National Parks Trivia Questions and Answers: 150 Amazing Questions About America’s Parks
The United States has 63 national parks. They sit inside a system of more than 425 sites run by the National Park Service. How many of them can you name?
This guide has 150 national parks trivia questions and answers, from easy to expert. Each question is numbered, and the answer sits right below it. Use it for family game night, a classroom, a road trip, or a pub quiz.
Table of Contents
Easy National Parks Trivia Questions and Answers
Start here to warm up. These national park trivia questions cover the basics that most travelers know.
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1. How many national parks are in the United States?
Answer: 63.
2. What was the first national park in the U.S.?
Answer: Yellowstone, created in 1872.
3. Which president signed the law that created Yellowstone?
Answer: Ulysses S. Grant.
4. In what year was the National Park Service created?
Answer: 1916.
5. Which president signed the National Park Service Organic Act?
Answer: Woodrow Wilson.
6. Who was the first director of the National Park Service?
Answer: Stephen Mather.
7. What is the newest national park?
Answer: New River Gorge in West Virginia. It became the 63rd park in December 2020.
8. What is the smallest national park?
Answer: Gateway Arch in Missouri, at about 193 acres.
9. What is the largest national park?
Answer: Wrangell–St. Elias in Alaska, at more than 8 million acres.
10. Which state has the most national parks?
Answer: California, with nine. Alaska is second with eight.
11. Which park is home to the Old Faithful geyser?
Answer: Yellowstone.
12. Which park is famous for Half Dome?
Answer: Yosemite.
13. Delicate Arch is a symbol of which Utah park?
Answer: Arches National Park.
14. Which park protects the General Sherman Tree?
Answer: Sequoia National Park in California.
15. Which Montana park has the Going-to-the-Sun Road?
Answer: Glacier National Park.
16. Which Maine park has Cadillac Mountain?
Answer: Acadia National Park.
17. Which park is home to a canyon more than a mile deep?
Answer: Grand Canyon in Arizona.
18. Which park is home to Denali, the tallest peak in North America?
Answer: Denali National Park in Alaska. The peak is 20,310 feet high.
19. Which park has the active volcano Kīlauea?
Answer: Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.
20. Which Colorado park protects Cliff Palace?
Answer: Mesa Verde National Park.
21. Which Florida park is known as a “river of grass”?
Answer: Everglades National Park.
22. Which national park is the most visited?
Answer: Great Smoky Mountains. It draws more than 12 million visits a year.
23. Which two states share Great Smoky Mountains National Park?
Answer: Tennessee and North Carolina.
24. Which park holds the deepest lake in the U.S.?
Answer: Crater Lake in Oregon. It is 1,943 feet deep.
25. Which Grand Canyon trail is a famous route from the South Rim to the river?
Answer: Bright Angel Trail.
26. Which massive granite cliff towers over Yosemite Valley?
Answer: El Capitan.
27. Which Utah park is known for hoodoos?
Answer: Bryce Canyon.
28. Which of these is not in Utah: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches or Saguaro?
Answer: Saguaro. It is in Arizona.
29. Which national park is located in the South Pacific?
Answer: National Park of American Samoa.
30. Which California park protects the tallest trees on Earth?
Answer: Redwood National and State Parks. The tallest tree, Hyperion, is about 380 feet.
Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Park Trivia Questions
These three parks show up in almost every national parks quiz. Here are 15 questions for each one.
Yellowstone National Park trivia questions and answers
31. Which three states does Yellowstone cover?
Answer: Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Most of it is in Wyoming.
32. How often does Old Faithful erupt?
Answer: About every 90 minutes on average.
33. What share of the world’s geysers is found in Yellowstone?
Answer: About half.
34. What is the largest hot spring in the U.S.?
Answer: Grand Prismatic Spring. It is about 370 feet wide.
35. What creates the bright rings of color in Grand Prismatic Spring?
Answer: Heat-loving microbes.
36. What sits beneath Yellowstone?
Answer: A supervolcano with a huge caldera.
37. When were gray wolves brought back to Yellowstone?
Answer: 1995.
38. Which animal has lived in Yellowstone since prehistoric times?
Answer: The American bison.
39. How high above sea level is Yellowstone Lake?
Answer: About 7,733 feet.
40. Which historic log hotel stands beside Old Faithful?
Answer: Old Faithful Inn, built in 1903 and 1904.
41. How many visits did Yellowstone record in its busiest year?
Answer: 4,860,537 in 2021.
42. Which river carved the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone?
Answer: The Yellowstone River.
43. How tall is Lower Falls?
Answer: 308 feet.
44. What is Mammoth Hot Springs known for?
Answer: Its stepped travertine terraces.
45. What is the tallest active geyser in the world?
Answer: Steamboat Geyser. It can shoot water more than 300 feet high.
Grand Canyon National Park trivia questions and answers
46. Which river carved the Grand Canyon?
Answer: The Colorado River.
47. How long is the Grand Canyon?
Answer: 277 river miles.
48. How wide is the canyon at its widest point?
Answer: About 18 miles.
49. How deep is the canyon at its deepest?
Answer: More than a mile.
50. When did the Grand Canyon become a national park?
Answer: 1919.
51. Which president made it a national monument in 1908?
Answer: Theodore Roosevelt.
52. How old are the oldest rocks at the bottom?
Answer: About 1.8 billion years.
53. In which state is the Grand Canyon?
Answer: Arizona.
54. Who designed the Desert View Watchtower?
Answer: Mary Colter, in 1932.
55. Which rim is higher, North or South?
Answer: The North Rim, at about 8,000 feet.
56. Which trail follows a natural fault line down to the river?
Answer: Bright Angel Trail.
57. Which tribe lives in Havasu Canyon, home of the blue-green waterfalls?
Answer: The Havasupai.
58. How long is a rim-to-rim hike?
Answer: About 21 to 24 miles.
59. How many people visit the Grand Canyon each year?
Answer: Nearly 5 million.
60. Which giant bird was released near the canyon in 1996?
Answer: The California condor.
Yosemite National Park trivia questions and answers
61. In which state is Yosemite?
Answer: California.
62. When did Yosemite become a national park?
Answer: 1890.
63. Which president signed the 1864 Yosemite Grant?
Answer: Abraham Lincoln.
64. How tall is Yosemite Falls?
Answer: 2,425 feet, one of the tallest waterfalls in North America.
65. About how tall is El Capitan?
Answer: About 3,000 feet from base to top.
66. Who free soloed El Capitan in 2017?
Answer: Alex Honnold.
67. How high is the top of Half Dome above sea level?
Answer: 8,842 feet.
68. Which naturalist fought to protect Yosemite?
Answer: John Muir.
69. Which photographer made Yosemite famous in black and white?
Answer: Ansel Adams.
70. Which club did John Muir help found in 1892?
Answer: The Sierra Club.
71. Which grove in Yosemite shelters giant sequoias?
Answer: Mariposa Grove.
72. What is the famous sequoia in Mariposa Grove called?
Answer: The Grizzly Giant. It is about 2,000 years old.
73. What is the “firefall” in February?
Answer: Horsetail Fall glowing orange at sunset.
74. Which grand hotel opened in Yosemite Valley in 1927?
Answer: The Ahwahnee, now called the Majestic Yosemite Hotel.
75. Tioga Pass, at 9,943 feet, is the highest what in California?
Answer: The highest highway pass.
Wildlife, Geology and Landmark National Parks Trivia Questions
These rounds go beyond the big three. Expect animals, volcanoes, caves and Alaska.
76. Which park is the only place where alligators and crocodiles live together?
Answer: Everglades National Park.
77. Which gentle sea mammal lives in Everglades waters?
Answer: The West Indian manatee.
78. Which Alaska park is famous for brown bears at Brooks Falls?
Answer: Katmai.
79. What fish do those bears catch?
Answer: Sockeye salmon.
80. Which park hosts the longest-running wolf and moose study?
Answer: Isle Royale in Michigan. It began in 1958.
81. Which native goose, Hawai’i’s state bird, lives at Haleakalā?
Answer: The nēnē.
82. Which California park is home to the island fox?
Answer: Channel Islands.
83. Which slow desert reptile lives in Joshua Tree?
Answer: The desert tortoise.
84. Which South Dakota park has prairie dog towns and black-footed ferrets?
Answer: Badlands National Park.
85. Which park protects the giant saguaro cactus?
Answer: Saguaro National Park.
86. Which park is known for synchronous fireflies?
Answer: Great Smoky Mountains.
87. Which park has the largest bison herd on public land?
Answer: Yellowstone.
88. Which white, sure-footed animal climbs the cliffs of Glacier?
Answer: The mountain goat.
89. Which Washington park has the Hoh Rain Forest?
Answer: Olympic National Park.
90. Which Colorado park has Longs Peak, at 14,259 feet?
Answer: Rocky Mountain National Park.
91. How did Crater Lake form?
Answer: Mount Mazama collapsed about 7,700 years ago.
92. What is Wizard Island?
Answer: A cinder cone inside Crater Lake.
93. Which volcano in Hawai’i Volcanoes is the largest active volcano on Earth?
Answer: Mauna Loa.
94. Which Hawaiian goddess is linked to Kīlauea?
Answer: Pele.
95. Which spot in Death Valley is the lowest in North America?
Answer: Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level.
96. What is Death Valley’s record air temperature?
Answer: 134°F, set on July 10, 1913.
97. Which Kentucky park holds the longest known cave system?
Answer: Mammoth Cave. More than 400 miles are mapped.
98. Which Carlsbad Caverns chamber is nearly 4,000 feet long?
Answer: The Big Room.
99. Which Colorado park has the tallest sand dunes in North America?
Answer: Great Sand Dunes. Star Dune is about 750 feet.
100. Which New Mexico park has the world’s largest gypsum dunefield?
Answer: White Sands.
101. Which Utah park protects the Waterpocket Fold?
Answer: Capitol Reef. The fold is nearly 100 miles long.
102. Which park holds more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches?
Answer: Arches.
103. How many major glaciers cover Mount Rainier?
Answer: 25.
104. Which Colorado park has the Painted Wall, the state’s tallest cliff?
Answer: Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The wall is about 2,250 feet.
105. Which Arizona park has 200-million-year-old petrified logs?
Answer: Petrified Forest.
106. Which Alaska park is about six times the size of Yellowstone?
Answer: Wrangell–St. Elias.
107. Which Alaska park sits north of the Arctic Circle and has no roads or trails?
Answer: Gates of the Arctic.
108. Which Alaska park has sand dunes above the Arctic Circle?
Answer: Kobuk Valley.
109. Which Katmai valley was filled with steam vents after the 1912 Novarupta eruption?
Answer: The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.
110. Which Alaska park is home to Exit Glacier?
Answer: Kenai Fjords.
111. Which Florida park is reached only by boat or seaplane?
Answer: Dry Tortugas.
112. Which South Carolina park protects old-growth bottomland forest?
Answer: Congaree.
113. Which Nevada park has Wheeler Peak and ancient bristlecone pines?
Answer: Great Basin. Wheeler Peak is 13,065 feet.
114. Which park covers about 60% of the island of St. John?
Answer: Virgin Islands National Park.
115. Which Ohio park lies between Cleveland and Akron?
Answer: Cuyahoga Valley.
Hard National Parks Trivia Questions for Experts
Think you are a true park ranger? Try these hard national park trivia questions.
116. In what year did Congress pass the Antiquities Act?
Answer: 1906.
117. Which 1916 law told the park service to leave parks “unimpaired”?
Answer: The National Park Service Organic Act.
118. Which 1980 law protected more than 100 million acres in Alaska?
Answer: ANILCA, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
119. Who became the second director of the National Park Service in 1929?
Answer: Horace Albright.
120. Which 1930s program built many park roads, trails and lodges?
Answer: The Civilian Conservation Corps.
121. Which philanthropist bought Jackson Hole land to donate to Grand Teton?
Answer: John D. Rockefeller Jr.
122. Which was the first national park east of the Mississippi River?
Answer: Acadia, in 1919.
123. Who is often called the “father of Acadia”?
Answer: George B. Dorr.
124. Which park was created in 1906 to protect Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings?
Answer: Mesa Verde.
125. How tall is the Gateway Arch?
Answer: 630 feet.
126. Which Utah park did Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch use as a hideout?
Answer: Canyonlands, which became a park in 1964.
127. Which North Dakota park honors the 26th president?
Answer: Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
128. In which month is National Park Week held?
Answer: April.
129. Which Michigan park sits on an island in Lake Superior?
Answer: Isle Royale.
130. Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet, stands on the edge of which park?
Answer: Sequoia.
131. How high is Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas?
Answer: 8,751 feet.
132. About how tall is the General Sherman Tree?
Answer: About 275 feet.
133. Which park holds the stump of Prometheus, a bristlecone pine cut in 1964?
Answer: Great Basin. The tree was about 4,900 years old.
134. How high is the summit of Haleakalā on Maui?
Answer: 10,023 feet.
135. Big Bend protects the largest U.S. area of which desert?
Answer: The Chihuahuan Desert.
136. How tall is Grand Teton, the highest peak in the Teton Range?
Answer: 13,775 feet.
137. Which park has Triple Divide Peak, where water flows toward three oceans?
Answer: Glacier.
138. How high does Trail Ridge Road climb?
Answer: 12,183 feet, the highest continuous paved road in the U.S.
139. How long is Skyline Drive in Shenandoah?
Answer: 105 miles.
140. About how long is the Appalachian Trail?
Answer: About 2,200 miles.
141. Which Arkansas park began as a federal reservation in 1832?
Answer: Hot Springs.
142. Which mineral did the Kennecott Mines produce?
Answer: Copper.
143. Which barn on Mormon Row is a top photo spot below the Tetons?
Answer: The T.A. Moulton Barn.
144. Which Zion hike has chains and now needs a permit?
Answer: Angels Landing.
145. Which river carved Zion Canyon?
Answer: The Virgin River.
146. Which South Dakota cave is known for rare boxwork?
Answer: Wind Cave.
147. Which cave near Carlsbad has more than 150 miles of passages?
Answer: Lechuguilla Cave.
148. Which Death Valley dunes are popular at sunrise?
Answer: Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.
149. Which Arches feature is one of the longest natural arches on Earth?
Answer: Landscape Arch.
150. Tiebreaker: how many national parks are in Alaska?
Answer: Eight.
FAQs
Which national parks have the most interesting facts for trivia questions?
Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Great Smoky Mountains and Alaska’s parks. They mix records, wildlife, geology and history. That gives quiz writers plenty of angles.
What are good Yellowstone National Park trivia questions and answers?
Ask about Old Faithful’s eruption gap, the 1995 wolf return, or Grand Prismatic Spring. See questions 31 to 45 above.
What are the best Grand Canyon national park trivia questions?
Ask about the Colorado River, the canyon’s 277-mile length, and its 1.8-billion-year-old rocks. See questions 46 to 60.
What Yosemite National Park trivia questions should you know?
Know Half Dome, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls and John Muir. See questions 61 to 75.Now you have 150 national parks trivia questions and answers to play with. Share them with friends, or use them to pick your next park trip.
Conclusion
From iconic landscapes to hidden gems, these National Parks Trivia Questions and Answers explored the history, wildlife, landmarks, and incredible stories behind America’s parks. How many questions did you get right?If you enjoyed the challenge, share this quiz with friends and family and see who can score the highest. Keep exploring, keep learning, and come back for more amazing trivia!
Abroy Sohail is the founder and lead content writer at TriviaQuestionsHub.com. Passionate about trivia, general knowledge, and helping readers learn something new every day, Abroy curates and writes engaging quiz content for readers of all ages.
