US national parks trivia questions and answers in four rounds: the park system and its firsts, then one round each for Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and the Great Smoky Mountains.
Read the full guide
Yellowstone National Park trivia questions
Yellowstone asks for the tallest active geyser, the height of the Lower Falls, the tree that covers most of the forest and the earthquake of 1959.
Grand Canyon trivia questions
Grand Canyon covers the two presidents who protected it, the architect of its best-known buildings and the lodge on the canyon floor. For fun trivia questions about the Smoky Mountains, the last round has salamanders, synchronized fireflies and the loop road around Cades Cove.
Tips
Before a trip, the trivia questions about the Grand Canyon name the lodges and lookouts you will pass.
Questions and answers
Are there trivia questions about the North Rim, Grand Canyon?
One names the plateaus the North Rim stands on, the Kaibab and the Walhalla. Another asks which rim receives about 90 percent of the visits: the South Rim, which is easier to reach.
What are some easy national park trivia questions?
Rides on which animal are offered at the Grand Canyon? Which is perhaps the best-known animal of the Smokies? What share of the world's geysers is in Yellowstone? The answers are mules, the American black bear, and well over half.
Which is the largest national park?
Wrangell–St. Elias in Alaska, at more than 8.3 million acres. The next three largest parks are in Alaska too. The smallest is Gateway Arch National Park in Missouri.
How were the answers checked?
Each was read on October 3, 2026 in the English Wikipedia article linked under it: the list of national parks or the article on Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon or the Great Smoky Mountains. This site is not affiliated with the National Park Service.
A report of 1871 with photographs and paintings helped persuade Congress to protect Yellowstone. Whose survey was it?Answer: Ferdinand V. Hayden's. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
The biggest park of the system covers more land than each of how many of the smallest states?Answer: Nine. Source: Wikipedia: List of national parks of the United States
Harry Yount was hired at Yellowstone in 1880 to control poaching and vandalism. What is he remembered as?Answer: The first national park ranger. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
In order of creation, which number national park was the Grand Canyon?Answer: The 15th. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
In which year did the National Park Service take over the running of Yellowstone?Answer: 1917. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
Sequoia and Yosemite became national parks in the same year. Which year?Answer: 1890. Source: Wikipedia: List of national parks of the United States
The smallest national park is Gateway Arch National Park. In which state is it?Answer: Missouri. Source: Wikipedia: List of national parks of the United States
Two U.S. territories have a national park. One is American Samoa. Which is the other?Answer: The U.S. Virgin Islands. Source: Wikipedia: List of national parks of the United States
Which law of 1916 created the National Park Service?Answer: The Organic Act. Source: Wikipedia: List of national parks of the United States
Yellowstone 12
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck just outside the northwest boundary of Yellowstone in 1959. Which lake is it named for?Answer: Hebgen Lake. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
About what share of the geysers and hydrothermal features of the world are in Yellowstone?Answer: Well over half. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
The central part of Yellowstone is the caldera of what?Answer: A supervolcano. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
How high are the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, the highest waterfall in the park?Answer: 308 feet. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
Use of which Yellowstone cliff peaked in the Late Prehistoric period, from 1000 BC to 1000 AD?Answer: Obsidian Cliff. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
What did the United Nations name Yellowstone on September 8, 1978?Answer: A World Heritage Site. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
What is the tallest active geyser in the world, found in the Norris Geyser Basin?Answer: Steamboat Geyser. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
Which artist painted Yellowstone for the survey of 1871?Answer: Thomas Moran. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
Which line runs diagonally through the southwestern part of Yellowstone?Answer: The Continental Divide. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
Which tree covers 80 percent of the forested land in Yellowstone?Answer: Lodgepole pine. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
Which Yellowstone summit, at 11,358 feet, stands above all the rest of the park?Answer: Eagle Peak. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone has the oldest and largest public herd of which animal in the United States?Answer: Bison. Source: Wikipedia: Yellowstone National Park
Grand Canyon 11
Hopi House is modeled on buildings in which old Hopi settlement?Answer: Old Oraibi. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
In which year did UNESCO name the Grand Canyon a World Heritage Site?Answer: 1979. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
The North Rim stands on the Walhalla Plateau and which other plateau?Answer: The Kaibab Plateau. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Rides on which animal are offered at the Grand Canyon?Answer: Mules. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Which architect designed Hopi House, Hermit's Rest and the Desert View Watchtower?Answer: Mary Colter. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Which brothers filmed their journey down the Green and Colorado Rivers in 1911?Answer: The Kolb brothers. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Which lodging stands on the floor of the Grand Canyon?Answer: Phantom Ranch. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Which president signed the act that made the Grand Canyon a national park on February 26, 1919?Answer: Woodrow Wilson. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Which rim of the Grand Canyon receives about 90 percent of the visits?Answer: The South Rim. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Which senator, later a president, introduced the first bill for a Grand Canyon National Park in 1882?Answer: Benjamin Harrison. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Who made the Grand Canyon a national monument in 1908?Answer: Theodore Roosevelt. Source: Wikipedia: Grand Canyon National Park
Great Smoky Mountains 12
About how many miles of the Appalachian Trail lie inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park?Answer: About 72. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
An 11-mile one-way loop road circles which valley of Great Smoky Mountains National Park?Answer: Cades Cove. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The Great Smoky Mountains are known as the world capital of which animal?Answer: The salamander. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The Great Smoky Mountains are part of which larger range of mountains?Answer: The Blue Ridge Mountains. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The main entrances to Great Smoky Mountains National Park lie on U.S. Highway 441 at Cherokee, North Carolina, and at which Tennessee town?Answer: Gatlinburg. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The park in the Great Smokies was dedicated in 1940 at which memorial on the state line?Answer: The Rockefeller Memorial. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Photinus carolinus puts on synchronized light displays in the Great Smoky Mountains in mid-June. What is it?Answer: A firefly. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Which insect, arriving in the early 1960s, killed most of the fir trees of the high Smokies?Answer: The balsam woolly adelgid. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Which is perhaps the best-known animal of the Great Smoky Mountains?Answer: The American black bear. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Which is the second highest mountain in the national park of the Smokies?Answer: Mount Guyot. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Which large animal was brought back to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2001 and 2002?Answer: Elk. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Which president dedicated Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1940?Answer: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Source: Wikipedia: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
How this list was compiled
Written for this site; nothing was copied from another list. Questions and wrong choices are our own. Each explanation restates, in our own sentences, a fact from the English Wikipedia article named and linked beside the question (https://en.wikipedia.org, text under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license): List of national parks of the United States, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Canyon National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The text of each article was fetched on October 2 or 3, 2026, and on October 3, 2026 the passage that states each fact was read in it before the question was kept. Left out on purpose: visitor counts and rankings, the number of parks (it changes when Congress names one), animal population estimates, and what other trivia sets on this site already ask (the date Yellowstone was established and its two territories, the first cars, the president when the Park Service began, the second national park, the wolves of 1995, the states of the Appalachian Trail). This site is not affiliated with the National Park Service. Levels are our estimate: easy is fair for any table, medium suits people who know the subject, hard will stump most tables. Each question also carries the date its article was read (checkedOn). Licence: own work