70+ Montana Trivia Questions and Answers

Montana is located in the northwestern region of the U.S. It is the only state to share a land border with three provinces of Canada. Big enough to fit 6 American states and slightly larger than Japan.

If you love the outdoors, you may know Montana as the land of shining mountains and hidden gems. The world’s first ever national park – Yellowstone National Park is located here.

Montana Facts Trivia Questions and Answers

Montana resonates with everyone on different levels. This could be the Netflix sensation series: Maid, or the kids friendly show; ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Company’ among many other Montana’s productions or arts featured there.

Planning a trip to Montana? Why not use this trivia exercise to inform yourself about the state?

 

1. What is the origin of the state of Montana’s name?

It’s derived from the Spanish word montaña (mountain)

 

2. What is the Montana state slogan?

Big Sky Country

 

3. Where does Montana rank in size in comparison to the other US States?

4th

 

4. What is the Montana state flower?

Bitterroot.

 

5. Montana is home to the largest ICBM field in the United States covering how many  square miles?

23,500.

 

6. Which Montana lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in the western United States?

Flathead Lake

 

7. What is the capital of Montana?

Helena

 

8. On January 15, 1972, what was the location of the most extreme recorded temperature change in a 24-hour period in the United States when a chinook wind blew in and the temperature went from −54 to 49 °F ?

Loma Montana

 

9. Warmer weather, attacks by beetles, and mismanagement has led to a substantial increase in what?

The severity of forest fires.

 

10.  What is the established date of Montana?

Nov 8, 1889

 

11. In World War II, Native Americans from the Crow Nation became what?

Code Talkers.

 

12. What is the area of Montana?

380,831 km²

 

13. What is the Montana state bird?

Western Meadowlark

 

14. What is Montana’s state motto?

Oro y Plata

 

15. How many named mountain ranges does Montana have?

77

 

16. What is Montana’s state gamestone?

Montana Sapphire

 

17. Montana’s economy is primarily based on what?

Agriculture

 

18. The largest mining operations in Montana were located in the city of Butte, where silver deposits and gigantic what?

Copper deposits

 

19. What is Montana’s state fossil?

Duck-billed dinosaur

 

20. Where is Montana’s highest point?

Granite Peak

 

21. Montana’s Glacier National Park, is commonly known as what?

“The Crown of the Continent”

 

22. What is the height of Granite Peak?

540 m

 

23. How many square miles does Montana have in the area?

147,040

 

24. What is Montana’s state song?

Montana

 

25. Montana is slightly larger than which Asian country?

Japan

 

26. All the land in Montana east of the continental divide was part of the what?

 

27. What is Montana’s state Land mammal?

 

28. What is the largest reservoir in Montana?

Fort Peck Reservoir on the Missouri river.

 

29. Which is known as The Treasure State in US?

Montana

 

30. What is the Montana state ballad?

Montana Melody

 

31. Henry Plummer was the ‘outlaw’ sheriff of which Montana town?

Bannack

 

32. What are the only two cities with populations over 50,000 in Montana?

Missoula and Great Falls.

 

33. What is the highest recorded temperature measured in Montana?

117 °F at Glendive on July 20, 1893, and Medicine Lake on July 5, 1937.

 

34. What year was Henry Plummer elected as sheriff?

1863

 

35. The state of Montana is the largest what?

Landlocked U.S. state.

 

36. How many ‘outlaws’ did the Vigilantes hang in January and February 1864?

22

 

37. What was the first permanent settlement in what today is Montana?

St. Mary’s near present day Stevensville in 1841.

 

38. Long John Franck and Erastus Yeager did what?

Supplied the Vigilantes with names of other supposed gang members.

 

39. What state borders Montana to the south?

Wyoming

 

40.  What Plateau is the largest continuous land mass with an elevation of over 10,000 feet high in the U. S.?

Beartooth Plateau

 

41. The death of Nicholas Tbalt is the catalyst that started the Vigilante killing spree. Who is said to have killed him?

George Ives

 

42. There are how many named lakes and reservoirs in Montana?

Over 3,223

 

43. Who was the original owner of the Anaconda Mining Co?

Marcus Daly

 

44. For the war effort in World War I, Montana’s Remount station in Miles City provided 10,000 what?

Cavalry horses

 

45. Montana 450 miles named rivers and creeks that are known for their “blue-ribbon” what?

Trout fishing

 

46. Montana’s rivers drain into what three major bodies of water?

The Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson Bay.

 

47. What company did Anaconda merge within 1899 to become the Amalgamated Copper Mining Co.?

Standard Oil Company

 

48. Gold output in Montana from 1862 through 1876 reached how many dollars?

$144 million

 

49. Where do Montana’s three watersheds divide?

Triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park.

 

50. What was it that created Quake Lake in 1959?

A landslide during the 1959 Yellowstone Earthquake.

 

51. 168 men were killed in a Butte mine fire in which year?

1917

 

52. How many dams are there on the Missouri River?

10

 

53. Okay, for anyone who’s ever even been to Montana, this question should be the easiest one in the quiz. Which ethnic group makes up the majority of Butte’s population to this day?

Irish

 

54. The Yellowstone River is the longest “what” in the United States?

Undammed river

 

55. Fort Peck Reservoir is contained by the world’s second largest what?

Earthen dam

 

56. Who owned the Copper King Mansion?

William Clark

 

57. What is the Montana state grass?

Bluebunch Wheatgrass

 

58. Who found the first gold at Last Chance Gulch?

The Four Georgians.

 

59. About what percentage of Montana is covered in Forests?

Approximately 25 percent

 

60. Name the trading company that first established a post at what was to become Ft. Benton.

The American Fur Co.

 

61. Where was the first gold discovered in Montana?

Gold Creek near present day Garrison in 1852.

 

62. The first female in congress was from Montana. What was her name?

Jeannette Rankin

 

63. The State of Montana contains portions of Yellowstone National Park including three of the park’s what?

Five entrances

 

64. A Jesuit priest opened a mission in what valley in 1841?

The Bitterroot Valley

 

65. How many acres of wilderness are in the National Wilderness Preservation System established by the Wilderness Act of 1964?

3,300,000.

 

66. What is the coldest recorded temperature for Montana?

−70 °F near Rogers Pass On January 20, 1954.

 

67. Name one of the two founders of Missoula?

Higgins & Worden

 

68. In 1891, what group of Native Americans was moved to the Flathead Indian Reservation in modern Lake County?

Salish

 

69. The climate is getting warmer in Montana and the glaciers in Glacier National Park have receded and are predicted to do what in a few decades?

Melt away completely

 

70. What three numbers can be found on the patch worn by the Montana Highway Patrol?

3-7-77

 

71. Winters are warmer, and have fewer cold spells that used to killed off the what ?

Bark beetles,  which are now attacking the forests of western Montana.

 

72. The Desert Land Act of 1877 allowed settlement of arid lands in the west and gave 640 acres to settlers for  $.25 per acre and a promise to what?

Irrigate the land

 

73. In World War I, how many Montanans died?

1500

 

74. In Montana, the 1918 Influenza epidemic killed how many people?

Over 5,000

 

75. Montana was the only one of the 48 US States during World War II to not have a ” what” named after it?

Battleship

 

76. What is the Montana state tree?

Ponderosa Pine

 

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