SIDELINES //

How Many U.S. States Can You Name in 10 Minutes?

by Mike Richard

I’ve been a trivia geek for as long as I can remember. My mom and I would occasionally bring the World Atlas along with us on long road trips and ask one another questions – “What’s the capital of Montana?”, “What’s the 2nd largest province in Canada?” … geeky stuff like that. (Come to think of it, maybe she’s to blame for my travel obsession …)

In an effort to re-stake my long forgotten claim as master of all things Atlas, I decided to take the Ironic Sans: 50 States in 10 Minutes quiz.

49 out of 50 in about 8:30 minutes. Not too bad, I don’t think. Minnesota was the one that got away. Who knew they were even a state? I’m sure there’s some sort of mnemonic device for remembering all of them, of which I’m unaware.

How’d you do? I’d be interested to hear from Americans and non-Americans. Be honest!

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Related topics: Destinations, Sidelines, United States

About the Author

Vagabondish editor, Mike Richard, lives in Rhode Island - a spit of land in the northeastern U.S. He is a professional web designer and travel junkie with an unhealthy addiction to backpacking, camping, hiking and seeing the world. He enjoys knit hats, small, declarative sentences and speaking in the third person.

sam
July 1st, 2007

Fun quiz, but ten minutes is too long. I HAD to stop thinking after six. And I forgot Indiana.

I’m American, and I’ve been to Indiana. But I still forgot it.

ourman
July 1st, 2007

You’d be interested to hear from Non-Americans?

How many English Counties can you name?

Dan
July 1st, 2007

I missed 22.

Mike
July 2nd, 2007

Sam: I’d agree on the 10 minutes. Towards the end, I just wanted to know which damn state I was forgetting already!

ourman: It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to non-Americans’ notions that we’re idiots (i.e. perhaps non-Americans can name more U.S. states than Americans).

Dan: Really? Have you ever been to the U.S.? That’s pretty remarkable for someone not from here.

Dan
July 2nd, 2007

I’ve never been to the US. Would like to spend a few months there though, at least. I had trouble remembering the states on the eastern seaboard and the ones beginning with C. It’s one of those things where you know most of them (I think there were 3-4 I wouldn’t have got given time for the rest) once you see the ones you missed. At 6mins i went blank then had a rush in the last minute.

ourman
July 2nd, 2007

Ha sorry. Not idiots. Often though in talks with Americans they seem amazed when I don’t know where their home state is – although they’d have problem naming a single UK country.

For the record, I wouldn’t know where to start with US States.

Mike
July 2nd, 2007

It’s certainly true – Americans are an isolated bunch. Particularly when it comes to geography. I suppose that may be true of everywhere though.

Dan
July 2nd, 2007

Yes, Australian’s love bagging Americans for their lack of geographic knowledge but the truth is I really don’t think we are any better than you are. Ask an Australian about their own history, chances are they couldn’t tell you near as much as an American could about their own.

Mensch71
July 5th, 2007

50 states in 2:35.

Miles The Wandering Chihuahua
July 9th, 2007

Jeeze. I feel dumb. My first reaction upon finishing the quiz was, “wait a second, Delaware is a state?” I’ll have to add that and the 15 other states I missed to my list of places to go

Mike
July 9th, 2007

Mensch: Now, you’re just braggin’! =P

Miles: A couple of cities came to mind and I almost typed them in as states. So don’t feel too dumb. Maybe Mensch can tutor you.

Mensch71
July 11th, 2007

Nah. Just learned all of the states and state capitols when I was in school. One of those things that just doesn’t leave the brain! (I learned them in Alph order, so it was easy to see that I’d totally forgotten Nevada when I got to 49!) Plus, I’ve been to 49 of the 50 states.

Chris
October 26th, 2007

I got ‘em all! Funny thing though, I almost left out New Mexico (where I was born) and Colorado (where I live).

Greg Wesson
February 8th, 2008

I’m Canadian, but have travelled pretty extensively in the USA for work. I got 45 states, missing Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, Tennessee, Vermont.

Sad thing is, I’ve been to Tennessee. And I only got Michigan, which borders Ontario (where I live) in the last minute.

Chris
February 8th, 2008

I’ve been to Canada once eh, so here goes:

British Columbia
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec
Prince Edward Island
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
Newfoundland and Labrador

Opus
December 9th, 2008

Just under five minutes, had to really think about Arkansas and Kentucky. I really wonder how bad we are at this stuff; how many Chinese could name all of the provinces or Mexicans name all of their states? Would be interesting to find out! And no I cannot do Canada!

Chris
December 10th, 2008

One country where they really have no excuse for not knowing all their states is Australia. They only have six of them.