a mix of election and drawing lots
Ordination is by a mix of election and drawing lots: members nominate, then each nominee picks a hymnal, one holding a slip of paper, following the apostles' choice of Matthias.
Q 16Old Order Amish children typically finish formal schooling after which grade?
Eighth
Amish children finish school after the eighth grade, usually in their own one-room schools; further learning is practical, at home, on the farm or in the shop.
Q 17Which 1972 Supreme Court case put Amish religious freedom above compulsory high-school education?
Wisconsin v. Yoder
In Wisconsin v. Yoder, Jonas Yoder and two other fathers had been fined $5 each for keeping their 14- and 15-year-olds out of school; the Court ruled for them in 1972.
Q 18Old Order Amish men's coats and vests are fastened not with buttons but with what?
Hooks and eyes
Hooks and eyes fasten men's coats and vests, a habit so marked that the Amish were once nicknamed the 'hook-and-eye people', while Mennonites were the 'button people'.
Q 19What is the Amish practice of social avoidance imposed on members who are excommunicated?
Shunning
Shunning, or Meidung, cuts an excommunicated member off from normal business and social dealings with the church until they confess and are restored.
Q 20The Amish prize Gelassenheit, a German word they use to mean what?
Submission to God's will
Gelassenheit, roughly 'yieldedness' or submission to God's will, underlies Amish humility, plain dress and the reluctance to draw attention to oneself.
Q 24Which Amish subgroup, unlike the Old Order, drives cars and worships in the local language?
Beachy
Beachy Amish trace to a 1927 split in Pennsylvania under Bishop Moses Beachy; they went on to accept cars and electricity, and now worship in meetinghouses.
Q 25Which habit did the New Order Amish ban when they formed?
Smoking tobacco
Smoking tobacco was banned and courtship rules were tightened: the New Order wanted a stricter moral code while keeping the horse and buggy.
Q 26Which ultra-conservative Amish affiliation emerged in Ohio during World War I?
Swartzentruber
The Swartzentruber Amish split from other Old Order churches between 1913 and 1917; among the strictest groups, they refuse even the orange safety triangle most Amish hang on their buggies.
Q 27Which genetic term explains why rare inherited disorders are unusually common among the Amish?
The founder effect
The founder effect: most Amish descend from a small group of 18th-century immigrants, so rare recessive alleles those settlers carried are far commoner among them than in the wider population.
Q 28In Witness, the Amish boy Samuel sees a murder in which city's railway station?
Philadelphia
Young Samuel Lapp witnesses the killing of an undercover officer in a restroom at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, which draws detective John Book into hiding on the Lapp farm.
Q 29Which Australian director made the 1985 Amish thriller Witness?
Peter Weir
Peter Weir could not shoot on a real Amish farm: families turned down Paramount's money, and Pennsylvania later agreed to discourage film-makers from making the Amish their subject.
Q 30After the 2006 Nickel Mines school shooting, the Amish response drew attention for what?
Its forgiveness of the gunman
Its forgiveness of the gunman drew worldwide attention: Amish neighbours comforted the killer's family within hours, and dozens of them attended his funeral.