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47 free Palm Springs trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Palm Springs trivia quiz covers the desert resort from the people who lived beside its hot springs for two thousand years, through the health seekers, stagecoach stops and railroad checkerboard of the 1800s, to the Hollywood hideaways, tennis clubs and glass-walled houses that made it famous. You will find questions on the mountains that shelter the city, the wind farm at its doorstep, the record heat, the ride up to alpine forest in ten minutes, and the festivals, parades and Thursday street fair that fill the calendar. There are questions on the celebrity neighbourhoods and the architects who built for the stars, on the entertainer who became mayor and started an annual film event, on the movies that used the city as a backdrop, and on the community's more recent history as an LGBTQ destination with a first-of-its-kind city council. Easy questions suit a house-party or a Modernism Week gathering; the harder ones on dates, names and numbers will challenge locals and long-time snowbirds. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia entries and local institutions, and each question shows its explanation and source after you answer.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Palm Springs lies in which California county?
Riverside
Riverside County: Palm Springs covers about 94 square miles, the largest land area of any city in the county, which stretches from the Los Angeles suburbs east to the Arizona line.
Q 02Which Native American people settled the Palm Springs area about 2,000 years ago?
Cahuilla
Cahuilla: the tribe's Agua Caliente band wintered beside the hot spring downtown and summered in the cooler canyons, and family names such as Andreas and Arenas survive as Palm Springs street names.
Q 03Tahquitz Canyon, on the western edge of Palm Springs, is best known for what feature?
A 60-foot waterfall
A 60-foot waterfall: Tahquitz Falls drops about 60 feet at the head of a two-mile loop trail from the canyon's visitor center, on Agua Caliente tribal land.
Q 04Why is the Agua Caliente Reservation laid out in a checkerboard pattern across the city?
Alternating sections were granted to a railroad
The Southern Pacific got the alternating 640-acre sections as an incentive to lay track through the desert.
Q 05The palm in the city's name refers to which native species?
Fan
Fan palm: the California fan palm, Washingtonia filifera, is the only palm native to California and grows wild in the Indian Canyons oases; the date palm was introduced later for farming.
Q 06The first European resident of Palm Springs, Jack Summers, ran what kind of business there in 1862?
A stagecoach station
A stagecoach station: Summers ran the stage stop from 1862; when the Southern Pacific laid its track six miles to the north in 1876, the station was bypassed and left isolated.
Q 07In which year was the city of Palm Springs established by election?
1938
1938: residents voted to incorporate and Palm Springs became a city on April 20, 1938; it later adopted a city charter in 1994.
Q 08Which mountain range shelters Palm Springs on the west, casting the afternoon shadow that cools the city?
San Jacinto Mountains
San Jacinto Mountains: they rise directly west of the city to Mount San Jacinto at 10,834 feet, and their shadow reaches the valley floor in late afternoon.
Q 09Which major fault runs along the northeast side of the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs?
San Andreas Fault
San Andreas Fault: its southern section runs along the northeast edge of the Coachella Valley, through Desert Hot Springs, before ending near the Salton Sea at Bombay Beach.
Q 10How many residents did the 2020 census count in Palm Springs?
44,575
44,575: the 2020 census count for Palm Springs, up only slightly from 44,552 in 2010, although the population swells well beyond that during the winter season.
Q 11The Palm Springs ride up Chino Canyon is the world's largest example of what?
Rotating aerial tramway
Rotating aerial tramway: the two cars, each holding 80 passengers, turn slowly so the floor makes two full revolutions during the ten-minute, 2.5-mile ascent up Chino Canyon.
Q 12In which year did the Aerial Tramway open?
1963
1963: the tramway opened in September 1963 after a 28-year campaign by Francis Crocker, who first proposed a lift up the mountain in 1935.
Q 13Roughly how high above sea level is the tramway's Mountain Station?
8,516 feet
8,516 feet: the Mountain Station sits at 8,516 feet, nearly 6,000 feet above the Valley Station at 2,643 feet, a climb the cars make in about ten minutes.
Q 21Which annual Palm Springs event, founded by its mayor in 1989, opens each January?
The Film Festival
The Film Festival: the Palm Springs International Film Festival was founded in 1989 and first held in January 1990; it became known for screening dozens of each year's international-feature Oscar submissions.
Q 22Which interstate running north of the city carries the late mayor's name as a memorial freeway?
I-10
I-10: Interstate 10 runs along the north side of the Coachella Valley between Los Angeles and Arizona, and the stretch through the valley was named a memorial freeway for the late mayor after his death in 1998.
Q 23On which evening of the week does the downtown VillageFest street fair take over Palm Canyon Drive?
Thursday
Q 14In which year were the rotating cars added to the tramway?
2000
2000: Swiss-built rotating cars replaced the original cars in 2000, with floors that turn slowly through two full revolutions on each ten-minute trip.
Q 15Which architect designed the 1946 Kaufmann Desert House, the mostly-glass modernist landmark?
Richard Neutra
Richard Neutra: Edgar Kaufmann, the Pittsburgh store owner who had commissioned Fallingwater a decade earlier, hired Neutra for the 1946 glass-and-steel desert house; Barry Manilow later owned it.
Q 16Which photographer's 1970 image "Poolside Gossip" made the Kaufmann House an icon of desert glamour?
Slim Aarons
Slim Aarons: his 1970 'Poolside Gossip', with Nelda Linsk in yellow beside the Kaufmann House pool, became the defining image of Palm Springs glamour; Julius Shulman had photographed the house in 1947.
Q 17In which month does Palm Springs hold its annual Modernism Week celebration of mid-century architecture?
February
February: Modernism Week runs for eleven days each February, with home tours, lectures, films and a vintage trailer show across the Coachella Valley; a shorter preview edition runs in October.
Q 18Which architect designed the butterfly-roofed Twin Palms tract for the Alexander Construction Company?
William Krisel
William Krisel: of the firm Palmer & Krisel, he designed the Twin Palms tract built in 1957–58, originally marketed as Smoke Tree Valley Estates, with two palm trees planted on every lot.
Q 19Which two actors founded the Racquet Club, the tennis resort that became a Hollywood hangout, in 1934?
Charles Farrell and Ralph Bellamy
Future mayor Frank Bogert was an early manager; the club burned in 2014 and was demolished.
Q 20Which entertainer served as mayor of Palm Springs from 1988 to 1992 before being elected to Congress?
Sonny Bono
Sonny Bono: the singer-turned-restaurateur ran for mayor after city red tape blocked a sign for his restaurant, served from 1988 to 1992, and won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1994.
Thursday: VillageFest closes Palm Canyon Drive every Thursday evening for a street fair of craft stalls, food vendors and live music that began in 1991.
Q 24The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, which closed after 2013–14, was famous for performers of what age?
Over 55
Over 55: every Follies performer was at least 55, and some danced past 80; the show ran at the Plaza Theatre from 1991 to 2014 and inspired the Oscar-nominated 1997 short Still Kicking.
Q 25Which 26-foot Seward Johnson statue, showing a famous 1955 movie scene, stands in downtown Palm Springs?
Forever Marilyn
Forever Marilyn: the 26-foot statue recreates Marilyn Monroe's billowing-skirt moment from The Seven Year Itch, weighs about 34,000 pounds, and returned to downtown Palm Springs permanently in 2021.
Q 26What was the early-1960s Warner Bros. comedy that glamorised the city as a spring-break destination?
Palm Springs Weekend
Palm Springs Weekend: the Warner Bros. comedy starred Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens and Stefanie Powers as college students on an Easter-week trip to the city; within a few years real spring-break crowds had turned rowdy, with mass arrests in 1969.
Q 27Who plays Nyles, the wedding guest reliving November 9, in the 2020 comedy Palm Springs?
Andy Samberg
Andy Samberg: he plays Nyles opposite Cristin Milioti's Sarah, with J. K. Simmons as Roy; the film premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and went out on Hulu that July.
Q 28The city's main art institution, founded in the late 1930s, originally carried what name?
Palm Springs Desert Museum
Palm Springs Desert Museum: it opened in the La Plaza arcade in the late 1930s, focused on desert natural history and Indigenous cultures, and took the name Palm Springs Art Museum in 2005.
Q 29In which year did the La Plaza shopping arcade open on Palm Canyon Drive?
1936
1936: Julia Carnell opened La Plaza in 1936 as a courtyard of shops and apartments on Palm Canyon Drive, and its Plaza Theatre opened in December of the same year.
Q 30During World War II the luxurious El Mirador Hotel was bought by the government and turned into what?
A military hospital
A military hospital: the Army bought the hotel in 1942 and ran it as Torney General Hospital, treating thousands of wounded servicemen, with Italian prisoners of war working as orderlies and kitchen staff.