Can You Name the U.S. State from 3 Random Facts?

By: Nicole Shein
Estimated Completion Time
8 min
Can You Name the U.S. State from 3 Random Facts?
Image: JakeOlimb / DigitalVision Vectors / Getty Images

About This Quiz

The diner, the Reuben, an annual French Fry Feed, potato chips, pantyhose, a fat comic-book feline, the electric guitar, the escalator and the elevator, ARPANET, Amazon Prime, blue jeans, a drive-thru post office, an unwitting bovine arsonist, bridges purpose-built for squirrels, grunge music, bluegrass music, the annoyingly difficult-to-sing-in-tune Happy Birthday song, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, pink county jail inmate uniforms, the swivel chair, the Pet Rock, the atomic bomb, hippies, yippies, and yuppies, mountains galore, shoreline like nobody's business, plains and prairies, prairie oysters, lakes that are great, lakes made of salt, lakes shaped like fingers...well, we could go on forever, or at least as long as our internet connection and Google hold out. (Thanks, Al Gore! Errr, Tim Berners-Lee, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page!)

You already know that America is a great country that has given the world some spectacular inventions - as well as some briefly entertaining, but ultimately flash-in-the-pan, fads. Of course, it's also home to unbelievably beautiful landscapes and notable sites on which history was forever changed.

The real question is whether you can match these tidbits of trivia with their home state! Some of these random facts you might remember from history (or "Drunk History"), while others can be guessed if you have an average understanding of contemporary pop culture. So let's get started!

This state's animal, perhaps surprisingly, is the beaver. In 1843, the first chess tournament in the U.S. took place here, and the only American city to host the Olympics twice is in this state.
Connecticut
Rhode Island
New York
Pennsylvania
This state has a population smaller than six American cities, and shares its borders with only one other U.S. state. Yet it's the largest producer of toothpicks in the country.
Vermont
New Hampshire
Delaware
Maine
Don't steal any cattle in this state, or mark a cow with graffiti. Both offenses are still punishable by hanging! The only state to enter the U.S. by treaty, rather than by annexation, this is also home to Dr. Pepper and the world's largest rattlesnake roundup.
Texas
California
New Mexico
Nevada

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Fossilized dinosaur eggs have been found in this state, which is aptly nicknamed the Treasure State. It's also the home to elk, deer, and antelope populations that each outnumber the state's human residents.
North Dakota
South Dakota
Alaska
Montana
The largest U.S. state east of the Mississippi, this state is home to the world's largest sculpture and the world's largest poultry convention, the International Poultry Trade Show.
North Carolina
Missouri
Georgia
Alabama
Kool-Aid was invented here, as was the Reuben sandwich, but the state's most beloved native food is the runza -- a ground-beef-and-cabbage stuffed pastry.
Nebraska
Idaho
Kentucky
South Dakota

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Both the first human lung transplant and the first heart transplant happened in this state. Additionally, it's the birthplace to a human who put a lot of heart into his puppets -- Muppets creator Jim Henson.
Arkansas
Mississippi
Louisiana
Missouri
Fully one-quarter of the country's llama population lives in this state, which also boasts the world's largest cheese factory and more than 750 vineyards. Sharp cheddar and an oaky chardonnay, anyone?
Washington
Montana
California
Oregon
This Southern state was the last one to secede during the Civil War, and the first to be readmitted to the Union. It is bordered by eight other states, and gave us such notable figures as Davy Crockett, Minnie Pearl, Dolley Parton, and Alex Hayley.
Georgia
Alabama
Tennessee
West Virginia

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This state has given the world the first electric guitar, the first parking meter, and the first shopping cart. Garth Brooks was born and raised here, and it's also home to more than 200 manmade lakes -- more than anywhere else.
Oklahoma
Texas
Arizona
Nevada
Home to the world's largest library, the only drive-thru post office in the country, and the first McDonald's, this state was devastated by a fire in 1871. It was rebuilt, bigger and better -- in fact, the first skyscraper ever was erected here in 1884.
Indiana
Illinois
Kansas
Ohio
People who live in this state have to contend not only with hurricanes, but also with more tornados and more lightning strikes than anywhere else in the country. However, it also has more golf courses, proximity to two oceans, and the world's largest recreational resort.
California
Hawaii
North Carolina
Florida

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This place borders six other American states and a foreign country. Sarah Palin, Ernest Hemingway, Aaron Paul, and the fictional Napolean Dynamite all have ties to this state, which also boasts the world's largest hops farm.
Idaho
New Mexico
Alaska
Florida
This coastal state began life as a penal colony when tens of thousands of British prisoners were shipped in the 1700s. Unfortunately, it's still infamous for crime, with an annual average of more than 1,400 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were both born here.
Maryland
Virginia
Delaware
Rhode Island
We have this state to thank for the Happy Birthday song, Corvettes (the only Corvette factory in the world is located here), and Daniel Boone. Once a county in another state, this place seceded and gained its own statehood in 1792. It's also home to over 1,100 miles' worth of navigable rivers and lakes -- more than any other state besides Alaska.
West Virginia
Kentucky
Arkansas
South Carolina

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One of the first states to enter the newly formed union, its name comes from a Native American word meaning "great mountain place" or "large hill place." Not surprisingly, it boasts many other firsts, including the first university, first public park, first newspaper, and first subway system. Its statehouse sits on land that once served as a cow pasture for John Hancock. (Well, technically, for his cows.)
Connecticut
Delaware
Maine
Massachusetts
This state was the first to grant women the right to vote, way back in 1869, lending it the nickname, "The Equality State." It was also the first to elect a female governor. Despite being socially progressive -- at least where women in politics are concerned -- this state contains only two escalators.
Montana
Wyoming
Idaho
North Dakota
Home to the smallest state capital in the U.S., and the only state capital that doesn't have a McDonald's, this place also has the highest dairy-cow-to-people ratio in the country.
New Hampshire
Vermont
Rhode Island
Delaware

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The capital city of this state was founded a full decade before Pilgrims arrived on the East Coast and stepped ashore in 1620. It was one of the last states to be admitted to the union. And despite being the fifth largest state in the U.S., about 75 percent of its roads remain unpaved.
Texas
Arizona
Montana
New Mexico
This state could well have been called Servantsville, as fully three-quarters of its early English settlers were indentured servants. During the decades running up to the Civil War, it was home to more African slaves than any other state. Today, it's also known for its green acres, since some 62 percent of its land remains forest land.
West Virginia
Georgia
South Carolina
Virginia
A city in this state holds the Guinness World Record for the largest hamburger ever cooked and served. The enormous patty weighed more than 3,500 pounds and fed some 8,000 burger meisters. Fittingly, another city holds an annual French Fry Feed. What to wash it all down with? How about a glass of milk -- this state produces 38 million gallons each year!
Idaho
Minnesota
Illinois
North Dakota

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Some of the famous folks who hail from this state include David Letterman, James Dean, Michael Jackson, Colonel Sanders, and Garfield the Cat. It's also the setting of the classic movie, "A Christmas Story" and the home of The Saturday Evening Post.
Kentucky
Rhode Island
Indiana
Michigan
Blue jeans were invented here. So were hard hats. And although this state contains the third-deepest lake in the U.S., along with 23 designated wilderness areas, most of its visitors come in search of glitz and gluttony.
California
Nevada
New Jersey
Florida
The New River, which flows through this next state on our list, is the second-oldest river in the world! The longest steel-span bridge in the Western hemisphere, the 3000-foot New River Gorge Bridge, is also in this state, which was once called Kanawha.
Kentucky
North Dakota
North Carolina
West Virginia

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The country's biggest producer of apples, raspberries and cherries, this state also gave us two of the country's largest, and most iconic, retailers. And one of its towns, Longview, has thoughtfully built several bridges just for squirrels.
Washington
Oregon
California
Montana
Barbie's fictional home is located in this state, as is the very real Fennimore Doll & Toy Museum. And speaking of fiction that masquerades as truth, the satire newspaper-cum-website, The Onion, got its start at one of this state's universities.
Illinois
Wisconsin
Kansas
Arkansas
The site of the only remaining diamond mine in the U.S., this state now displays the Strawn-Wagner diamond, considered the first perfect example of that gemstone ever unearthed. On a slightly less glamorous note, the World Cheese Dip Championship is held here each year.
Illinois
Massachusetts
Texas
Arkansas

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Perhaps because of the 26 mountains higher than 10,000 feet in elevation, this state has been known to register the highest temperature in the country and the lowest temperature in the country -- on the very same day! Its sheer size may also have something to do with its disparate temps. All of New England plus Pennsylvania would fit inside its borders.
Arizona
Texas
California
Nevada
This state has produced 25 NASA astronauts and eight U.S. presidents. Oh, and drummer Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, whose hometown of Warren honored him by erecting a pair of 900-pound drumsticks.
Virginia
Ohio
Rhode Island
Washington
If you've ever chowed down on the meaty monstrosity known as a "turducken," you have a famous chef from this place to thank. Ditto the delicacy of alligator, some two million of which live in the wild. This state farms another 300,000 for their meat and hide, worth $57 million annually.
Mississippi
Arkansas
Louisiana
Florida

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Ozzy Ozbourne once chowed down on a bat in this state's capital (presumably before most of the drugs had done their damage). Too bad he didn't choose a ham, since hogs outnumber people here by a ratio of 21:3, or even a Red Delicious apple, which originated at an orchard here.
Oregon
Nebraska
Kansas
Iowa
Despite its small stature, its official name is the longest of any state's. It has 384 miles of shoreland. And it's the only place in the nation that still celebrates Victory Day, on the second Monday in August.
Rhode Island
Delaware
Massachusetts
Hawaii
Stand anywhere in this state, and you'll be within 85 miles of a Great Lake. That helps explain why it has the seventh highest number of registered fishermen in the U.S. Just watch out for a notorious Bermuda Triangle-like area over one of those lakes, where many ships and planes have mysteriously vanished!
New York
Ohio
Wisconsin
Michigan

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This place declared independence from Great Britain a full six months before the official Declaration of Independence was penned. Its delegates were the first to vote for the good ol' D. of I. on the original Fourth of July, and its motto, "Live Free or Die," references the Revolutionary War.
Vermont
New Hampshire
Connecticut
New York
More densely populated than China, this state's residents fill their bellies at hundreds of classic diners. Many of these eateries are just off the Turnpike, which is so ubiquitous that natives are prone to ask "What exit?" rather than "Where are you from?"
New Jersey
New York
Florida
Delaware