California counties quiz

The 58 counties in the quiz

They’re the 58 counties of California, as counted by the US Census Bureau. The state capital, Sacramento, is in Sacramento County.

How to play

In Point mode we name a county and you tap it on the map; in Type mode one lights up and you type its name (accents don’t matter); and in Time trial you get 6 seconds per question. If you miss, we show you where it was, which way it lies and a hint drawn from the data: its size rank and its neighbors.

Each game has 10, 20 or all the questions, and at the end you can practice just the ones you missed. Your best score for each mode is saved in this browser only: neither we nor anyone else can see it, and there’s no sign-up.

The hardest ones

The smallest counties are the hardest, since they barely show on the map: San Francisco (47 sq mi), Santa Cruz (445 sq mi), and San Mateo (449 sq mi). Zoom in with the buttons or two fingers to tap them.

Tips to learn them

• Start with the three largest: San Bernardino, Inyo, and Kern cover 25% of the area of California.
• The 10 counties bordering Nevada trace that border on the map: Alpine, El Dorado, Inyo, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, Placer, San Bernardino, and Sierra.
• Los Angeles is the most populous (9,694,934 people in 2025) and, together with San Diego and Orange, is home to 41% of California’s people.

Playing in class

If you teach in California, start with your school’s county and its neighbors and add a few each day. Otherwise, it’s a good way to get to know the state before studying it.

With the Challenge your class link, everyone gets the same questions in the same order, with no accounts or passwords, and each student sees their own score, time and streak. To practice on paper, there’s a printable worksheet of the same map with an answer key.

List of all 58 counties

1. Alameda pop. 1,636,630
2. Alpine pop. 1,043
3. Amador pop. 41,876
4. Butte pop. 209,211
5. Calaveras pop. 46,605
6. Colusa pop. 21,836
7. Contra Costa pop. 1,170,070
8. Del Norte pop. 26,410
9. El Dorado pop. 192,323
10. Fresno pop. 1,035,456
11. Glenn pop. 28,141
12. Humboldt pop. 131,647
13. Imperial pop. 181,411
14. Inyo pop. 18,158
15. Kern pop. 927,068
16. Kings pop. 154,327
17. Lake pop. 67,772
18. Lassen pop. 28,117
19. Los Angeles pop. 9,694,934
20. Madera pop. 167,927
21. Marin pop. 253,694
22. Mariposa pop. 16,918
23. Mendocino pop. 88,122
24. Merced pop. 297,260
25. Modoc pop. 8,426
26. Mono pop. 12,505
27. Monterey pop. 433,729
28. Napa pop. 132,949
29. Nevada pop. 101,911
30. Orange pop. 3,149,507
31. Placer pop. 442,081
32. Plumas pop. 18,583
33. Riverside pop. 2,544,916
34. Sacramento pop. 1,618,460
35. San Benito pop. 70,082
36. San Bernardino pop. 2,224,091
37. San Diego pop. 3,282,248
38. San Francisco pop. 826,079
39. San Joaquin pop. 823,815
40. San Luis Obispo pop. 282,367
41. San Mateo pop. 743,568
42. Santa Barbara pop. 442,065
43. Santa Clara pop. 1,914,391
44. Santa Cruz pop. 258,852
45. Shasta pop. 181,648
46. Sierra pop. 3,098
47. Siskiyou pop. 42,013
48. Solano pop. 455,376
49. Sonoma pop. 486,444
50. Stanislaus pop. 557,719
51. Sutter pop. 98,787
52. Tehama pop. 64,665
53. Trinity pop. 15,720
54. Tulare pop. 485,146
55. Tuolumne pop. 53,160
56. Ventura pop. 830,851
57. Yolo pop. 224,410
58. Yuba pop. 88,691