Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
This New Hampshire trivia quiz has 70 free questions with answers and runs the length of the Granite State, from its 18 miles of coastline to the summit of Mount Washington. It covers the basics everyone should know - the capital, the largest city, the state bird and the motto - and then digs into the stories behind them: John Stark's 1809 toast, the first-in-the-nation primary and the midnight voters of Dixville Notch, the collapse of the Old Man of the Mountain and the 231 mph gust that held the world wind record for six decades. There are questions on the people New Hampshire produced too - Franklin Pierce, Alan Shepard, Christa McAuliffe, Daniel Webster, Sarah Josepha Hale, Bode Miller, Adam Sandler and Seth Meyers - along with Dartmouth, the Cog Railway, Bretton Woods, the Fisher Cats and the odd corners of state law, like the 400-member House and the missing seat belt rule. About a third of the questions are easy warm-ups; the rest climb toward the kind of detail only a lifelong Granite Stater would know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the official state motto of New Hampshire?
Live Free or Die
The phrase comes from a toast a Revolutionary War general sent to a Battle of Bennington reunion in 1809; it did not become the official motto until 1945.
Q 02Which city is the capital of New Hampshire?
Concord
The State House there was completed in 1819 and is the oldest U.S. state capitol in which the legislature still meets in its original chambers.
Q 03What is the most populous city in New Hampshire?
Manchester
With about 115,000 residents at the 2020 census it dwarfs every other city in the state, and its old textile mills now house tech firms.
Q 04New Hampshire's ratifying vote put the U.S. Constitution into effect. It was which state to ratify?
9th
Article VII required nine states, so New Hampshire's vote on June 21, 1788 was the one that made the Constitution operative.
Q 05New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any U.S. state. Roughly how long is it?
18 miles
Even so, it packs in the port of Portsmouth, a string of beach resorts and the state's share of the Isles of Shoals.
Q 06Which of these taxes does New Hampshire NOT levy?
General sales tax
The state has neither a general sales tax nor a broad income tax, which is why residents of neighbouring states drive over to shop.
Q 07What is New Hampshire's official nickname?
The Granite State
The nickname refers to its extensive granite formations and quarries; the Old Man of the Mountain was itself a stack of granite ledges.
Q 08Which Canadian province borders New Hampshire to the north?
Quebec
The state also borders Massachusetts and Vermont, and its far north was briefly a self-declared independent republic in the 1830s.
Q 09What is New Hampshire's state bird?
Purple finch
The state flower is also purple: the purple lilac, adopted as a symbol of the hardy character of the state's people.
Q 10New Hampshire's state fruit is a Halloween staple. Which is it?
Pumpkin
The state also lists skiing as its official sport, the ladybug as its insect and the red-spotted newt as its amphibian.
Q 11On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire became the first colony to do what?
Declare independence from Great Britain
That was almost six months before the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia.
Q 12The colony that became New Hampshire was named in 1629 after a county in which country?
England
Hampshire is the county on England's south coast that contains Southampton and Winchester.
Q 13The New Hampshire legislature has an unusual official name. What is it?
The General Court
Q 21Which Mount Washington cirque is the Northeast's best-known spring backcountry ski spot?
Tuckerman
Skiers hike up carrying their gear because there are no lifts; the bowl's headwall reaches pitches of around 55 degrees.
Q 22The Mount Washington Auto Road opened to the public in 1861. Which came along eight years later, in 1869?
The Cog Railway
The Cog Railway was the world's first mountain-climbing rack railway, and its 37% maximum grade makes it the second-steepest on Earth after Switzerland's Pilatus line.
Q 23Which inventor built the Mount Washington rack railway after a legislator's moon joke?
Sylvester Marsh
Its lower house is by far the largest of any U.S. state, yet its members are paid almost nothing.
Q 14How many members sit in the New Hampshire House, the largest lower house of any U.S. state?
400
The runner-up, Pennsylvania's House, has 203 members; only the U.S. House, the British House of Commons and India's Lok Sabha are bigger in the English-speaking world.
Q 15What annual salary does a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives receive?
$100
The pay is set by the state constitution at $200 per two-year term plus mileage, which is why the chamber is full of retirees.
Q 16New Hampshire has held the first presidential primary in the nation since what year?
1920
The primary itself dates to 1916; a 1952 law let voters pick candidates directly rather than delegates, which is when the contest became a national spectacle.
Q 17New Hampshire law requires its primary to be at least how many days before any similar contest?
Seven
The statute lets the secretary of state pick the date, which is how the state has leapfrogged every challenger for a century.
Q 18Which tiny New Hampshire hamlet opens its polls at midnight to cast the primary's first ballots?
Dixville Notch
The tradition began in 1960 in the ballroom of The Balsams resort; with so few voters the polls usually close again within ten minutes.
Q 19Mount Washington is the highest peak in the northeastern United States. How tall is it?
6,288 feet
It sits in the Presidential Range and its Abenaki name is Agiocochook; the summit hut markets itself as the home of the world's worst weather.
Q 20What record wind speed did the Mount Washington Observatory record in April 1934?
231 mph
The record fell in 1996 to a gust measured during a tropical cyclone on Barrow Island, Australia; Mount Washington still holds the mark for a manned station.
Marsh had made his fortune in Chicago meatpacking; construction reached the summit in July 1869, and the line has run steam locomotives ever since.
Q 24On which mountain did the Old Man of the Mountain rock profile sit before it collapsed?
Cannon
The face was five granite ledges about 40 feet tall in Franconia Notch; the peak also has North America's first aerial passenger tramway, opened in 1938.
Q 25In what year did the Old Man of the Mountain finally crumble and fall?
2003
It fell on the night of May 3; the state had spent decades pinning it together with cables and turnbuckles.
Q 26Which author drew on the Old Man of the Mountain for the 1850 short story 'The Great Stone Face'?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The profile has been the official state emblem since 1945 and still appears on route signs and the state quarter, two decades after it fell.
Q 27In what year was New Hampshire's state quarter, showing the Old Man of the Mountain, released?
2000
The coin came out three years before the profile collapsed, making it one of the few state quarters depicting a landmark that no longer exists.
Q 28Which Revolutionary War general's 1809 toast later became New Hampshire's motto?
John Stark
The toast ended 'Death is not the worst of evils'; Stark sent it in writing because poor health kept him from attending.
Q 29What was the religion of George Maynard, who covered part of his New Hampshire plate motto and won in 1977?
Jehovah's Witness
The 7-2 decision in Wooley v. Maynard held that the state could not force drivers to display a message they found objectionable.
Q 30What is the largest body of fresh water in New Hampshire?
Winnipesaukee
It covers about 69 square miles and holds at least 264 islands; the paddle steamer that has cruised it since 1872 is named for the state's highest mountain.