States and Capitals Quiz: All 50 US States on a Map

A round of the quiz names a capital and asks which state it belongs to. The answer is given by tapping or clicking the state on the map. All 50 states come up once per round, in a new random order each time, and no account or sign-up is involved. The round ends with a score and a list of the capitals that were missed.

The quiz asks about the 50 states only. Washington, D.C. is the capital of the country and not a state, so it does not appear as a question or as an answer. For the plain table of states with postal codes and coordinates, there is the list of all 50 US states and capitals. A quiz that asks for the state names instead of the capitals is the quiz on state names only.

How the state capitals game works

The prompt at the top of the quiz reads "Which state has the capital" followed by a city, for instance Boise or Albany. The task is to find that state on the map and tap it. The result is shown at once: the state that was asked for turns green after a correct tap and red after a wrong one, and the next question follows immediately. The states keep their color, so by the end of a round the map is a record of the whole run. A counter beside the prompt shows how many answers were right and how many of the 50 questions have been asked, for example 12 correct, 15 of 50 asked.

1. Read the capital in the prompt.
2. Tap the state that has it.
3. Watch the state turn green or red and read the running score.
4. After the 50th question, check the final score and the list of missed capitals.
5. Press New round to shuffle the order and start again.

On a phone, the small states need help. In the Northeast a state can be narrower than a fingertip, so small states carry a marker, and a tap close to them zooms the map in by a factor of three, once more if needed. The next tap then picks the state, and after each answer the map returns to the full view. A Zoom out button is there to go back manually. The tapping works exactly as in the quiz on state names, where a test on a screen 390 pixels wide needed 1.52 taps per answer on average.

The map can also be played from the keyboard: the Tab key moves between states and Enter selects one.

State capitals quiz with answers: all 50 pairs

The answers are the 50 pairs of states and capitals in the table, in alphabetical order by state. It covers the 50 states only. Washington, D.C. is not a state and is not in the list. The quiz uses the same pairs, and the table follows the state list in the style manual of the U.S. Government Publishing Office. For Minnesota the table writes Saint Paul where that manual writes St. Paul; both forms are in use. As a self-test on paper, cover the capital column and name each capital, or cover the state column and name the state that goes with each city, which is the direction the quiz asks in.

How list and map were made: the 50 pairs were compared with the Government Publishing Office list one by one and all 50 agree. The outlines are the Cartographic Boundary Files of the U.S. Census Bureau, 2017 edition, redistributed by the us-atlas package and drawn with the d3 geoAlbersUsa projection, in which Alaska and Hawaii are insets and Alaska is shown at 0.35 of its scale. Every capital point was tested against the outlines and lies inside its own state. The map is for finding states, not for measuring areas or distances.

The same data come with coordinates and as CSV, JSON or XML on the page for all 50 states and capitals.

Capitals in alphabetical order, with their states

The quiz works from the capital to the state, so the list that matches it runs the same way: sorted by capital, with the state beside it. A learner who knows only the city can look it up here without scanning 50 state names.

The alphabet shows some patterns in the 50 capitals. They start with only 16 different letters, and no capital begins with E, G, K, Q, U, V, W, X, Y or Z. C and S lead with six capitals each, A follows with five, and B and H have four apiece.

Printable states and capitals maps

Paper has its place next to the screen. The printable map of the United States offers a blank map, a map with the state names, a map with postal abbreviations, a black-and-white outline and a numbered quiz sheet with an answer key. Every file is a PDF on one Letter page in landscape format, and each also comes as an SVG.

The US map with capitals belongs to the same set. It marks all 50 capitals with a point and a name, and it works as the answer sheet for a capitals test on paper.

A simple paper version follows from these files. Print the blank map, write the capital into each state from memory, then print the map with capitals and compare. The numbered quiz sheet and its key serve the state names alone; the capitals are not on them.

Midwest states and their capitals

The Midwest as the Census Bureau defines it has twelve states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin in the East North Central division, and Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota in the West North Central division. Other sources draw the line differently, so lists of Midwest states are not identical everywhere. The table follows the Census definition.

Only three of the twelve Midwest capitals are also the largest city of their state, going by the Census Bureau estimates for 1 July 2025: Indianapolis, Columbus and Des Moines. In the other nine the larger city is somewhere else. Springfield is outranked by Chicago, Lansing by Detroit, Madison by Milwaukee, Topeka by Wichita, Saint Paul by Minneapolis, Jefferson City by Kansas City, Lincoln by Omaha, Bismarck by Fargo and Pierre by Sioux Falls.

The quiz does not have a round limited to this region. The table is for checking answers, and the twelve Midwest states are among the 50 that come up in every round.

Northeast states and their capitals

The Northeast has nine states: the six New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, and New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. It is the tightest part of any US map. Six of the ten states that are too small to tap reliably on a 390-pixel screen lie here, namely Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island, so the zoom helps most in this corner of the quiz.

Capital and largest city line up here much as in the Midwest. Only Boston and Providence are the largest cities of their states. In the other seven, a larger city sits elsewhere in the state: Bridgeport in Connecticut, Portland in Maine, Manchester in New Hampshire, Burlington in Vermont, Newark in New Jersey, New York City in New York and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. Hartford, Augusta, Concord, Montpelier, Trenton, Albany and Harrisburg are the capitals that go with them.

Using the quiz with 4th and 5th graders

The quiz needs no login, so it can be opened on a classroom tablet or computer without preparation. A group can play one round as a team on a shared screen, with the prompt read aloud and the answer tapped by whoever volunteers. The final list of missed capitals gives the group a natural next step.

Two children can also share one device: one reads the capital aloud and the other taps the state, then they swap roles. Because each round draws a new order, repeating the quiz does not simply replay the same sequence, and the colored map at the end of a round shows at a glance where the misses cluster, for instance in the crowded Northeast.

The Census regions allow a gradual approach. Younger learners can start with the Northeast table of nine states or the Midwest table of twelve, study it on paper, and play a full round afterwards. The printable maps cover the paper side: a blank map to fill in and a map with capitals as the answer sheet.

The postal abbreviations are a separate topic. They come with the states in the table and on the abbreviations map in the printable set.

Capital or largest city: the usual traps

Only 17 of the 50 capitals are also the largest city of their state, so a guess based on the biggest city goes wrong in most states. Albany is the capital of New York rather than New York City, Sacramento the capital of California rather than Los Angeles, Springfield the capital of Illinois rather than Chicago, and Harrisburg the capital of Pennsylvania rather than Philadelphia. The 17 that are both are listed on the page for all 50 states and capitals.

The quiz prompt names the capital, so the task is to place a small city in its state rather than to name the famous city of a state. The missed list at the end of a round shows where that went wrong.

Where the capitals lie from north to south

The coordinates of the capital points give a few handles for the map. Juneau, at about 58.3 degrees north, is the northernmost capital of the 50. Among the 48 contiguous states the northernmost capitals are Olympia in Washington at about 47.0, Bismarck in North Dakota at 46.8 and Helena in Montana at 46.6 degrees north. Honolulu, at about 21.3 degrees north, is the southernmost capital, and Austin, Tallahassee and Baton Rouge are the three southernmost ones on the mainland, all between 30.3 and 30.5 degrees north.

From east to west, Augusta in Maine is the easternmost capital, at about 69.8 degrees west. Honolulu is the westernmost, at about 157.9 degrees west, and on the mainland the westernmost are Salem in Oregon and Olympia in Washington, both near 123 degrees west. Starting a search from these anchors is faster than scanning the whole map.

Names that help and names that mislead

Some capital names carry their own memory hooks. Oklahoma City contains the state name, and Indianapolis begins with the letters of Indiana. Four capitals end in City: Jefferson City, Carson City, Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City. Nine have two words in all: Little Rock, Des Moines, Baton Rouge, Saint Paul, Jefferson City, Carson City, Santa Fe, Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City.

Only four capitals start with the same letter as their state: Dover for Delaware, Honolulu for Hawaii, Indianapolis for Indiana and Oklahoma City for Oklahoma. The other 46 capitals begin with a different letter than their state.

Other names invite swaps. Columbia in South Carolina and Columbus in Ohio start alike, as do Augusta in Maine and Austin in Texas. Charleston is the capital of West Virginia, while the largest city of South Carolina is also Charleston, and that state's capital is Columbia. When a round shows a miss in one of these pairs, the list at the end is the place to look.