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46 free Birmingham, Alabama trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Birmingham, Alabama trivia questions with answers. Birmingham trivia for Alabama's Magic City - the Birmingham founded in 1871 and named for the English one. The quiz covers why the city exists at all (the only place on Earth with iron ore, coal and limestone side by side), the Vulcan statue that won a prize in St. Louis before it ever stood on Red Mountain, Sloss Furnaces, the oldest ballpark in America and the Black Barons who played there, and the 1963 campaign - Bull Connor's hoses, the Children's Crusade, the Letter from Birmingham Jail and the four girls killed at 16th Street Baptist Church - that pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress. There are questions on modern Birmingham too: UAB as the biggest employer, the Fortune 500 companies still headquartered downtown, the 2022 World Games, the museum that is the largest in the Southeast and the 2020 census that handed the state's biggest-city title to Huntsville. Easy questions any local will get open the set; the later ones will test a Jones Valley historian. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its citation.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Birmingham, Alabama, was founded in 1871 by which developer?
Elyton Land
The Elyton Land Company, formed by railroad and real-estate investors, laid out Birmingham in 1871 where two rail lines crossed; the older town of Elyton was annexed into the city in 1910.
Q 02Birmingham, Alabama, takes its name from an English namesake known for what?
Being the UK's second-largest and an industrial hub
The founders wanted an industrial city to match; the ironworks came within a decade.
Q 03Which nickname did Birmingham earn from its explosive growth between 1881 and 1920?
The Magic City
Birmingham was dubbed the Magic City because it rose from farmland in 1871 to Alabama's largest city by 1910, as if conjured; it was also called the Pittsburgh of the South for its steel output.
Q 04Which three steelmaking raw materials lie close together in the Birmingham District?
Ore, coal and limestone
Iron ore from the ridge south of town, coal from nearby seams and limestone all lie within a few miles of the 1871 town site, a rare combination that is why the city was planted there.
Q 05Birmingham is the seat of which Alabama county?
Jefferson
Jefferson County's 2011 bankruptcy filing was the largest by a US local government at the time, though the city itself stayed solvent.
Q 06Which city overtook Birmingham as Alabama's largest after the 2020 census?
Huntsville
Huntsville's 215,006 residents in the 2020 census edged past Birmingham's 200,733, making it Alabama's largest city for the first time, though Birmingham's metro area remained the state's biggest.
Q 07Which institution was the Birmingham metro area's largest employer in 2024?
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
The University of Alabama at Birmingham, together with its hospital system, is the largest single employer in both the Birmingham metro and the state, with a workforce well above 20,000 in 2024.
Q 08Which US Secretary of State was born in Birmingham in 1954?
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009, was born in Birmingham on 14 November 1954 and spent her early childhood in the city's Titusville neighbourhood.
Q 09The Vulcan statue on the ridge south of downtown is the world's largest statue made of what?
Cast iron
Vulcan is the Roman god of fire and the forge; the 56-foot figure was made to advertise Birmingham's iron.
Q 10Vulcan was originally cast for which event, where it won a Grand Prize?
The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair
Vulcan was cast in Birmingham and shipped to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, where it won the Grand Prize; it did not reach its hilltop perch above the city until 1936.
Q 11When did the neon torch Vulcan held from 1946 to 1999 glow red?
After a traffic fatality in the city
The Jaycees' torch glowed red for 24 hours after any traffic fatality in the city and green the rest of the time; the restoration finished in 2004 gave Vulcan back his spear.
Q 12Which suburb is the butt of the long-running joke about the view of Vulcan's bare backside?
Homewood
'Moon Over Homewood' has been a local gag for decades; the statue's head alone weighs 11,000 pounds.
Q 13Sloss Furnaces produced pig iron in Birmingham from 1882 until which year?
1971
Sloss Furnaces made pig iron from 1882 until it shut down in 1971; it was named a National Historic Landmark in 1981 and reopened in 1983 as a museum of industry and a concert venue.
Q 21On what date in 1963 was 16th Street Baptist Church bombed, killing four girls?
15 September
The Klan bomb exploded on Sunday 15 September 1963, killing Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson, all 14, and Carol Denise McNair, 11.
Q 22Who was the first Klansman convicted, in 1977, for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing?
Robert Chambliss
Robert 'Dynamite Bob' Chambliss was convicted of murder in November 1977 in a case brought by Alabama attorney general Bill Baxley; Thomas Blanton followed in 2001 and Bobby Frank Cherry in 2002.
Q 23Which filmmaker made the documentary '4 Little Girls' about the church bombing?
Spike Lee
Q 14Rickwood Field, which opened on 18 August 1910, holds what distinction?
Oldest professional ballpark in the US
Rickwood Field is the oldest professional ballpark in the United States; industrialist Rick Woodward named it after himself, and the Barons beat Montgomery 3-2 at its opening on 18 August 1910.
Q 15Which baseball legend began his pro career with the Birmingham Black Barons at Rickwood Field in 1948?
Willie Mays
Mays died just days before MLB played its first-ever regular-season game in Alabama at Rickwood in June 2024.
Q 16Which two teams played the first Major League game in Alabama, at Rickwood Field in June 2024?
Cardinals and Giants
St. Louis won 6-5 in a game honouring the Negro Leagues and Juneteenth; the annual Rickwood Classic throwback game dates from 1996.
Q 17Which local minister invited Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC to Birmingham for the 1963 campaign?
Fred Shuttlesworth
Fred Shuttlesworth, leader of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, invited King and the SCLC to Birmingham; the campaign was code-named Project C, for confrontation, and opened with sit-ins and marches in April 1963.
Q 18Where was Martin Luther King Jr. when he wrote his famous Birmingham letter in April 1963?
In a cell after his Good Friday arrest
King wrote the letter in his cell in the Birmingham jail after his Good Friday arrest on 12 April 1963, answering eight white clergymen who had called the protests unwise and untimely.
Q 19The Children's Crusade of May 1963 saw Bull Connor's men turn what on young marchers?
Fire hoses and police dogs
On 3 May 1963 Commissioner Bull Connor's firefighters and police turned high-pressure fire hoses and police dogs on the young marchers; photographs of the attacks shocked the nation and pushed the Kennedy administration to act.
Q 20By 10 May 1963 Birmingham's business leaders agreed to desegregate what?
Lunch counters, restrooms and fitting rooms
The 10 May 1963 agreement pledged to desegregate lunch counters, restrooms, fitting rooms and drinking fountains within 90 days and to hire Black sales clerks; a month later Kennedy proposed the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Spike Lee's 1997 documentary 4 Little Girls was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; the four victims were posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2013.
Q 24Which green space beside 16th Street Baptist Church was the staging ground for the 1963 marches?
Kelly Ingram Park
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute stands across the street from the church, now a National Historic Landmark.
Q 25Who became Birmingham's first African American mayor in 1979?
Richard Arrington Jr.
Richard Arrington Jr., a former Miles College biology professor and city councilman, won the 1979 election and served five terms as mayor, until 1999.
Q 26Birmingham lies in which long depression, flanked by parallel ridges?
Jones Valley
Birmingham sits in Jones Valley, a long trough running northeast to southwest between parallel ridges of the Appalachian foothills; the 1871 town grid was laid along the valley floor where two railroads crossed.
Q 27Which international multi-sport event did Birmingham host in July 2022?
The World Games
Birmingham hosted the World Games, a festival of non-Olympic sports, from 7 to 17 July 2022; the city was awarded the 2021 edition in 2015 and the pandemic pushed it back a year.
Q 28Birmingham's record high temperature of 107 F was set in which year?
1930
Birmingham's all-time high of 107 F was recorded in July 1930; the city has a humid subtropical climate of hot, humid summers, mild winters and plenty of rain.
Q 29Which soft-drink bottler, founded in Birmingham in 1901, started out making only ginger ale?
Buffalo Rock
It is now a major Pepsi bottler; Coca-Cola Bottling Company United, founded a year later, is the third-largest Coke bottler in the US.
Q 30Which two Birmingham-based companies are major iron-pipe manufacturers?
ACIPCO and McWane
The American Cast Iron Pipe Company (ACIPCO), founded in 1905, and McWane, founded in 1921, both make ductile-iron pipe and fittings from Birmingham headquarters.