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50 free Austin trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free Austin trivia questions with answers. Austin is the city that keeps itself weird, and this quiz covers why: the capital that started as Waterloo, the granite Capitol taller than Washington's, the 1.5 million bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge, Barton Springs and its salamander, the last moonlight towers on earth, the University of Texas and its Longhorns, SXSW, Austin City Limits, Whole Foods, Dell, Tesla, breakfast tacos and the brisket line at Franklin. Easy questions are for anyone who has visited. Harder ones ask what the town was called before 1839, how the Capitol was paid for, how tall the UT Tower is, which label turned Willie outlaw, and what Whole Foods was called before it was Whole Foods. It suits a bachelor-party weekend, a newcomer's welcome or a Texas-themed pub quiz round. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city, its landmarks, its institutions and its festivals, and each question carries its source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Austin called before being renamed in 1839?
Waterloo
President Mirabeau B. Lamar picked the site where the roads to San Antonio and Santa Fe crossed, over the objections of Sam Houston.
Q 02The city is named after Stephen F. Austin, known by what title?
The Father of Texas
He brought the Old Three Hundred families to Texas in the 1820s and died in 1836, before the city existed; he never visited the site.
Q 03What is Austin's official slogan?
The Live Music Capital of the World
Keep Austin Weird is the unofficial one, coined by librarian Red Wassenich in 2000 and later copied by Portland and Louisville.
Q 04Who coined the slogan Keep Austin Weird, printing bumper stickers from July 2000?
Red Wassenich
The Austin Independent Business Alliance adopted it to promote local shops; Portland borrowed it in 2003.
Q 05What was Austin's population at the 2020 census?
961,855
That made it the 12th-most populous US city and one of the fastest-growing large cities since 2010.
Q 06Which downtown crossing of Lady Bird Lake houses the world's largest urban bat colony?
Congress Avenue Bridge
Up to 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats roost in its crevices from March; it was renamed for Governor Ann Richards in 2006.
Q 07What species of bat lives under Austin's downtown bridge?
Mexican free-tailed bat
Bat Conservation International estimates 750,000 to 1.5 million of them each summer.
Q 08Barton Springs Pool stays between roughly what temperatures year-round?
68 and 74 °F
It is fed by Main Barton Spring, the fourth-largest spring in Texas, and Robert Redford learned to swim there.
Q 09Which endangered creature lives only in the city's famous spring-fed pool and its immediate surroundings?
The Barton Springs salamander
Its discovery reshaped how the pool is cleaned and how the Edwards Aquifer above it is protected.
Q 10Barton Springs lies in which 350-acre green space named for the ice-maker who sold the city the land?
Zilker Park
Andrew Jackson Zilker, who used the spring water for his ice business, sold the land to the city from 1917 and gave the proceeds to schools.
Q 11The downtown reservoir renamed for Lady Bird Johnson in 2007 was previously called what?
Town Lake
The city built it in 1960 as a cooling pond for a power plant; Lady Bird Johnson declined the renaming while she was alive.
Q 12What has been banned in Lady Bird Lake since 1964?
Swimming
The fine can be up to $500; the 10-mile hike-and-bike trail around it is one of the city's most used amenities.
Q 13The Texas State Capitol, completed in 1888, is sheathed in what distinctive material?
Sunset red granite
The owners of Granite Mountain near Marble Falls donated the stone free of charge.
Q 21UT's Harry Ransom Center holds one of only 21 complete copies of what?
The Gutenberg Bible
It also owns the world's first permanent photograph, Niépce's View from the Window at Le Gras.
Q 22Which pair of UT students wrote Bottle Rocket together on campus?
Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson
McConaughey is also a Longhorn and now teaches a class there.
Q 23How many national championships does Texas Longhorns football claim?
Four
1963, 1969, 1970 and 2005, the last sealed by Vince Young's Rose Bowl win over USC.
Q 14How does the height of the Texas Capitol compare with the US Capitol in Washington?
It is taller
At 302.64 feet it is the sixth-tallest state capitol; a 1983 law protects 30 view corridors to it.
Q 15How was the construction of the Texas Capitol paid for?
With three million acres of Panhandle land
The Capitol Syndicate turned the land into the XIT Ranch, then the largest cattle ranch in the world.
Q 16What statue stands atop the Capitol dome?
The Goddess of Liberty
The original was lifted off by helicopter in 1985 and replaced with an aluminium replica.
Q 17Austin is the only city in the world still known to have what kind of 19th-century street lighting?
Moonlight towers
The 165-foot towers were installed in 1895 and appear in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused.
Q 18How tall are Austin's 1895 arc-lamp light towers?
165 feet
Each originally carried six carbon arc lamps bright enough, it was said, to read a watch face 1,500 feet away.
Q 19In what year was the University of Texas at Austin founded?
1883
It is the flagship of the UT System, with more than 50,000 students on the Forty Acres.
Q 20The UT Tower, part of the Beaux-Arts Main Building, is how tall?
307 feet
Paul Philippe Cret designed it; it was the site of Charles Whitman's 1966 shooting.
Q 24Which two Longhorns have won the Heisman Trophy?
Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams
Campbell won in 1977 and Williams in 1998; Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium seats more than 100,000.
Q 25Which conference did Texas and Oklahoma leave the Big 12 to join?
The SEC
They accepted invitations in July 2021 after 25 seasons in the Big 12.
Q 26South by Southwest was founded in which year?
1987
Roland Swenson organised it with Austin Chronicle editor Louis Black and publisher Nick Barbaro.
Q 27Which social platform famously gained early traction at SXSW Interactive in 2007?
Foursquare launched there in 2009 and was called the breakout app of the event.
Q 28Which sitting US president gave a speech at SXSW Interactive in March 2016?
Barack Obama
He called on the tech industry to help solve national problems, amid the FBI-Apple encryption dispute.
Q 29Which company, owner of Rolling Stone and Variety, bought a 50 percent stake in SXSW in April 2021?
Penske Media
The festival's 2019 economic impact was a record $356 million; the 2022 return brought $280 million.
Q 30Austin City Limits is the only television show to have received which honour?
The National Medal of Arts
It won in 2003; the show also has a Peabody and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.