New Mexico counties quiz

The 33 counties in the quiz

They’re the 33 counties of New Mexico, as counted by the US Census Bureau. The state capital, Santa Fe, is in Santa Fe 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: Los Alamos (109 sq mi), Valencia (1,067 sq mi), and Bernalillo (1,161 sq mi). Zoom in with the buttons or two fingers to tap them.

Tips to learn them

• The 8 counties bordering Texas trace that border on the map: Curry, Doña Ana, Eddy, Lea, Otero, Quay, Roosevelt, and Union.
• Bernalillo is the most populous (667,601 people in 2025) and, together with Doña Ana and Sandoval, is home to 50% of New Mexico’s people.

Playing in class

If you teach in New Mexico, 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 33 counties

1. Bernalillo pop. 667,601
2. Catron pop. 3,827
3. Chaves pop. 63,364
4. Cibola pop. 26,807
5. Colfax pop. 12,184
6. Curry pop. 46,655
7. De Baca pop. 1,647
8. Doña Ana pop. 229,091
9. Eddy pop. 62,509
10. Grant pop. 27,252
11. Guadalupe pop. 4,343
12. Harding pop. 617
13. Hidalgo pop. 3,929
14. Lea pop. 74,749
15. Lincoln pop. 19,844
16. Los Alamos pop. 19,407
17. Luna pop. 25,407
18. McKinley pop. 68,119
19. Mora pop. 4,051
20. Otero pop. 70,368
21. Quay pop. 8,454
22. Rio Arriba pop. 39,832
23. Roosevelt pop. 18,615
24. San Juan pop. 120,340
25. San Miguel pop. 26,260
26. Sandoval pop. 159,565
27. Santa Fe pop. 156,907
28. Sierra pop. 11,395
29. Socorro pop. 15,838
30. Taos pop. 34,564
31. Torrance pop. 16,100
32. Union pop. 3,844
33. Valencia pop. 82,013