Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
9 questions No timer
49 free Berkeley trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
43 free Berkeley trivia questions with answers. Berkeley is a city of 124,000 on the east shore of San Francisco Bay and the home of the University of California's founding campus, and it is impossible to quiz one without the other. This Berkeley trivia quiz covers both: how the town got its name from an Anglo-Irish bishop, the Ohlone shellmound and the Peralta rancho, the 1878 incorporation, the failed 1908 vote to make it the state capital, the 1923 fire, and the 1960s upheavals from the Free Speech Movement to People's Park. On the campus side there are questions on the 1868 founding, the Campanile, Memorial Stadium and the fault that runs through it, the Golden Bears and the Big Game, Ernest Lawrence's cyclotron, the sixteen elements discovered there, and Berkeley Unix. The city's food and culture get their turn too: Chez Panisse, Peet's, the Gourmet Ghetto, 924 Gilman, the first curbside recycling in America and Green Day's frontman. All answers were checked against Wikipedia's articles on the city and the university.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Berkeley, California is named after an 18th-century bishop and philosopher from which country?
Ireland
Ireland: George Berkeley, the Anglo-Irish Bishop of Cloyne, wrote 'westward the course of empire takes its way', the line trustee Frederick Billings recalled in 1866 when proposing the name.
Q 02In which California county is Berkeley located?
Alameda
Alameda County, formed in 1853 from parts of Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties, contains Berkeley; the city's eastern border follows the Berkeley Hills ridge into Contra Costa.
Q 03What was Berkeley's population at the 2020 census?
124,321
124,321 people lived in Berkeley at the 2020 census, up from 112,580 in 2010; the city borders Oakland and Emeryville to the south and Albany and Kensington to the north.
Q 04Which Indigenous people lived on the site of Berkeley, leaving a shellmound at Strawberry Creek?
The Chochenyo Ohlone
The Chochenyo Ohlone lived here for millennia, leaving the West Berkeley Shellmound near the mouth of Strawberry Creek; their grinding mortars survive in rocks such as Indian Rock.
Q 05Which Spanish soldier received the land grant, Rancho San Antonio, that included present-day Berkeley?
Luis Peralta
Luis Peralta, a Spanish soldier, received Rancho San Antonio in 1820 and divided it among four sons; Berkeley lies mostly on Domingo's portion.
Q 06In what year was the Town of Berkeley incorporated?
1878
1878 is when the Town of Berkeley incorporated, uniting the campus district with the waterfront settlement; a new charter made it the City of Berkeley in 1909.
Q 07What was the name of the waterfront settlement of saloons and industry that became West Berkeley?
Ocean View
Ocean View grew up around Jacob's Landing on the bay shore in the 1850s, a cluster of wharves, factories and saloons that merged with the campus district to form the town of Berkeley.
Q 08A 1908 statewide referendum narrowly rejected moving what to Berkeley?
The state capital
'The state capital' was the prize: the 1908 ballot measure to move it from Sacramento to Berkeley narrowly failed, but the Northbrae streets laid out for the capitol were named for California counties.
Q 09How many structures burned in the fire that swept down the Berkeley hills on September 17, 1923?
About 640
About 640 structures, including some 580 homes, burned on September 17, 1923 as wind drove the fire down from Wildcat Canyon; a late-afternoon sea breeze turned it short of downtown.
Q 10What land-use rule did Berkeley pioneer in 1916 to keep minorities out of white neighbourhoods?
Single-family zoning
Single-family zoning began in Berkeley's Elmwood district in 1916, widely cited as the first such ordinance in the United States and aimed at excluding non-white residents from the neighbourhood.
Q 11What did the university do in 1964 that triggered the Free Speech Movement?
Banned distribution of political literature on campus
'Banned distribution of political literature on campus' sums up the September 1964 rule that barred advocacy tables at the campus's main southern entrance; the arrest of a former student at one table set off the sit-ins.
Q 12Which governor sent the National Guard to occupy Berkeley during the 1969 People's Park fight?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, then governor, declared a state of emergency and sent some 2,700 National Guard troops into Berkeley after 'Bloody Thursday', 15 May 1969; the park lot stayed contested for decades.
Q 13Which Berkeley street became the focal point of the hippie movement in the late 1960s?
Q 21How many chemical elements have been discovered at Berkeley?
Sixteen
The list runs from technetium and astatine through neptunium, plutonium and americium to lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium and seaborgium.
Q 22In what year was the University of California founded at Berkeley?
1868
1868 is the founding year: the Organic Act of 23 March 1868 merged the private College of California with the state's Morrill Act land-grant college, and classes moved to Berkeley in 1873.
Q 23Which Berkeley professor invented the cyclotron and won the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for it?
Ernest Lawrence
Ernest Lawrence built the first cyclotron at Berkeley in 1931 and won the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for it; his Radiation Laboratory grew into Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Telegraph Avenue
Telegraph Avenue, running south from the campus gate, was the East Bay's answer to Haight-Ashbury in the late 1960s, lined with bookshops, cafés and street vendors and filled with protest.
Q 14Which restaurant, opened by Alice Waters in 1971, is called the birthplace of California cuisine?
Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse, opened by Alice Waters on Shattuck Avenue in 1971, built its menus around local, seasonal produce, the approach later labelled California cuisine.
Q 15What did Berkeley's Ecology Center launch in 1973, among the first of its kind nationally?
A curbside recycling program
A curbside recycling program, run by the Ecology Center from 1973, made Berkeley an early adopter; the city later banned polystyrene foam food containers in 1988.
Q 16What is the nickname of the North Berkeley commercial area packed with famous restaurants and food shops?
The Gourmet Ghetto
The Gourmet Ghetto is the nickname for the stretch of Shattuck and Vine in North Berkeley, home to The Cheese Board collective and the original Peet's Coffee store, which opened in 1966.
Q 17Which legendary all-ages punk venue in West Berkeley helped launch Green Day?
924 Gilman
924 Gilman, a volunteer-run, all-ages club that opened on Gilman Street in 1986, hosted Green Day's early shows; its no-major-labels rule later kept the band out after they signed.
Q 18Which seismic zone runs through Berkeley, straight down the middle of the university's stadium?
The Hayward Fault
The Hayward Fault runs the length of Memorial Stadium, which was rebuilt in 2010-12 with seismic joints; the USGS has rated it among the Bay Area faults most likely to rupture.
Q 19Which East Bay parkland occupies the upper reaches of Wildcat Canyon east of the city?
Tilden
Tilden Regional Park, opened in 1936 and named for park-district founder Charles Lee Tilden, fills upper Wildcat Canyon with a steam train, a carousel, a botanic garden and Lake Anza.
Q 20On which body of water does Berkeley's western shoreline lie?
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay borders Berkeley on the west; the city's shoreline includes the Berkeley Marina and the former landfill that became César Chávez Park.
Q 24Which Berkeley chemist shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for CRISPR gene editing?
Jennifer Doudna
Jennifer Doudna, professor of chemistry and molecular biology at Berkeley, shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Emmanuelle Charpentier for developing CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing.
Q 25Sather Tower on the Berkeley campus is nicknamed after which Venetian landmark?
St Mark's Campanile
St Mark's Campanile in Venice was the model for Sather Tower, completed in 1914 and known on campus simply as the Campanile; it stands 307 feet tall with a 61-bell carillon.
Q 26What is the name of Cal's costumed bear mascot, introduced in 1941 to replace live bear cubs?
Oski
He is named after the Oski-wow-wow yell, and only the Oski Committee knows who is inside the suit.
Q 27What trophy has gone to the winner of Cal's Big Game against its arch-rival since 1933?
The Stanford Axe
The Stanford Axe, seized by Cal students at a Stanford rally in 1899, became the Big Game trophy in 1933 after Stanford's 'Immortal 21' stole it back in 1930.
Q 28What were the university's first school colours, chosen by students in 1873?
Yale Blue and gold
Yale Blue and gold were chosen in 1873, the blue honouring Yale, alma mater of several founders, and the gold standing for the Golden State.
Q 29Which league did Cal's teams join in 2024 after the collapse of the Pac-12?
The ACC
The ACC took in Cal, Stanford and SMU for the 2024-25 season after the Pac-12 lost ten of its twelve members to other leagues in 2023-24.
Q 30The California Victory Cannon fires after every Cal score from which spot overlooking Memorial Stadium?
Tightwad Hill
Tightwad Hill, the slope east of Memorial Stadium where fans watch for free, holds the Victory Cannon, fired at kickoff and after every Cal score; the 1991 rout of Pacific used up its ammunition.