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80 free New York State trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
76 free New York State trivia questions with answers. New York is a lot more than New York City, and this quiz deliberately heads upstate. It covers the Dutch and English colonial story, the Revolutionary War battles fought on New York soil, the Erie Canal, the Adirondacks and Catskills, Niagara Falls, the Finger Lakes and the Thousand Islands, plus the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany and what each is known for. There are questions on state symbols, from the motto Excelsior to the schoolgirl who lobbied for a state insect, on the foods the state claims (Buffalo wings, Jell-O, the potato chip legend), on presidents born in small New York towns, and on Woodstock, Cooperstown, Lake Placid, Saratoga and Seneca Falls. The first questions suit a classroom or a family road trip; later ones will test lifelong residents. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia articles on the state, its cities, parks and landmarks, and each question shows the sentence that supports it once you answer. Free, no signup.
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Q 01What is the capital of New York State?
Albany
It has held the job since 1797 and is the oldest surviving settlement of the original Thirteen Colonies north of Virginia.
Q 02What is New York's official nickname?
The Empire State
George Washington reportedly called New York the 'Seat of Empire' while touring its harbors and interior.
Q 03Which mountain is the highest point in New York State?
Mount Marcy
It rises 5,344 feet in the Adirondack High Peaks; the state's lowest point is sea level on the Atlantic.
Q 04How many counties does New York State have?
62
Five of them are the boroughs of New York City, each coterminous with a county.
Q 05New York was which number state to ratify the US Constitution?
11th
Ratification came on July 26, 1788, after heated debate that included the publication of The Federalist Papers in New York City newspapers.
Q 06Which explorer's 1609 voyage up the river later named for him began European involvement in the area?
Henry Hudson
He was sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia.
Q 07What was the name of the Dutch colony that England seized and renamed the Province of New York in 1664?
New Netherland
When the Dutch briefly recaptured the city in 1673 they renamed it New Orange, but handed it back a year later.
Q 08Who was director-general of the Dutch colony from 1647 until it was ceded to England?
Peter Stuyvesant
He expanded New Amsterdam beyond the southern tip of Manhattan before surrendering it in 1664.
Q 09Which governor championed the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825?
DeWitt Clinton
Opponents mocked the project as 'Clinton's Ditch' before it turned Buffalo and Rochester into boom towns.
Q 10How long was the original Erie Canal from the Hudson to Lake Erie?
363 miles
The channel was just 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep, with the spoil piled up to form a towpath for horses.
Q 11Which 1777 New York battle persuaded France to ally with the American revolutionaries?
Saratoga
General John Burgoyne's entire British army was captured, the first of two major British armies lost in the war.
Q 12Which northern New York stronghold was captured by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold on May 10, 1775?
Fort Ticonderoga
The French had built it as Fort Carillon, and in 1758 4,000 defenders there repelled 16,000 British troops.
Q 13The 1848 women's rights convention that produced the Declaration of Sentiments met in which New York town?
Seneca Falls
It met over two days, July 19-20, in the town's Wesleyan Chapel.
Q 21A now-discredited legend credits the potato chip's invention to a cook in which New York resort town?
Saratoga Springs
The story has George Crum slicing potatoes paper-thin at Moon's Lake House in 1853 to spite a fussy customer.
Q 22Which group of eleven long, narrow bodies of water lies in central New York?
The Finger Lakes
Seneca Lake, the largest, is 618 feet deep with a bottom well below sea level.
Q 23The Thousand Islands archipelago in the St. Lawrence River actually contains how many islands?
1,864
They straddle the Canada-US border where the river leaves Lake Ontario, and gave their name to a salad dressing.
Q 14In which city was Susan B. Anthony arrested in 1872 for voting?
Rochester
Her family had moved to a farm outside the city in 1845 and became active in the anti-slavery movement.
Q 15Harriet Tubman spent her later years in which New York city, on property she bought in 1859?
Auburn
She cared for her aging parents there after the Civil War.
Q 16The 1969 Woodstock festival was actually held on a dairy farm in which town?
Bethel
Max Yasgur's farm was 60 miles southwest of the town whose name the festival borrowed.
Q 17Which village in Otsego County is home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame?
Cooperstown
The Hall was established in 1939 by Stephen Carlton Clark, heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune.
Q 18Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympics in 1980 and which earlier year?
1932
That puts it alongside St. Moritz and Innsbruck as the only places to host the Winter Games twice.
Q 19The spicy wings named for a western New York city were said to be invented at which bar in 1964?
Anchor Bar
Teressa Bellissimo, who owned the bar with her husband Frank, gets the credit in the best-known version of the story.
Q 20Jell-O was born in 1897 in which small New York town, which still has a Jell-O museum?
Le Roy
Pearle Bixby Wait registered the trademark there that year.
Q 24How long is the Hudson River?
315 miles
It flows from Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondacks south to New York Harbor.
Q 25Which 1892 protected area is bigger than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier and Grand Canyon combined?
Adirondack Park
About half the land inside its boundary is privately owned, and it is roughly the size of Vermont.
Q 26Which New York state park, established in 1885, is the oldest in the United States?
Niagara Falls
It was also the first park created through eminent domain, after industry threatened to carve up Goat Island.
Q 27Which of the three Niagara waterfalls straddles the international border?
Horseshoe Falls
It is the most powerful waterfall in North America by flow rate.
Q 28In 1901, who became the first person to ride over the falls at Niagara in a barrel?
Teacher Annie Edson Taylor
She emerged bleeding but otherwise unhurt and advised that no one ought ever do that again.
Q 29The falls at Niagara have only ever stopped flowing naturally once, because of an ice jam in which year?
1848
No water fell for as long as 40 hours and mills shut down for lack of power.
Q 30What is New York's official state bird?
Eastern bluebird
It shares the honour with Missouri.