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45 free Santa Fe trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Santa Fe has been a capital since 1610, longer than any other US state capital, and sits higher than all of them at 6,998 feet. This quiz covers four centuries of that history: Pedro de Peralta's founding, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and Diego de Vargas's reconquest, the Santa Fe Trail from Missouri, Kearny's Army of the West, the railroad that skipped the city for Lamy and statehood in 1912. The City Different's culture gets equal time: the Palace of the Governors, the Loretto Chapel's Miraculous Stair, Bishop Lamy's limestone cathedral, the Roundhouse capitol, the 1957 adobe ordinance, Zozobra and the Fiestas, the Santa Fe Opera, Canyon Road, the Indian Market, the O'Keeffe Museum, Meow Wolf and the Santa Fe Institute's complexity scientists. Every answer is sourced from Wikipedia pages on the city and its landmarks. Play in sets of ten, then try the Albuquerque or New Mexico quizzes.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does 'Santa Fe' mean in English?
Holy Faith
The full original name was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Q 02Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the United States, founded in which year?
1610
Santa Fe was founded in 1610 as capital of the Spanish province of Nuevo México, a decade before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620.
Q 03Santa Fe holds which distinction among US state capitals?
Highest altitude
At roughly 7,000 feet above sea level, Santa Fe is the highest-altitude state capital in the United States, ahead of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Q 04Which famous highway ran through Santa Fe until a 1937 realignment bypassed the city?
Route 66
Route 66 originally looped north through Santa Fe; in 1937 it was straightened to run directly from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque, cutting the city off the Mother Road.
Q 05Which mountain range rises behind Santa Fe?
Sangre de Cristo
The Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost range of the Rockies, rise directly east of Santa Fe; their name, 'Blood of Christ', evokes the red alpenglow on the peaks at sunset.
Q 06What was Santa Fe's population at the 2020 census?
87,505
The 2020 census counted 87,505 residents in Santa Fe, making it only the fourth-largest city in New Mexico after Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Rio Rancho.
Q 07Who led the first Spanish colonization of the region in 1598?
Juan de Oñate
Juan de Oñate led some 500 colonists up the Rio Grande in 1598 and set his first capital at San Juan de los Caballeros, beside today's Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.
Q 08In what year did the Pueblo Revolt drive the Spanish out of Santa Fe?
1680
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, led by Popé of Ohkay Owingeh, drove the Spanish south to El Paso; Pueblo peoples held the Palace of the Governors for twelve years.
Q 09Who retook Santa Fe for Spain in 1692 in the so-called 'Bloodless Reconquest'?
Diego de Vargas
Diego de Vargas re-entered Santa Fe in September 1692 without a battle, though hard fighting followed in 1693; the Fiestas de Santa Fe, held each September, commemorate his entrada.
Q 10Beginning in the 1820s, the Santa Fe Trail linked the city to which US frontier state?
Missouri
The Santa Fe Trail ran from central Missouri, opened in 1821 by traders just as Mexico's independence legalized commerce with the United States.
Q 11Who pioneered the overland trail to Santa Fe in 1821?
William Becknell
He departed with Joseph R. Walker just as Mexico won independence and opened trade with the US.
Q 12Which US general marched into Santa Fe in 1846 to claim New Mexico?
Stephen W. Kearny
Stephen W. Kearny led the roughly 1,700-man Army of the West into Santa Fe on August 18, 1846, taking New Mexico without a shot; the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo confirmed the transfer.
Q 13In which year did New Mexico become a state, with Santa Fe as capital?
1912
New Mexico became the 47th state on January 6, 1912, after 62 years as a territory; Santa Fe, then a town of about 5,000, stayed on as capital.
Q 21A 1957 ordinance requires new buildings in historic districts to use which styles?
Spanish Territorial or Pueblo
The 1957 Historical Zoning Ordinance allows only Spanish Territorial or Pueblo styles in the historic districts, which is why many newer buildings are stucco over concrete block, a look locals call 'faux-dobe'.
Q 22What are the exposed roof beams that poke through adobe walls called?
Vigas
Vigas are the round log beams that carry a flat adobe roof and protrude through the walls; canales are the rain spouts cut through the parapets above them.
Q 23Which giant effigy, 'Old Man Gloom', is burned each year before the Fiestas de Santa Fe?
Zozobra
Q 14Which Confederate general's forces occupied Santa Fe in March 1862?
Henry Sibley
Henry Hopkins Sibley's Texan brigade occupied Santa Fe in March 1862, but after Union troops burned his supply train at Glorieta Pass on March 28 he retreated down the Rio Grande to Texas.
Q 15Which French-born bishop built Santa Fe's St. Francis Cathedral?
Jean Baptiste Lamy
Jean Baptiste Lamy, who reached Santa Fe in 1851 and became its first archbishop in 1875, began the cathedral in 1869; Willa Cather based 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' on him.
Q 16In what style was St. Francis Cathedral built, in contrast to the adobe around it?
Romanesque Revival
St. Francis Cathedral is Romanesque Revival, with round arches, squat twin towers and a rose window, designed by French architects and raised by Italian stonemasons from local stone starting in 1869.
Q 17The Loretto Chapel is famous for which feature?
A spiral staircase
Its spiral staircase, the 'Miraculous Stair', makes two full turns up to the choir loft with no central support or nails; the Sisters of Loretto credited Saint Joseph.
Q 18The Loretto Chapel's design was modeled on which Paris landmark?
Sainte-Chapelle
Projectus Mouly modeled the Gothic Revival chapel on Sainte-Chapelle in Paris; its French stained glass traveled by ship to New Orleans and then by wagon over the Santa Fe Trail.
Q 19New Mexico's State Capitol in Santa Fe is nicknamed what?
The Roundhouse
Nicknamed the Roundhouse, New Mexico's capitol is the only round state capitol in the United States; from above its plan echoes the Zia sun symbol on the state flag.
Q 20New Mexico's Roundhouse State Capitol in Santa Fe was built in which years?
1964–66
Built from 1964 to 1966 to a design by Santa Fe architect W. C. Kruger, the Roundhouse was dedicated in December 1966, replacing the 1900 territorial capitol that became the Bataan Memorial Building.
Zozobra, 'Old Man Gloom', is a giant marionette stuffed with written 'glooms' and burned at Fort Marcy Park to open the Fiesta season, taking the year's worries with it.
Q 24Which artist created the first Old Man Gloom effigy in his backyard in 1924?
Will Shuster
He gave the rights to the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe in 1964, which still builds and burns it at Fort Marcy Park.
Q 25Roughly how tall is the Old Man Gloom effigy?
50 feet
The 2007 version was certified by Guinness as the world's largest marionette at 49 feet 10 inches.
Q 26The Fiestas de Santa Fe have been held since which year?
1712
The Fiestas were proclaimed in 1712 to give thanks for the 1692 reconquest, and are billed as the oldest community celebration in the United States.
Q 27Santa Fe Opera presents how many operas each summer season?
Five
The company stages five operas in rotating repertory each summer; it opened on July 3, 1957, with Madama Butterfly in a house seating nearly 500.
Q 28Who founded the Santa Fe Opera in 1956?
John Crosby
John Crosby, a New York–trained conductor, founded the company in 1956, opened its first season in 1957 and remained general director until 2000.
Q 29What is the name of Meow Wolf's flagship Santa Fe installation?
House of Eternal Return
House of Eternal Return opened in March 2016 inside a former bowling alley on Rufina Circle, a roughly 20,000-square-foot walk-through story about a Victorian house where something has gone wrong.
Q 30Which fantasy author originally backed the Meow Wolf art collective?
George R. R. Martin
George R. R. Martin bought the defunct Silva Lanes bowling alley and leased it to the collective for its first permanent home in Santa Fe.