US State Capitals Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

Forming a metropolitan area with a larger twin city just across the Mississippi River, this capital was originally known by a much less formal riverboat-landing nickname before being renamed after a chapel built there. What is the capital of Minnesota?

Question 2

This city's name is often said to derive from a French phrase meaning 'wooded' or 'forested,' supposedly exclaimed by early French-Canadian trappers upon spotting trees along the river after crossing arid plains. What is the capital of Idaho?

Question 3

Founded in 1630 by Puritan settlers, this city was the site of a famous 1773 protest in which colonists dumped an entire shipment of tea into its harbor. What is the capital of Massachusetts?

Question 4

Renamed in honor of a recently assassinated U.S. president shortly before becoming its state's capital, this city was originally known by a different, more modest name tied to a nearby salt basin. What is the capital of Nebraska?

Question 5

Founded after gold was discovered in a local gulch nicknamed 'Last Chance,' this city grew rapidly during a 19th-century mining boom into its state's seat of government. What is the capital of Montana?

Question 6

Named after a U.S. president and military hero, this city was deliberately burned by Union forces during the Civil War so thoroughly that it earned the nickname 'Chimneyville' for the lone chimneys left standing. What is the capital of Mississippi?

Question 7

Its name is believed to derive from a French phrase possibly referencing local Native American peoples, and the city sits at the confluence of two rivers near the middle of the state. What is the capital of Iowa?

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About US State Capitals

State capitals follow almost exactly the same "not the biggest city" pattern that national capitals do, and it trips people up constantly. New York's capital is Albany, not New York City; California's is Sacramento, not Los Angeles or San Francisco; Illinois's is Springfield, not Chicago; Michigan's is Lansing, not Detroit. In each case, the state's most famous, most populous city isn't actually where its government sits.

That pattern isn't a coincidence. Many state capitals were deliberately chosen during the 1800s to sit in a more central, geographically accessible location within the state, rather than concentrating even more political power inside an already-dominant commercial city. It was as much a political compromise as a practical decision, especially in states with fierce, long-running rivalries between their largest cities.

Arizona's capital, Phoenix, is actually a rare exception to the usual pattern, since it's also comfortably the largest city in the entire state, one of only a small handful of US state capitals that can make that claim. At the other end of the scale, Montpelier, Vermont holds the distinction of being the least populous state capital in the country, with a population small enough that it wouldn't even rank as a large town in most other states.

A handful of state capitals have moved more than once too, as territories became states and populations gradually shifted westward throughout the nineteenth century. Georgia's capital, for instance, moved through several different cities before finally settling on Atlanta, largely tracking the growth of the state's rail network at the time.

Many state capitol buildings deliberately echo the design of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., complete with a central dome, an architectural choice that became something of an unofficial tradition throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as new states built their own seats of government.

Taken together, the list of US state capitals ends up functioning as a map of nineteenth-century political history nearly as much as it is a simple geography fact sheet, and knowing the less obvious answer is usually far more satisfying than guessing the state's biggest, most famous city and getting it wrong.

Sacramento's rise to become California's capital ties directly to the Gold Rush era, when the city's location along major transportation routes made it a natural hub even as San Francisco grew into the state's larger commercial and cultural center. Similarly, Austin was chosen as the capital of the Republic of Texas in the 1830s specifically for its central, defensible location, well before Houston or Dallas had grown into the major cities they are today.

Some states settled the question of their capital only after direct, sometimes fierce competition between rival cities. Oklahoma's capital moved from Guthrie to Oklahoma City in 1910 following a statewide vote, in a contest that involved genuine political maneuvering between competing cities each eager to become the seat of the new state's government.