US Cities Trivia
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196 free US Cities trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
60 free US cities trivia questions with answers. Portland got its name on a coin toss, Miami is the only major American city founded by a woman, Chicago reversed a river, and Salt Lake City used to be Great Salt Lake City. This US cities trivia quiz collects the stories behind the map: the nicknames (Windy City, Big Easy, Motor City, Mile High, Biggest Little City), the superlatives (oldest, highest, largest by area, most populous capital), the firsts (subway, skyscraper, national capital) and the founding tales from St. Augustine in 1565 to Las Vegas in 1905. It ranges coast to coast and from Utqiagvik to San Antonio, so it works for a geography class, a road-trip game or a pub quiz round. Easy questions ask which city is the Windy City; the hard ones want who won the first Indy 500 and which street San Francisco's first cable car climbed. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia entry on the city, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 196 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which US city is nicknamed the Windy City?
Chicago
Chicago isn't even the windiest big city: its average wind speed of about 10 mph trails Boston's 12. One theory credits the nickname to rival newspapers mocking its boastful politicians.
Q 02Which California city has hosted the Tournament of Roses Parade since 1890?
Pasadena
Pasadena's Valley Hunt Club began the parade in 1890 to flaunt winter flowers while the East lay under snow; its first football game, in 1902, was such a rout that chariot races replaced football until 1916.
Q 03Which city is known as the Big Easy?
New Orleans
New Orleans is the Big Easy; its other nickname, Crescent City, comes from the bend of the Mississippi the city was built around.
Q 04Which city is called the Motor City?
Detroit
Detroit earned the Motor City name as the hub of America's Big Three carmakers, and the name travelled: Berry Gordy's Detroit record label, Motown, is a blend of 'motor' and 'town'.
Q 05Seattle's Space Needle was built for what 1962 event?
A World's Fair
The Space Needle was built for the 1962 World's Fair, the Century 21 Exposition, which also gave Seattle its monorail.
Q 06Which city is the Mile High City, its official elevation exactly one mile above sea level?
Denver
Denver is the Mile High City, but the exact spot keeps moving: the Capitol's mile-high marker began on the 15th step and has been reset twice as surveys improved, landing on the 13th step in 2003.
Q 07What is the oldest continuously inhabited European-founded city in the contiguous United States?
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine, Florida was founded by Spain's Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565 and named for the saint whose feast day it was when his fleet first sighted the coast.
Q 08Which Alaskan city, once the capital of Russian America, is the largest in the US by total area?
Sitka
Sitka covers about 4,800 square miles of island and sea because city and borough merged in 1971; in 1867 it hosted the ceremony that handed Alaska from Russia to the United States.
Q 09Which is the largest city by total area in the contiguous US, and also Florida's most populous?
Jacksonville
Jacksonville merged with Duval County in 1968, so the city limits take in almost the whole county: about 875 square miles of land and water.
Q 10Which city beat New York by seven years when it opened the nation's first subway in 1897?
Boston
Boston dug the Tremont Street subway to get streetcars off its traffic-clogged streets; the tunnel opened in 1897 and now forms the heart of the Green Line.
Q 11What was New York City called under Dutch rule?
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was the Dutch West India Company's settlement at the tip of Manhattan; when English warships arrived in 1664 its settlers refused to fight, and the town was renamed New York for the Duke of York.
Q 12Which Colorado silver-boom city, more than 10,000 feet up, is the highest incorporated city in the United States?
Leadville
Leadville sits at about 10,150 feet; its mines launched the fortunes of Horace Tabor, the Guggenheim family and Margaret Brown, the 'Unsinkable Molly Brown'.
Q 13Kansas City, Missouri is nicknamed the City of what, with more than 200 of them?
Fountains
Fountains in Kansas City began as practical works: in the early 1900s the Humane Society built public drinking fountains with a basin for horses and low pools for dogs.
Q 21Which word was dropped from Salt Lake City's original name in 1868?
Great
Great Salt Lake City was the name Brigham Young's pioneers gave their 1847 settlement; Utah marks their July 24 arrival each year with a state holiday, Pioneer Day.
Q 22Which Maui whaling port was the Hawaiian Kingdom's capital before the royal court moved to Honolulu in 1845?
Lahaina
Lahaina was the royal seat and a busy stop for whaling fleets; as trade shifted to Oahu, Kamehameha III moved his court to Honolulu in 1845.
Q 23Anchorage was hit by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake on Good Friday of which year?
1964
The Good Friday earthquake struck on March 27, 1964, and shook for about four and a half minutes; at magnitude 9.2 it was the most powerful ever recorded in North America.
Q 14Bristol, a twin city divided by State Street, straddles Virginia and which state?
Tennessee
Bristol's State Street runs along the Virginia–Tennessee line, and 1927 recording sessions held on it launched the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, earning the twin city the title Birthplace of Country Music.
Q 15Which desert city was born on May 15, 1905, when a railroad auctioned 110 acres?
Las Vegas
Las Vegas began as a railroad town: its springs made the valley a natural water stop, so Senator William Clark's Los Angeles line bought a ranch there and auctioned off the townsite.
Q 16Which New Jersey resort's streets gave the Monopoly board its property names?
Atlantic City
Atlantic City's streets fill the board, but one square is wrong: Marvin Gardens misspells Marven Gardens, a nearby neighbourhood, and Parker Brothers formally apologised to its residents in 1995.
Q 17Which is the most populous state capital in the United States?
Phoenix
Phoenix had only about 105,000 residents in 1950; air conditioning made its desert summers bearable, and by the 2020 census it had 1.6 million, more than any other state capital.
Q 18Which Florida city is the only major US city founded by a woman, landowner Julia Tuttle?
Miami
Miami incorporated in 1896 after Julia Tuttle, who owned the land, persuaded Henry Flagler to extend his Florida East Coast Railway south to Biscayne Bay.
Q 19Pittsburgh's 446 spans over its three rivers give it what nickname?
City of Bridges
Pittsburgh's 446 bridges, three more than Venice, earned it the City of Bridges nickname.
Q 20Portland is Oregon's largest city, but which city is the state capital?
Salem
Salem took the capital from Oregon City in 1851, lost it to Corvallis in 1855 when a faction of lawmakers voted to move, and won it back the same year.
Q 24Minneapolis and which neighbor make up the Twin Cities?
Saint Paul
Saint Paul was first known as Pig's Eye, after the nickname of a tavern keeper there, until a priest built a log chapel to St. Paul in 1841 and the settlement took its name instead.
Q 25The 44 settlers who founded Los Angeles in 1781 were recruited in which present-day country?
Mexico
Mexico: the 44 pobladores, eleven families recruited in Sonora and Sinaloa, were mostly of African, Indigenous or mixed descent; only two of the adults were recorded as Spaniards.
Q 26Which Texas port was struck in 1900 by the deadliest hurricane in US history?
Galveston
Galveston lost at least 6,000 people; survivors built a 17-foot seawall and jacked up more than 2,000 buildings to raise the city, while investors turned to Houston instead.
Q 27Which San Antonio landmark began in 1718 as Mission San Antonio de Valero?
The Alamo
The Alamo was a mission for 75 years; after it closed in 1793, Spanish cavalry from Álamo de Parras moved in and made the compound a barracks, the fort later besieged in 1836.
Q 28Which three breweries made Milwaukee a national leader in beer production?
Miller, Pabst and Schlitz
Miller, Pabst and Schlitz made Milwaukee Brew City, but two of them left: Schlitz, once America's biggest brewer, shut its Milwaukee plant after a 1981 strike, and Pabst closed its brewery there in 1996.
Q 29Francis Scott Key wrote 'The Star-Spangled Banner' after watching the British bombard which Baltimore stronghold?
McHenry
Fort McHenry withstood a 25-hour British bombardment on September 13–14, 1814; Key's poem about its flag became the national anthem in 1931.
Q 30Nashville's Centennial Park contains a full-scale replica of which ancient building?
The Parthenon
Nashville's Parthenon, a full-scale replica built for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition, matches the city's nickname, the Athens of the South.