United States Map Quiz

A map quiz for all fifty states, right in the browser. Nothing to download, nothing to print, and no score is stored anywhere — close the tab and it is gone.

Three ways to use it

Find the state. The quiz names a state and the child clicks it on the map. This is the mode to start with, because recognising a shape in place is easier than recalling a name from nothing, and it works well on a tablet.

Name the state. One state lights up and the child types its name. Harder, and the right next step once the shapes are familiar. The two-letter postal code is accepted too, so TX counts for Texas.

Explore. No score, no timer. Tap any state to see its name, its capital and its postal abbreviation. Use this one first, before either quiz.

How the scoring works

• All fifty states come up once, in a random order, so no two rounds are the same.
• A wrong answer gets a second try. Miss twice and the quiz shows you the answer and moves on — being stuck on Nebraska for two minutes teaches nobody anything.
• Green means answered correctly, red means it was missed.
• At the end you get a score out of fifty and a list of exactly which states were missed. That list is the useful part: it is the study list for next time.

The small states

Rhode Island is about eight pixels across on a typical screen, and Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maryland are not much better. Asking a seven-year-old to tap one of those accurately is a test of finger control, not geography.

So those eight states also appear as labelled buttons under the map. Clicking the button counts exactly the same as clicking the shape.

Getting better at it

• Learn them in groups, not alphabetically. The four corner states, then the west coast, then the ones along the Mississippi. Regions stick; alphabetical lists do not.
• Start with the distinctive shapes. Florida, Texas, California, Michigan and Louisiana are recognisable on their own, and they anchor everything around them.
• The rectangles are the hard part. Colorado and Wyoming are both near-rectangles, and Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Iowa and Missouri are learned by position rather than shape. Expect those to be the last ones mastered.
• Do a short round often. Five minutes twice a week beats an hour once.

Printable versions

For homework, a test, or anyone who would rather work on paper:

• Blank United States map worksheet — outlines only, for labelling by hand.
• US map with state names — the reference sheet to check against.
• US map states match worksheet — match each name to its number.
• Maps and globes worksheets — for the map-reading skills underneath all of this.

The map itself is drawn from US Census boundary data, in the Albers projection — the same equal-area projection used on most classroom wall maps, with Alaska and Hawaii brought in below the south-west so that all fifty states are usable at one size.