 - 1. The Mississippi River is the second-longest river in the United States, stretching over 2,300 miles from its source at Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico. It passes through or borders 10 states, serving as a major transportation route for goods and products. The river has played a significant role in the history and culture of the region, serving as a lifeline for trade, travel, and agriculture. Its vast basin is home to diverse wildlife and ecosystems, making it an important natural resource. The Mississippi River continues to be a symbol of American heritage and a vital part of the country's landscape.
What is the longest river in North America?
A) Amazon River
B) Mississippi River
C) Colorado River
D) Columbia River
- 2. In which state does the Mississippi River have its source?
A) Minnesota
B) Mississippi
C) Louisiana
D) Tennessee
- 3. Which major city lies at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers?
A) St. Louis
B) Minneapolis
C) Memphis
D) New Orleans
- 4. The Mississippi River flows into which body of water?
A) Gulf of Mexico
B) Pacific Ocean
C) Lake Superior
D) Atlantic Ocean
- 5. What is the Mississippi River's nickname?
A) Great River
B) Old Man River
C) Big Muddy
D) Mighty Mississippi
- 6. What is the name of the largest tributary of the Mississippi River?
A) Illinois River
B) Missouri River
C) Ohio River
D) Arkansas River
- 7. What is the Old Man River famous for according to the traditional song 'Ol' Man River'?
A) Singing a happy song
B) Stopping for no one
C) Just keeps rolling along
D) Looking mighty and strong
- 8. What is the name of the fundamental law governing water pollution in the U.S. that was greatly inspired by the Mississippi River's condition?
A) Pollution Prevention Act
B) Clean Water Act
C) Environmental Protection Act
D) Water Quality Act
- 9. What is the name of the historic paddlewheel steamboat that regularly cruised the Mississippi River?
A) Delta Queen
B) S.S. Minnow
C) Queen Mary
D) Titanic
- 10. Where does the Mississippi River divide the states of Iowa and Illinois?
A) Twin Cities
B) Riverfront Cities
C) Quad Cities
D) Gateway Cities
- 11. Which famous author wrote 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', a novel featuring the Mississippi River?
A) Ernest Hemingway
B) Mark Twain
C) Harper Lee
D) F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 12. In which year did the Mississippi River experience a historic flood?
A) 1989
B) 1927
C) 2005
D) 1969
- 13. In which war did the Mississippi River play a crucial role as a strategic waterway?
A) War of 1812
B) World War I
C) Vietnam War
D) American Civil War
- 14. What is the historic city that sits at the head of navigation on the Mississippi River?
A) Kansas City
B) St. Paul
C) Baton Rouge
D) Memphis
- 15. Where does the Mississippi River originate?
A) Gulf of Mexico
B) Great Lakes
C) Mississippi Delta
D) Lake Itasca
- 16. Which famous civil rights leader worked as a sharecropper and later organized voter registration along the Mississippi River?
A) Ella Baker
B) Fannie Lou Hamer
C) Malcolm X
D) Martin Luther King Jr.
- 17. What is the significance of the Mississippi River to the history of the United States?
A) It is the longest river in the world.
B) It has the fastest flowing waters in the country.
C) It served as a major transportation route for trade and settlement.
D) It is the source of the country's hydroelectric power.
- 18. What is the meaning of the name 'Mississippi' in Ojibwe language?
A) Great Savior
B) Fast Flowing Water
C) Muddy Waters
D) Big River
- 19. How long is the Mississippi River?
A) 3,000 miles (4,828 km)
B) 4,000 miles (6,437 km)
C) 2,340 miles (3,770 km)
D) 1,500 miles (2,414 km)
- 20. How many U.S. states does the Mississippi River's watershed drain?
A) 32 U.S. states
B) 20 U.S. states
C) 15 U.S. states
D) 40 U.S. states
- 21. What percentage of the Mississippi River's drainage basin is in Canada?
A) About one percent
B) Fifty percent
C) Ten percent
D) Twenty-five percent
- 22. What is the Mississippi River's rank by discharge flow worldwide?
A) Twentieth-largest
B) Tenth-largest
C) Fifth-largest
D) First-largest
- 23. What is the primary contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone?
A) Industrial waste
B) Urban sewage
C) Agricultural runoff
D) Oil spills
- 24. How many dams are located in the Upper Mississippi River?
A) 43 dams
B) 60 dams
C) 50 dams
D) 30 dams
- 25. What is the only true waterfall on the entire Mississippi River?
A) Niagara Falls
B) Saint Anthony Falls
C) Minnehaha Falls
D) Cascades Falls
- 26. What is the width of Lake Winnibigoshish, the widest point of the Upper Mississippi?
A) 15 miles (24 km) across
B) 20 miles (32 km) across
C) 5 miles (8 km) across
D) Over 11 miles (18 km) across
- 27. What is the elevation of the Upper Mississippi River at St. Paul, Minnesota?
A) 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level
B) 687 feet (209 m) above sea level
C) 799 feet (244 m) above sea level
D) 750 feet (230 m) above sea level
- 28. What is the topography of the Upper Mississippi River from the St. Croix River to Dubuque, Iowa?
A) Flat and meandering
B) Entrenched with high bedrock bluffs
C) Narrow and rocky
D) Marshy and swampy
- 29. What percentage of the Mississippi and Red Rivers' combined flow is diverted to the Atchafalaya River?
A) 50%
B) 20%
C) 30%
D) 10%
- 30. What is the stream gradient of the entire Mississippi River?
A) 1.0%
B) 0.05%
C) 0.5%
D) 0.01%
- 31. What is the total drop in elevation from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico?
A) 310 kilometers
B) 220 meters
C) 67 meters
D) 450 meters
- 32. Which is the highest point within the Mississippi River's watershed?
A) Mount Whitney
B) Mount Elbert
C) Mount Mitchell
D) Mount Rushmore
- 33. What is the approximate retention time for water traveling from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico?
A) 90 days
B) 30 days
C) 120 days
D) 60 days
- 34. What percentage of the continental United States' landmass is covered by the Mississippi River's catchment?
A) 50%
B) 10%
C) Nearly 40%
D) 25%
- 35. What is the Mississippi River's rank by volume among the world's rivers?
A) Fifth largest
B) Twenty-second largest
C) Tenth largest
D) Fourteenth largest
- 36. What percentage of the Amazon River's flow does the Mississippi River have on average?
A) 20%
B) 5%
C) 8%
D) 15%
- 37. How much sediment did the Mississippi River transport per year before 1900?
A) 440 million short tons
B) 300 million short tons
C) 600 million short tons
D) 500 million short tons
- 38. What was the estimated sediment transport by the Mississippi River per year during the last two decades?
A) 100 million short tons
B) 180 million short tons
C) 160 million short tons
D) 200 million short tons
- 39. What programs contributed to the reduction of sediment transport in the Mississippi River?
A) Water conservation programs
B) Soil erosion control programs
C) Floodplain management programs
D) Wetland protection programs
- 40. In what year did salt water travel 64 miles upstream due to drought?
A) 2022
B) 2012
C) 1988
D) 1999
- 41. Which steamboat company operated a luxurious fleet between St. Louis and New Orleans from 1859 to 1898?
A) River Line
B) Anchor Line
C) Mississippi Line
D) Steamboat Line
- 42. In which year did Spain cede an undefined portion of West Florida to France?
A) 1800
B) 1819
C) 1795
D) 1763
- 43. Approximately how many years ago was the Central United States covered by an inland sea?
A) 50,000 years
B) 25,000 years
C) 100,000 years
D) 75,000 years
- 44. What type of labor was used to build the first levees on the Mississippi River?
A) French settlers
B) Spanish explorers
C) Indigenous laborers
D) Enslaved African laborers
- 45. What campaign completed control of the lower Mississippi River?
A) Gettysburg Campaign
B) Atlanta Campaign
C) Vicksburg Campaign
D) Sherman's March
- 46. What was the depth of the channel recommended by the Corps of Engineers at the Des Moines Rapids?
A) 5-foot-deep
B) 9-foot-deep
C) 7-foot-deep
D) 4.5-foot-deep
- 47. Which Native American nation is not listed as inhabiting the Mississippi basin?
A) Navajo
B) Ojibwe
C) Cheyenne
D) Sioux
- 48. What was the name of the most prominent Mississippian culture city?
A) Cahokia
B) Gichi-ziibiwininiwag
C) Bemijigamaag-ziibi
D) Omashkoozo-zaaga'igan
- 49. Who rediscovered the mouth of the Mississippi after La Salle's death?
A) Louis Jolliet
B) Jacques Marquette
C) Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne
D) Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
- 50. What is the Arapaho name for the Mississippi River?
A) Misi-ziibi
B) Máʼxe-éʼometaaʼe
C) Kickaátit
D) Beesniicíe
- 51. In what year was the United States Army Corps of Engineers established?
A) 1900
B) 1848
C) 1802
D) 1829
- 52. Which bridge is the northernmost river crossing in the St. Louis metropolitan area?
A) Clark Bridge
B) Norbert F. Beckey Bridge
C) Eads Bridge
D) Chain of Rocks Bridge
- 53. What was the main influence in shaping the current form of the Mississippi River basin?
A) The Laurentide Ice Sheet
B) The Rocky Mountains
C) The Appalachian Mountains
D) The Sierra Nevada
- 54. Which period saw the lifestyle of Native Americans in the Mississippi River basin become more settled?
A) Woodland period
B) Mississippian period
C) Mesoamerican period
D) Hopewell period
- 55. Which bridge is known as the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Bridge?
A) Great River Bridge
B) Clinton Railroad Bridge
C) Fred Schwengel Memorial Bridge
D) Eisenhower Bridge
- 56. What was the original French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the Mississippi River?
A) Omashkoozo-ziibi
B) Bemijigamaag-ziibi
C) Messipi
D) Gichi-ziibi
- 57. What geological feature formed as a result of the uplift and erosion of the Appalachian-Ouachita range?
A) The Great Plains
B) The Appalachian Mountains
C) The Rocky Mountains
D) The Reelfoot Rift
- 58. Who was the first recorded European to reach the Mississippi River?
A) René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
B) Alonso Álvarez de Pineda
C) Louis Jolliet
D) Hernando de Soto
- 59. How many National Park Service sites are there along the Mississippi River?
A) Five
B) Seven
C) Eight
D) Six
- 60. What was the Mississippi River called after the confluence with the Crow Wing River?
A) Omashkoozo-ziibi
B) Gaa-miskwaawaakokaag-ziibi
C) Bemijigamaag-ziibi
D) Misi-ziibi
- 61. What did the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1930 authorize for the Mississippi River?
A) A 12-foot-deep navigation channel
B) A 15-foot-deep navigation channel
C) A 6-foot-deep navigation channel
D) A 9-foot-deep navigation channel
- 62. Who was the Italian explorer that wrote about his journey on the Virginia to Fort St. Anthony?
A) Giacomo Beltrami
B) Amerigo Vespucci
C) Christopher Columbus
D) Marco Polo
- 63. What did Britain gain from Spain in the Treaty of Paris (1763) in exchange for regaining Cuba?
A) Mississippi River
B) Florida
C) New Orleans
D) Louisiana Territory
- 64. When was 'Life on the Mississippi' first published as a serial in Harper's Weekly?
A) 1875
B) 1895
C) 1865
D) 1885
- 65. What was the region claimed by La Salle called?
A) Illinois
B) New Orleans
C) La Louisiane
D) La Balise
- 66. What did a Sioux Indian name the Mississippi River in 1673?
A) Colbert River
B) Ne Tongo
C) Río del Espíritu Santo
D) River of the Immaculate Conception
- 67. What was the French name for the Mississippi River during French Louisiana?
A) Rivière Saint-Louis
B) Missisipi
C) Omashkoozo-ziibi
D) Gichi-ziibi
- 68. Which treaty allowed the United States to secure effective control of the Mississippi River?
A) Adams–Onís Treaty
B) Treaty of Paris (1783)
C) Treaty of Ghent
D) Louisiana Purchase
- 69. Which empire controlled the land west of the Mississippi River after the Treaty of Paris in 1763?
A) Spain
B) United States
C) Great Britain
D) France
- 70. What is one factor blamed for increases in the risk and frequency of flooding on the Mississippi River?
A) Climate change
B) Agricultural practices
C) Deforestation
D) Urban sprawl
- 71. What does fresh river water from the Mississippi appear as on NASA's MODIS images?
A) A green patch
B) A dark ribbon
C) A white cloud
D) A blue streak
- 72. What structures did the United States Army Corps of Engineers construct to contain saltwater intrusion?
A) Saltwater sills or underwater levees
B) Desalination plants
C) Floodgates
D) River dams
- 73. In what year did Ralph Samuelson perform the first water ski jump?
A) 1925
B) 1928
C) 1922
D) 1920
- 74. When was the continental divide between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley breached?
A) 1673
B) 1699
C) 1718
D) 1848
- 75. Which bridge is the second-longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere?
A) Huey P. Long Bridge
B) Crescent City Connection
C) Horace Wilkinson Bridge
D) John James Audubon Bridge
- 76. How many new locks and dams were built on the upper Mississippi in the 1930s?
A) Ten
B) Thirty
C) Fifteen
D) Twenty-three
- 77. What was the first bridge across the Mississippi River?
A) Built in 1844
B) Built in 1860
C) Built in 1876
D) Built in 1855 in Minneapolis
- 78. What name did Hernando de Soto give to the Mississippi River?
A) Río del Espíritu Santo
B) Colbert River
C) Ne Tongo
D) River of the Immaculate Conception
- 79. Who began work on the first levees on the Mississippi River in 1727?
A) Étienne Perier
B) Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
C) Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne
D) René-Robert Cavelier
- 80. During which stage did the Mississippi River get diverted near Rock Island, Illinois?
A) Holocene Stage
B) Illinoian Stage
C) Pleistocene Stage
D) Wisconsin Stage
- 81. Which structure directs excess water down the east side of the Atchafalaya River?
A) The Bonnet Carré Spillway
B) The Morganza Spillway
C) The Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway
D) The Old River Control Structure
- 82. What event in 1918-19 blocked river traffic north of Memphis, Tennessee?
A) A ship collision
B) The Great Flood
C) The 'Big Freeze'
D) Industrial accidents
- 83. Who invented water skiing on the Mississippi River?
A) Thomas Jefferson
B) John Smith
C) Ralph Samuelson
D) Henry Ford
- 84. Which bridge was the longest arch bridge in the world when completed in 1874?
A) Chain of Rocks Bridge
B) Eads Bridge
C) Harahan Bridge
D) Helena Bridge
- 85. Which basin does part of the Mississippi's flow get routed into, bypassing Baton Rouge and New Orleans?
A) The Ohio River Basin
B) The Red River Basin
C) The Tennessee River Basin
D) The Atchafalaya Basin
- 86. What was one of the health benefits of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal?
A) Addressing waterborne diseases by redirecting waste
B) Controlling floods
C) Providing irrigation water
D) Generating hydroelectric power
- 87. Which Native American people called the Mississippi River 'Big Greasy River'?
A) Cheyenne
B) Arapaho
C) Ojibwe
D) Pawnee
- 88. What grade did the 'America's Rivershed Initiative' give the Mississippi basin in 2015?
A) D+
B) C
C) A
D) B
- 89. In what year did the Moline Lock, bypassing the Rock Island Rapids, open?
A) 1907
B) 1837
C) 1877
D) 1866
- 90. What was the primary purpose of the Keokuk dam when it was built?
A) To generate electricity
B) To facilitate navigation
C) To prevent flooding
D) To create a reservoir
- 91. When was the auxiliary flow control station adjacent to the Old River Control Structure completed?
A) 2000
B) 1986
C) 1970
D) 1990
- 92. Which steamboat was the first to travel the full length of the Lower Mississippi from the Ohio River to New Orleans?
A) Virginia
B) New Orleans
C) St. Louis
D) Anchor Line
- 93. Who established New Orleans along the Mississippi River in 1718?
A) Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
B) Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville
C) Louis Jolliet
D) René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
- 94. Who wrote the guidebook detailing the features and navigable waterways of the Mississippi River basin?
A) Lewis and Clark
B) Meriwether Lewis
C) Thomas Jefferson
D) Zadok Cramer
- 95. What natural disaster in 1811 and 1812 affected the Mississippi River basin?
A) Earthquakes
B) Hurricanes
C) Floods
D) Tornadoes
- 96. Who swam the entire length of the Mississippi River in 2002?
A) John Doe
B) Martin Strel
C) Fred Newton
D) William Smith
- 97. Which river became the main course of the Mississippi around 2500 BC?
A) Bayou Teche
B) Ohio River
C) Missouri River
D) Arkansas River
- 98. Which of the following is not a National Park Service site along the Mississippi River?
A) Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve
B) Yellowstone National Park
C) Effigy Mounds National Monument
D) Gateway Arch National Park
- 99. Who commanded the American forces during the attack on New Orleans after the War of 1812?
A) General George Washington
B) General Thomas Jefferson
C) General Andrew Jackson
D) General Ulysses S. Grant
- 100. Who was the first person to swim the length of the Mississippi River?
A) Fred Newton
B) William Brown
C) Martin Strel
D) John Smith
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