Kentucky Trivia
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118 free Kentucky trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
65 free Kentucky trivia questions with answers. This Kentucky trivia quiz gathers the facts that make the Bluegrass State unlike anywhere else: the state that makes 95 percent of the world's bourbon, runs the oldest continuously held race in the Triple Crown, sits on the longest cave system on Earth, guards half the country's gold at Fort Knox and produced both presidents of the Civil War, plus Muhammad Ali, Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn and the Louisville Slugger. The questions run from easy (the capital, the state bird, when the Derby is run) through the traditions (mint juleps, the Hot Brown, Ale-8-One, the Corvette plant) to the details even Kentuckians argue over: why the Kentucky Bend is cut off from the rest of the state, which town calls itself Quilt City, and where the first cheeseburger and Old Fashioned are claimed. It works for a classroom unit, a Derby party round or a family road trip through the commonwealth. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and Kentucky's own state records, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 118 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital of Kentucky?
Frankfort
Frankfort, far smaller than Louisville or Lexington, has been the capital since 1792; Confederate troops seized it in September 1862 but held it only briefly before Union forces drove them out.
Q 02Which Stephen Foster song is Kentucky's state song, played before the Kentucky Derby each year?
My Old Kentucky Home
My Old Kentucky Home became the state song in 1928, when legislators declared that Foster's 1853 ballad had 'immortalized Kentucky throughout the civilized world'; the University of Louisville band plays it at the Derby.
Q 03Which New England state joined the Union as the 14th, just ahead of Kentucky?
Vermont
Vermont entered in March 1791, though Congress had approved Kentucky's statehood two weeks before Vermont's; Kentucky's act set its date for June 1, 1792, which made it the 15th state.
Q 04Before statehood, Kentucky was part of which state?
Virginia
Virginia made the region Kentucky County in 1776; it then took ten conventions in a Danville courthouse to settle the terms of separation and frame a constitution, adopted in 1792.
Q 05The Bluegrass region behind Kentucky's nickname owes its famously fertile soil to which underlying rock?
Limestone
Limestone beneath the Bluegrass region weathers into rich soil laced with natural phosphate fertiliser, and the same rock, slowly dissolving, gives the area its springs and caves.
Q 06What is Kentucky's official English-language state motto?
United we stand, divided we fall
'United we stand, divided we fall' has appeared on Kentucky's seal since 1792; in 2002 the legislature added a Latin motto, Deo gratiam habeamus, 'let us be grateful to God'.
Q 07The two men shaking hands on Kentucky's state seal symbolise what?
Unity of frontiersmen and statesmen
They stand for the unity of frontiersmen and statesmen; legend names them Daniel Boone and Henry Clay, but the 1792 seal law described only 'two friends embracing'.
Q 08Kentucky's flag has a navy field with the state seal above sprigs of which state flower?
Goldenrod
Sprigs of goldenrod, the state flower, flank the seal on the flag; art teacher Jesse Cox Burgess designed it and the legislature adopted it in 1918.
Q 09What is Kentucky's state bird?
Cardinal
The cardinal became Kentucky's state bird in 1926, and six other states have picked it too; a male will fight his own reflection in a window, taking it for a rival.
Q 10Kentucky is one of only four US states that officially call themselves what?
A commonwealth
Kentucky calls itself a commonwealth, a title it shares with only Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and one other state; the word signals government for the common good and has no distinct legal status.
Q 11Which state besides Georgia has more counties than Kentucky?
Texas
Texas has 254 counties and Georgia 159 to Kentucky's 120; Kentucky kept splitting its early counties to spare settlers a journey to the county seat that could take days.
Q 12Kentucky's northern border is defined by which river?
Ohio
The Ohio River forms Kentucky's whole northern boundary with Illinois, Indiana and Ohio; the Supreme Court fixed the line at the river's northern low-water mark as it stood in 1792.
Q 13Which of these states borders Kentucky on the west?
Missouri
Missouri is one of seven states that border Kentucky, yet no bridge joins the two: the only direct crossing is the Dorena–Hickman ferry.
Q 21The Kentucky Derby is run on the first Saturday of which month?
May
The Derby is run on the first Saturday in May, opening the Triple Crown; it has been held every year since it began, though 1945 and 2020 were postponed to June and September.
Q 22The winner of the Kentucky Derby is draped in a blanket of which flowers?
Red roses
Red roses give the Derby its nickname, the Run for the Roses, coined by columnist Bill Corum in 1925; the Belmont winner gets white carnations and the Kentucky Oaks filly a garland of lilies.
Q 23Which drink is the traditional beverage of the Kentucky Derby?
Mint julep
The mint julep, bourbon with mint and sugar syrup over crushed ice in a frosted silver cup, has been the Derby's signature drink since 1938; the track serves about 120,000 over Oaks and Derby weekend.
Q 14Kentucky Bend, a pocket of the state cut off by a river loop, is reachable by road only through which state?
Tennessee
Tennessee holds the only road in, State Route 22; surveyors had merely estimated where the state line met the river, and its loop left this pocket of Kentucky stranded.
Q 15Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is notable as the world's what?
Longest known system of passages
Mammoth Cave is the longest known system of passages in the world, with more than 400 miles surveyed; its name salutes the size of its chambers, since no mammoth fossil has ever been found there.
Q 16Mammoth Cave's owner housed patients in huts deep underground in 1842-43, hoping cave air would cure which disease?
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis patients only grew worse in Dr. John Croghan's stone and wooden huts, where smoke from the cooking fires hung in the air; several died, and the disease killed Croghan himself in 1849.
Q 17Cumberland Falls in Kentucky claims to be the only place in the Western Hemisphere where what is regularly seen?
A moonbow
A moonbow, or lunar rainbow, forms in the falls' mist on clear nights around the full moon; the 68-foot falls on the Cumberland River are nicknamed the Niagara of the South.
Q 18Kentucky produces roughly what share of the world's bourbon?
95%
Kentucky makes about 95% of the world's bourbon, by the Kentucky Distillers' Association's count; the barrels ageing in its warehouses outnumber the state's roughly 4.5 million people.
Q 19By US law, bourbon must be made from a grain mash that is at least 51% what?
Corn
Corn must make up at least 51% of the mash, and the spirit must age in new charred oak containers; in 1964 Congress declared bourbon a distinctive product of the United States.
Q 20Maker's Mark bourbon, made in Loretto, Kentucky, is instantly recognisable by what feature of its bottle?
A wax seal, dipped in red
Each bottle gets a wax seal, dipped in red by hand, a touch Margie Samuels devised for the first run in 1958; the dripping red wax is a registered trademark.
Q 24Which horse set the Kentucky Derby record of 1:59.4 in 1973?
Secretariat
Secretariat ran each successive quarter-mile faster than the last, finishing in 1:59 2/5, the only sub-two-minute Derby until Monarchos ran 1:59.97 in 2001.
Q 25Which racetrack has hosted every Kentucky Derby since the first in 1875?
Churchill Downs
Churchill Downs takes its name from the Churchill family: founder Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr. built the track on his uncles' land, and Aristides won the first Derby there.
Q 26Lexington, Kentucky, calls itself the capital of the world for what?
Horses
Horses of many breeds are raised on the hundreds of farms that ring Lexington, which is also home to Keeneland, the Red Mile harness track and the Kentucky Horse Park.
Q 27Louisville, Kentucky, founded during the Revolutionary War, was named in honour of which monarch?
Louis XVI of France
Settlers named the town for Louis XVI of France, whose country had allied with the rebelling colonies in 1778; George Rogers Clark founded the settlement that year, and its charter followed in 1780.
Q 28The Louisville Slugger traces its origin to an 1884 bat hand-made for which slumping Louisville Eclipse star?
Pete Browning
Company legend says 17-year-old Bud Hillerich made the bat in his father's woodworking shop and Browning got three hits with it the next day.
Q 29Which boxer was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville in 1942?
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali, who changed his name in 1964 after joining the Nation of Islam, took up boxing at 12 when policeman Joe Martin told the boy fuming over a stolen bicycle to learn to fight first.
Q 30Near which Kentucky town was Abraham Lincoln born in 1809?
Hodgenville
Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, at Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville; Jefferson Davis, his Confederate counterpart, had been born about 100 miles away in Fairview eight months earlier.