US cities quiz

Answer key

1. New York City. Manhattan is one of New York City’s five boroughs; Times Square and Central Park are both there.
2. Los Angeles. Hollywood is a Los Angeles neighborhood, and Griffith Observatory stands in Griffith Park. The observatory looks across the city from the park’s hillside.
3. Chicago. Cloud Gate is the reflective sculpture in Millennium Park, widely nicknamed the Bean. Chicago’s L is its rapid-transit system, including elevated railway sections.
4. Houston. Johnson Space Center is in Houston’s Clear Lake area. It is associated with astronaut training and Mission Control, rather than Florida’s launch sites.
5. Phoenix. Phoenix is both Arizona’s capital and the central city of the Valley of the Sun. The valley name refers to the metropolitan region, not a separate city.
6. Philadelphia. Independence Hall hosted the adoption of the Declaration in 1776 and the drafting of the Constitution in 1787. The Liberty Bell is displayed nearby in Philadelphia.
7. San Antonio. The Alamo and downtown River Walk are both in San Antonio. The River Walk follows the San Antonio River below the surrounding street level.
8. San Diego. Balboa Park is a large park and cultural complex, while the Gaslamp Quarter is a separate downtown historic district. Both clues point to San Diego.
9. Dallas. Dealey Plaza is associated with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Reunion Tower is a separate Dallas landmark with an observation deck.
10. San Jose. San Jose is in Santa Clara County in the southern San Francisco Bay Area. The Winchester Mystery House is a city landmark, rather than a site in San Francisco itself.
11. Austin. Austin is Texas’s capital, inland from the coast. The bats at Congress Avenue Bridge are seasonal, so the clue does not imply they emerge there throughout the year.
12. Jacksonville. The St. Johns flows through Jacksonville toward the Atlantic. Unlike many familiar US rivers, much of its course runs northward.
13. Fort Worth. Fort Worth’s Stockyards district preserves a connection to the cattle trade. Fort Worth and Dallas are separate cities within the same broader metropolitan region.
14. Columbus. Columbus is Ohio’s capital and the site of Ohio State’s main campus. Cleveland and Cincinnati are other major Ohio cities, but neither is the capital.
15. Charlotte. The NASCAR Hall of Fame is in Charlotte. North Carolina’s capital is Raleigh, which is a separate city to the northeast.
16. Indianapolis. Indianapolis is the capital; the race is held at the nearby Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the town of Speedway.
17. Seattle. Seattle contains both the Space Needle and Pike Place Market. It lies on Puget Sound; Olympia, not Seattle, is Washington’s capital.
18. Denver. One mile equals 5,280 feet, the elevation behind Denver’s Mile High nickname. Actual elevations vary across the city rather than matching one height everywhere.
19. Washington, DC. Washington, DC, is the federal capital. The White House houses the presidency, while the Capitol is where Congress meets.
20. Boston. Boston’s Freedom Trail connects sites associated with its history. Fenway Park is a separate sporting landmark and the home of the Boston Red Sox.
21. El Paso. El Paso, Texas, faces Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, across the Rio Grande. They are separate cities on opposite sides of an international border.
22. Nashville. Nashville is Tennessee’s capital as well as a major music center. The Grand Ole Opry is associated with country music; Memphis has different landmarks such as Graceland.
23. Detroit. Detroit’s Motor City nickname reflects its automobile-industry history. Lansing is Michigan’s capital, so the largest familiar industrial city is not the capital.
24. Oklahoma City. Bricktown developed from a warehouse district into an entertainment area in Oklahoma City. Tulsa is another major Oklahoma city but is not the state capital.
25. Portland. Both are Portland landmarks. This question specifies Oregon to distinguish Portland, Maine.
26. Las Vegas. Las Vegas is the city associated with the Strip, although much of the Strip is outside city limits in unincorporated Clark County.
27. Memphis. Graceland was Elvis Presley’s home, and Beale Street is a historic music district. Both are in Memphis, separate from Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry.
28. Louisville. The Kentucky Derby is run at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Frankfort is Kentucky’s capital, so the racing clue points to a different city.
29. Baltimore. Fort McHenry is at Baltimore’s harbor entrance. Its defense in 1814 inspired the poem that became the lyrics of the US national anthem.
30. Milwaukee. The Burke Brise Soleil is the museum’s movable sunshade. Its opening and closing changes the wing-like outline of the building beside Lake Michigan.
31. Albuquerque. Albuquerque hosts the international balloon fiesta. Santa Fe is New Mexico’s capital; the famous balloon event points to Albuquerque instead.
32. Tucson. Saguaro National Park has two separated districts on either side of Tucson. The park’s split layout is why the clue says the city is flanked by it.
33. San Francisco. San Francisco occupies the northern tip of its peninsula. The Golden Gate Bridge connects it with Marin County.
34. Sacramento. Sacramento is California’s capital at the meeting of the Sacramento and American rivers. Old Sacramento preserves a waterfront district beside the Sacramento River.
35. Kansas City. The museum and Liberty Memorial are in Kansas City, Missouri, not neighboring Kansas City, Kansas.
36. Savannah. Savannah’s historic center is organized around public squares. Forsyth Park is another prominent green space and is known for its large fountain.
37. Atlanta. The Atlanta park includes places connected with Martin Luther King Jr.’s childhood and family. His birthplace is distinct from other civil-rights sites elsewhere in the South.
38. Omaha. Omaha has hosted the final stage of the men’s College World Series since 1950. Lincoln, not Omaha, is Nebraska’s state capital.
39. Colorado Springs. Garden of the Gods is a public park within Colorado Springs. The red-rock formations are natural features, not a built sculpture garden.
40. Raleigh. Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill form the three cities behind the Research Triangle name. Raleigh also serves as North Carolina’s capital.
41. Miami. Little Havana is a neighborhood in Miami. Miami Beach is a separate city.
42. Minneapolis. Minneapolis and St. Paul are separate neighboring cities. St. Paul is Minnesota’s capital, while Minneapolis is the other half of the Twin Cities name.
43. New Orleans. Jackson Square lies in New Orleans’s French Quarter. Baton Rouge is Louisiana’s capital, so the landmark clue distinguishes the two cities.
44. Cleveland. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame stands on Cleveland’s Lake Erie waterfront. The lake location separates this clue from inland Columbus, Ohio’s capital.
45. Pittsburgh. The Allegheny and Monongahela meet at Pittsburgh’s Point, and their combined water becomes the Ohio River. That junction explains the city’s three-rivers association.
46. St. Louis. The Gateway Arch stands beside the Mississippi in St. Louis. East St. Louis is a separate city across the river in Illinois.
47. Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City is southeast of the Great Salt Lake. The city and lake share a name, but the city center is not on the lake’s shoreline.
48. Honolulu. Honolulu is on the island of Oahu, and Waikiki is a neighborhood within it. The state’s name is Hawaii, but Honolulu is not on the island of Hawaii.
49. Anchorage. Anchorage lies on Cook Inlet. Juneau, rather than Anchorage, is Alaska’s capital.
50. Charleston. Fort Sumter stands in Charleston Harbor. The attack on the fort in April 1861 marked the beginning of the American Civil War.