50 States Quiz

Spelling has a little slack: one small typo is forgiven on longer names, which helps with Massachusetts, Mississippi and Connecticut.

The states that go missing

Nobody forgets California or Texas. The states that drop out of a from-memory list are the quiet ones in the middle of the map with no famous city attached: Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, the Dakotas, Idaho, Wyoming. In the Northeast, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire go missing because they are small and packed close together.

The fix is not to memorize a list but to walk the map, so every state you type reminds you of the one beside it.

A route through all 50

1. Pacific: Washington, Oregon, California, then Alaska and Hawaii, so the two that are not on the mainland are done early.
2. Mountain West, north to south: Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico. Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet at a single point, the Four Corners.
3. Plains, top to bottom: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas.
4. Around the Great Lakes: Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio.
5. South: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia.
6. Mid-Atlantic and New England: Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine.

Why the route works

The groups above hold 5, 8, 6, 8, 12 and 11 states. Learn those numbers along with the route and you can check yourself mid-quiz: if the South only produced ten, you know exactly which part of the map to stare at. The paired names help too. Typing North Dakota should always be followed by South Dakota, and the same goes for the Carolinas and for Virginia and West Virginia.

If you stall, picture the coastline. Going down the Atlantic from Maine to Florida, then along the south coast to Texas, catches most of the eastern half of the country in one pass.

What counts

The set is the 50 states. Washington, D.C. is a federal district rather than a state, so it is optional, and the quiz is complete at 50 without it.

Other modes and the next quiz

Type them all is the default here, but the same map offers Click (we name a state, you find it), Type (one state is highlighted, you name it), Choice (four options from the same part of the country) and Learn, which has no score.

Being able to list the states is not the same as knowing where they are. The US map quiz names each state and asks you to click it on the map. The states and capitals quiz adds capitals, and the blank US map prints the same outline for pencil practice, with a numbered version and an answer key.

As a class warm-up

Teachers often run this one on a shared screen at the start of a unit: the class calls out states, one person types, and the clock keeps everyone honest. The red states left at the end become the list for the week.

All the states and capitals in this quiz

The 50 states. Washington, D.C. is a federal district and is optional. Borders and names policy.

Names and capitals: CIA World Factbook (final edition), checked against Wikidata and Natural Earth. State capitals: Wikidata and Natural Earth, which must agree. Flags: flag-icons, each checked against Wikimedia Commons. See sources. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.