Iowa Trivia
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97 free Iowa trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
49 free Iowa trivia questions with answers. Iowa trivia questions for the Hawkeye State proud, the transplant trying to keep up, or a classroom studying the Midwest. The quiz covers Iowa's founding (Marquette and Jolliet, the Louisiana Purchase, statehood in 1846), why it is the Hawkeye State, and the geography of a state bordered almost entirely by rivers. It also takes in the things Iowa is known for: the first-in-the-nation caucuses, the State Fair and its Butter Cow, corn, hogs and ethanol, RAGBRAI, the Amana Colonies, Effigy Mounds, and famous Iowans and Iowa stories from Herbert Hoover, John Wayne and Grant Wood's American Gothic to Field of Dreams, The Music Man, the day the music died at Clear Lake, Kurt Warner and Caitlin Clark. Easy questions come first; the harder ones will stretch lifelong Iowans. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the state, its cities, events and people, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Iowa?
Des Moines
Des Moines became the capital in 1857, when lawmakers left Iowa City for a site nearer the middle of the state; the capitol they left behind became the state university's first building.
Q 02Which two rivers form almost all of Iowa's eastern and western borders?
The Mississippi and the Missouri
The Mississippi and the Missouri bound Iowa east and west, with the Big Sioux finishing the north-west edge; statehood came late because voters threw out a first constitution after Congress shrank the borders.
Q 03Which Iowa city is home to Iowa State University and its Cyclones?
Ames
Ames is home to Iowa State, whose teams became the Cyclones in 1895 after a 36-0 rout of Northwestern drew the Chicago Tribune headline 'Struck by a Cyclone'.
Q 04Iowa's nickname, the Hawkeye State, is usually traced to a character in which author's novels?
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper's scout Hawkeye, of The Last of the Mohicans, is the origin usually given; editor James G. Edwards, who pushed the name from 1838, also meant it to keep alive the memory of the Sauk leader Black Hawk.
Q 05Which president signed Iowa into the Union in 1846?
James Polk
James Polk signed the bill on 28 December 1846; Congress had paired free Iowa with slave-state Florida to keep the Senate balanced, but Florida got in almost two years sooner.
Q 06Iowa's state flag is patterned after the flag of which country?
France
France: Dixie Cornell Gebhardt drew the blue, white and red banner in 1917 because Iowa guardsmen posted on the Mexican border had no state flag to carry; the colours nod to Iowa's years as French territory.
Q 07Iowa is the nation's largest producer of which two commodities?
Corn and ethanol
Corn and ethanol: dozens of Iowa plants turn much of the crop into fuel, and what is left of each kernel goes back to farms as distillers grains for livestock feed.
Q 08Which farm animal outnumbers the people of Iowa by about seven to one?
Hogs
Hogs: about 24 million are on Iowa farms at any one time, nearly a third of the nation's herd, fattened on the corn and soybeans grown in the fields around them.
Q 09Which Iowa city was Maytag's home from 1893 and hosts the Iowa Speedway?
Newton
Newton, east of the capital on Interstate 80, was Maytag's headquarters from 1893 until Whirlpool closed the plant in 2007, and has hosted the Iowa Speedway oval since 2006.
Q 10Which little-known candidate's showing in Iowa's 1976 caucuses launched him to the presidency?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter took 28% in January 1976, behind only 'uncommitted', and the headlines that followed carried the peanut farmer to the White House and made Iowa a fixture of every campaign.
Q 11What sets Iowa's caucuses apart from a primary election?
Party-run meetings of voters
Caucuses are party-run meetings of voters held at set times in precincts, not state-run elections with all-day secret ballots; Iowa Democrats traditionally sorted into candidate groups in the room.
Q 12Which state's primary did the DNC put first on its 2024 calendar, displacing Iowa?
South Carolina
South Carolina, whose 2020 primary had turned Joe Biden's campaign around, was given the first slot, 3 February 2024, by the Democratic National Committee after Iowa's 2020 caucus count collapsed amid app failures.
Q 13What has the Iowa State Fair's famous life-size cow been sculpted from since 1911?
Butter
Q 21Who modelled for the two figures in American Gothic?
Wood's sister and his dentist
Wood's sister and his dentist: Nan Wood Graham and Byron McKeeby posed for the pair; viewers took them for husband and wife, but Nan insisted she was the farmer's daughter.
Q 22The Amana Colonies were founded by religious refugees from which country?
Germany
Germany: the Community of True Inspiration fled persecution there for New York in the 1840s, moved to Iowa in the 1850s and shared all property until hard times forced the 'Great Change' of 1932.
Q 23The Amana Colonies gave their name to a maker of what?
Appliances
Butter: about 600 pounds is layered over a wood, wire and steel frame inside a chilled case, and much of it is saved and reused for up to ten years.
Q 14Where was the very first Iowa State Fair held, in 1854?
Fairfield
Fairfield, in southeast Iowa, staged the first two fairs from 1854; the fair then moved from town to town around eastern Iowa before settling for good in the capital in 1879.
Q 15The Field of Dreams diamond was cut into a cornfield for the 1989 film outside which Iowa town?
Dyersville
Dyersville, in northeast Iowa, is where the diamond was laid out on the Lansing family farm in 1988; fans kept coming, and in 2021 the White Sox and Yankees played a Major League game beside it.
Q 16What does the cornfield voice first whisper to Ray in Field of Dreams?
'If you build it, he will come'
'If you build it, he will come' is the first whisper, and 'he' proves to be Ray's late father rather than Shoeless Joe; the line is often misquoted as 'they will come'.
Q 17In The Bridges of Madison County, Robert Kincaid photographs the bridges for which magazine?
National Geographic
National Geographic sends Robert Kincaid to shoot Madison County's covered bridges in 1965; Robert James Waller's novel poses as a true story, but the photographer and his assignment are invented.
Q 18Which US president was born in West Branch, Iowa, in 1874?
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover, the only president born in Iowa, was orphaned by nine, sent to an uncle in Oregon at 11, and graduated in Stanford's first class in 1895; his library and grave are in West Branch.
Q 19Which Hollywood legend was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa?
John Wayne
John Wayne was born in Winterset in 1907; the 'Duke' nickname came later in California, where a fireman named the boy after the big Airedale terrier that went everywhere with him.
Q 20Grant Wood's American Gothic was inspired by a house in which Iowa town?
Eldon
Eldon's little white 'Dibble House' caught Grant Wood's eye on a drive in 1930; he sketched it and then painted, in his words, the kind of people he fancied should live in that house.
Appliances: George Foerstner began building coolers in Middle Amana in 1934, and in 1967 Amana launched the Radarange, the first popular microwave oven made for home kitchens.
Q 24What does RAGBRAI stand for?
Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa
Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa began in 1973 when Register columnists John Karras and Donald Kaul invited readers along on a six-day ride; some 300 set off and 114 rode the whole way.
Q 25In which direction does RAGBRAI cross Iowa each year?
West to east
West to east: riders dip a rear wheel in the river on Iowa's western border before setting off and a front wheel in the river on its eastern border a week later.
Q 26Which conference do the Hawkeyes play football in?
Big Ten
The Hawkeyes play in the Big Ten; since 2017 the Kinnick Stadium crowd has turned at the end of the first quarter to wave to patients watching from the children's hospital that overlooks the field.
Q 27Which sport have the Hawkeyes and Cyclones combined to win more than 30 NCAA team titles in?
Wrestling
Wrestling: Dan Gable lost just once in 118 college bouts for Iowa State, then crossed the state and coached the rival Hawkeyes to 15 NCAA team titles.
Q 28Caitlin Clark, the Iowa Hawkeyes star drafted first overall in 2024, grew up in which city?
West Des Moines
West Des Moines: Clark starred at Dowling Catholic High School there, once scoring 60 points in a game, before choosing the Hawkeyes over Notre Dame.
Q 29Which WNBA team took Caitlin Clark first overall in the 2024 draft?
Indiana Fever
The Indiana Fever took Clark first on 15 April 2024, and the crowds followed: their 340,715 home fans that season set a record for any WNBA team, beating a mark that had stood since 2001.
Q 30Which Iowa university is home to the famous Writers' Workshop?
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, begun in 1936, is the country's oldest graduate writing program; a teaching job there, Kurt Vonnegut said, came like the rescue of a drowning man.