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50 free San Antonio trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States and still feels like a frontier town with a river running through the middle. Spanish explorers named it for Saint Anthony in 1691, a mission and presidio followed in 1718, fifteen Canary Island families made it the first chartered civil settlement in Texas in 1731, and then the Alamo happened. Today it is Military City USA, a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, and home to the Spurs. These 50 questions go well beyond the Alamo: the Payaya name for the springs, Father Olivares and his Spanish hometown, Juan Seguín, Frederick Law Olmsted's verdict, the 1877 railroad, the German third of the city, the River Walk that Robert Hugman drew in 1929, the hotel that rolled three blocks in 1985, HemisFair '68 and the Tower of the Americas, Lackland and Fort Sam Houston, Valero, USAA and H-E-B, Fiesta, the 40-foot cowboy boots and the five NBA titles. Easy questions stick to the river, the county and the nicknames; the hardest ask about the first sheriff-era settlers, the dragon who became H.R. Pufnstuf and the first sister city. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a Texas trivia night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01San Antonio is the county seat of which Texas county?
Bexar
The name comes from the 1718 Presidio San Antonio de Béxar, spelled Béjar in modern Spanish.
Q 02Where did San Antonio rank among US cities by population in the 2020 census?
Seventh
It is second in Texas behind Houston and second in the whole South.
Q 03The city was named in 1691 in honour of which saint?
Anthony of Padua
Spanish explorers reached the river on June 13, his feast day.
Q 04Which Indigenous people lived at the San Pedro Springs when the Spanish arrived?
Payaya
They called the area Yanaguana, meaning refreshing waters.
Q 05What did the original Indigenous name for the area, Yanaguana, mean?
Refreshing waters
The Spanish renamed the river and the place for Saint Anthony in 1691.
Q 06In which year was the mission later known as the Alamo founded?
1718
HemisFair '68 was timed for the 250th anniversary of that founding.
Q 07Which priest founded the mission that later became famous as the Alamo?
Antonio de Olivares
His Spanish hometown of Moguer became a sister city in 2018.
Q 08Settlers from which Spanish archipelago arrived in 1731 to form the first civil government in Texas?
The Canary Islands
Fifteen families totalling 56 people marched overland from Veracruz under Juan Leal Goraz.
Q 09In which year did San Antonio become the first chartered civil settlement in Texas?
1731
The villa of San Fernando de Béxar was founded by the newly arrived islanders.
Q 10Who led the Texian forces that captured the city in the Battle of Bexar in December 1835?
Ben Milam
They defeated General Martín Perfecto de Cos, Santa Anna's brother-in-law.
Q 11Which Tejano patriot fought at San Jacinto and served as mayor before being forced out in 1842?
Juan Seguín
He was the last Tejano mayor for nearly 150 years.
Q 12Which Central Park designer wrote of the city's "jumble of races, costumes, languages, and buildings"?
Frederick Law Olmsted
He wrote that only New Orleans could rival its odd and antiquated foreignness.
Q 13In which year did the first railroad reach San Antonio?
1877
It was the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railroad.
In the early 1900s roughly a third of San Antonio was of which ethnic background?
Q 21Which two Fortune 500 companies were headquartered in San Antonio as of 2024?
Valero Energy and USAA
AT&T left for Dallas in 2008 and iHeartMedia fell off the list.
Q 22Which grocery chain, the fifth-largest private company in the US, is based in San Antonio?
H-E-B
Whataburger, Taco Cabana and Bill Miller Bar-B-Q are also headquartered in the city.
Q 23What nickname reflects the huge concentration of armed forces bases here?
Military City, USA
Lackland, Randolph, Brooke Army Medical Center and Fort Sam Houston are all in the city.
German
Street names like Wurzbach and Huebner survive, and Texas German is still spoken in nearby towns.
Q 15In which year were the city's five Spanish missions named a UNESCO World Heritage site?
2015
They were the 23rd US site on the list and the first in Texas.
Q 16In 2017 UNESCO designated San Antonio a Creative City for what?
Gastronomy
It was one of only 26 gastronomy cities in the world at the time.
Q 17What is the city's primary source of drinking water?
The Edwards Aquifer
Braunig and Calaveras lakes were among the first US reservoirs built on recycled wastewater for power plant cooling.
Q 18San Antonio sits on which geological feature?
The Balcones Escarpment
The Texas Hill Country reaches into the far north of the city.
Q 19What is the city's approximate altitude above sea level?
662 feet
The terrain is gently rolling, dotted with oaks, mesquite and cacti.
Q 20How much snow fell in the city's record snowfall on January 13, 1985?
16 inches
Snow turns up only about once every four years; a decade has passed between falls.
Q 24Every enlisted Air Force recruit goes through basic training at which San Antonio base?
Lackland
More than 35,000 recruits pass through each year.
Q 25Fort Sam Houston hosts METC, the world's largest centre for what kind of training?
Military medical education
It runs 30 programmes and graduates more than 24,000 people a year.
Q 26What is the city's second-most-visited attraction, after the Alamo?
The River Walk
It earns the city its other nickname, River City.
Q 27Which architect submitted the 1929 plans for the riverside promenade downtown?
Robert Hugman
The area was once so dangerous it was declared off-limits to military personnel.
Q 28Which 1906 building holds a Guinness record as one of the heaviest ever moved intact?
The Fairmount Hotel
It rolled three blocks south of the Alamo over four days in 1985 at a cost of $650,000.
Q 29Which 1925 San Antonio attraction is the oldest children's amusement venue in the US?
Kiddie Park
Morgan's Wonderland, a theme park for children with special needs, is also in the city.
Q 30Which San Antonio institution was the first devoted to modern art in Texas?
The McNay Art Museum
The San Antonio Museum of Art occupies the former Lone Star Brewery.