Connecticut Trivia
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128 free Connecticut trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
74 free Connecticut trivia questions with answers. Connecticut is small enough to drive across in two hours and dense enough with history to fill a much longer quiz. This one covers the Fundamental Orders and the Charter Oak legend, the first English settlements, the Amistad case, the whaling and submarine towns of the shoreline, and the factories that made Hartford the world capital of revolvers and typewriters. It also gets into the fun stuff: the New Haven lunch wagon that claims the first hamburger, the pie company behind the Frisbee, Wiffle ball, PEZ, ESPN's Bristol studios, Lake Compounce, Foxwoods, the UConn women's 111-game streak, Yale's bulldog, and the state symbols from the sperm whale to the 2024 state candy. Easy questions suit family game night; the hard ones will test lifelong Nutmeggers. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the state, its towns and its people, and each question shows the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 128 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hartford is the capital, but which city was Connecticut's most populous at the 2020 census?
Bridgeport
Bridgeport counted about 148,600 residents in 2020, some 13,000 more than its nearest rival; Hartford, the capital, came only fourth.
Q 02Connecticut's nickname, the Constitution State, honors which colonial document?
The Fundamental Orders
The Fundamental Orders of 1639 grew out of a sermon in which Thomas Hooker argued that authority rests on the free consent of the people; the nickname became official in 1959.
Q 03Which spice gives Connecticut its unofficial nickname?
Nutmeg
Connecticut is the Nutmeg State; one tongue-in-cheek origin story says its peddlers sold carved wooden nutmegs as the real spice to unsuspecting customers.
Q 04Which song is Connecticut's official state song?
Yankee Doodle
Yankee Doodle became the state song in 1978; British officers first sang it to mock ragged colonial troops, who turned the joke around and marched to it themselves.
Q 05Connecticut takes its name from a Mohegan-Pequot word usually translated as what?
Long tidal river
Long tidal river is the usual rendering of quinnehtukqut, the name of the river that splits the state; the colony was named after the river, not the other way round.
Q 06Connecticut's high point sits on the slope of which peak, whose summit lies across the state line?
Mount Frissell
Mount Frissell peaks in Massachusetts, so Connecticut's highest ground is a marker on its south slope at about 2,380 feet; the state's highest true summit is a different mountain nearby.
Q 07Which lake, created behind a hydroelectric dam in the 1920s, is the largest in Connecticut?
Candlewood Lake
Candlewood Lake, Connecticut's largest lake at about 5,400 acres, was created when Connecticut Light & Power dammed the Rocky River and pumped Housatonic water into the valley from 1928.
Q 08Which state borders Connecticut to the west?
New York
New York agreed in 1683 to let Connecticut keep its southwestern corner on the Sound; in return it took the Oblong, a strip nearly two miles wide along the rest of the border.
Q 09Long Island Sound, along Connecticut's southern shore, is which kind of coastal feature?
An estuary
Long Island Sound is an estuary, where fresh water from the Connecticut, Housatonic and Thames rivers mixes with Atlantic salt water behind the shelter of Long Island.
Q 10Which long-distance hiking trail crosses Bear Mountain, the highest summit entirely within Connecticut?
The Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail climbs Bear Mountain, at 2,316 feet the state's tallest peak, just before crossing into Massachusetts; Connecticut's highest ground is on the flank of a mountain over that line.
Q 11Which units of local government did Connecticut abolish in 1960, though all eight still appear on its maps?
Counties
Counties survive in Connecticut only as lines on the map: the state ended county government in 1960 after nearly 300 years, leaving its 169 towns to run local affairs.
Q 12The Connecticut Compromise of 1787 gave every state an equal vote in which body?
The Senate
The Senate gives every state two seats while House seats follow population: Connecticut's delegates proposed the split, and the convention adopted it in July 1787 after large and small states had deadlocked.
Q 13Which Dutch navigator became the first European to explore the Connecticut River, in 1614?
Adriaen Block
Q 21Which New Haven pizzeria is credited with inventing the white clam pie?
Frank Pepe's
Frank Pepe's, founded on Wooster Street in 1925, is credited with creating the white clam pie, topped with fresh clams, garlic, oregano and grated cheese instead of tomato.
Q 22Which dish did the Connecticut House vote in 2021 to make the official state food, in a bill that never became law?
Pizza
Pizza passed the House in May 2021, but the bill died on the other chamber's calendar; the statute book, revised to 2026, lists a state candy, the lollipop, and still no state food.
Q 23PEZ candy's US factory and visitor center are in which Connecticut town?
Orange
Adriaen Block sailed up the Connecticut River in 1614 and left his name on Block Island; the Dutch followed with the House of Hope, a trading fort on the site of Hartford.
Q 14Thomas Hooker led his followers from which colony to found the Connecticut Colony?
Massachusetts Bay
Thomas Hooker left the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 and led about a hundred followers overland to found Hartford, the heart of the new Connecticut Colony.
Q 15By legend, colonists hid Connecticut's 1662 charter in the Charter Oak in 1687 to keep it from which official?
Sir Edmund Andros
Sir Edmund Andros, governor of the Dominion of New England, demanded the charter in October 1687; legend says the candles went out and Captain Joseph Wadsworth slipped away with it.
Q 16The Charter Oak was commemorated on Connecticut's coin in the 50 State Quarters program in what year?
1999
Connecticut's quarter was released in 1999, early in the state quarters series, showing the Charter Oak, which was toppled by a storm in August 1856.
Q 17What species of tree was the Charter Oak, now honored as Connecticut's state tree?
White oak
The Charter Oak was a white oak; after a storm brought it down in 1856, its wood was carved into keepsakes, among them a ceremonial chair still used in the State Capitol.
Q 18The world's first telephone directory, issued in New Haven in February 1878, listed about how many subscribers?
50
The single sheet listed 50 subscribers and no numbers: every call went through an operator at the central office, who connected callers by name.
Q 19How does New Haven's Louis' Lunch, claimed birthplace of the hamburger, serve its burgers?
On toasted white bread
On toasted white bread, as in 1900: the Lassen family says a customer in a hurry was handed broiled ground steak between two slices of toast, the first hamburger sandwich.
Q 20Louis' Lunch in New Haven, which claims to have invented the hamburger, refuses to serve which of these?
Ketchup
Ketchup is barred along with every other condiment: the Lassen family, grilling since 1895, allows only cheese, tomato or onion so that the taste of the burger stays simple.
PEZ has been made in Orange since the 1970s; it began in Vienna in 1927 as a peppermint for adults, sold as an alternative to smoking, and its name is cut from Pfefferminz.
Q 24Wiffle ball was invented in 1953 in which Connecticut town?
Fairfield
David N. Mullany invented the Wiffle ball in his Fairfield backyard in 1953, perforating a plastic ball so his 12-year-old son could throw curves without straining his arm.
Q 25ESPN broadcasts from studios in which Connecticut town?
Bristol
Bristol got ESPN almost by accident: its founders first rented offices in nearby Plainville, but the town's ban on satellite dishes sent them next door, where they bought a plot of their own.
Q 26ESPN went on the air from Connecticut on September 7, 1979, with the first edition of which show?
SportsCenter
SportsCenter opened ESPN's first night with Lee Leonard and George Grande at the desk; the network now known for the big leagues followed it with a slow-pitch softball game.
Q 27Lake Compounce, opened in 1846, is the oldest continuously operating what in the United States?
Amusement park
The oldest amusement park still running began with a flop: in 1846 Gad Norton hired a scientist to stage experiments with explosives by the lake, and though they failed, the crowds kept coming.
Q 28Foxwoods Resort Casino stands on the reservation of which Connecticut tribe?
Mashantucket Pequot
The Mashantucket Pequot opened a high-stakes bingo hall on their reservation in 1986 and grew it into Foxwoods, which opened as a full casino in 1992.
Q 29Who became head coach of the UConn women's basketball team in 1985?
Geno Auriemma
Geno Auriemma took over a team with one winning season in its history; ten years later his 1995 side went 35-0 and won UConn's first national title.
Q 30UConn's record 111-game winning streak ended in the 2017 Final Four with an overtime loss to which team?
Mississippi State
Mississippi State won 66-64 on a shot at the overtime buzzer, a year after UConn had beaten the same team by 60 points in the tournament.