Random US State Generator

How to use the random state generator

1. Press Generate or the Space bar. The card shows the state’s two-letter postal code and name, its capital and Census region, and the year it joined the Union.
2. Filter under Filters: choose a Region, switch on Lower 48 only, or add Washington, D.C. and the territories. The counter shows how many entries match.
3. Set How many to get up to 20 different states at once — a shortlist for a trip, or one state per player in a game.
4. Leave Don’t repeat on to go through the states without repeats. The page remembers which ones you’ve had on this device, so a long challenge can run over weeks.
5. Copy, Copy with details, Download list as a CSV file, or Share a link that opens this page with the same filters.

Ideas for a random state

• Road-trip planning. Switch on Lower 48 only, pick your region and let the generator choose the next state to drive to. Three or four states at once make a long-weekend route.
• A 50-states challenge. Cooking a dish from every state, reading a novel set in each one, or visiting them all? Keep Don’t repeat on and the generator hands you all 50 in a random order.
• Trivia night. Switch on Quiz mode and put the page on a screen: each round shows a capital, and tables write down the state. For a scored game with several categories, build a board with the quiz board maker.
• The license plate game. On a long drive, generate a state and race to spot its plate. The first passenger to see it picks the next snack stop.
• Story settings. Writers can generate a state and set their next short story there, in its capital or in a small town they find on the map.
• Travel bucket list. Generate ten states, research one each week and rank them by the end of the season.

Filters explained

• Region — the U.S. Census Bureau’s four regions: Northeast (9 states), Midwest (12), South (16) and West (13). Press several to combine them.
• Lower 48 only — the contiguous states, without Alaska and Hawaii.
• Include Washington, D.C. — adds the federal district, which the Census Bureau counts in the South.
• Include territories — adds American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Territories don’t belong to a Census region, so they drop out when you choose a region, and a note under the filters says so.

With everything off you get the 50 states. Add D.C. and you have 51; add the territories as well and you have 56; switch on Lower 48 only and you’re down to 48.

Capitals quiz mode

Switch on Quiz mode and the card asks “Which state has this capital?”. It shows the capital and the region, and hides the name and postal code until you press Show answer (or A). Some are easy — Honolulu, Boston, Atlanta — but many trip people up, because the capital isn’t the largest city: Albany, Tallahassee, Springfield, Pierre or Montpelier. Mark each one with I knew it or Not this time, and your score appears under the card. With D.C. or the territories switched on, the question becomes “Which state or territory has this capital?”.

Quiz mode draws one state at a time. For a quick round, filter by one region first; for the full test, keep all 50 and Don’t repeat on. Present (or F) shows the card full screen when you’re playing with a group.

About the data

The list has the 50 states with their USPS postal codes, capitals, Census regions and statehood years, plus Washington, D.C. and the five inhabited territories as options. The statehood year is the year a state was admitted to the Union; for the original 13 states it’s the year each ratified the Constitution, from Delaware in 1787 to Rhode Island in 1790. Hawaii, in 1959, is the most recent.

The data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau (regions), the U.S. Postal Service (codes) and the Congressional Research Service’s guide to the admission of states (statehood dates); About this list under the tool links to them and shows the date of the last update. State capitals rarely change, but we review the list every January.

Exploring beyond the US? The random country generator covers all 195 countries with flags. For a state-themed dinner, try the random food generator with the American cuisine filter, and for travel conversation starters, the random topic generator. Want to spin? Open in wheel sends the states to the wheel spinner.