Guess the capital of each state you spin.
Random State Generator
Spin the wheel for a US state and see it on a map, with its flag, capital and region. Pick a region, draw up to three states, or quiz yourself on the capitals.
This random state generator spins a wheel of US states and stops on one. The result card shows the state's flag, its place on a US map, its capital, its largest city, its region and the year it joined the Union. The page is free, it runs in a browser on a phone, tablet or computer, and it needs no account or download. The wheel opens with all 50 states on it, so each state has a 1 in 50 chance on every spin. Press Starter 16 for a shorter wheel of well-known states.
How to spin a random state
- Spin. Press Spin, click the wheel, or press Space or Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac). The wheel turns and stops on one state.
- Read the card. A card opens with the flag, the name and its two-letter code, a map with the state marked, and four facts: Capital, Largest city, Region and Joined.
- Go on. Spin again draws again. Remove winner takes that state off the wheel, and Share result sends the result and a link to this page through your device's share menu, or copies them to the clipboard.
The Joined line gives the year and the order, so Delaware is the 1st state and Hawaii the 50th. Largest city is by the 2020 census, which is why it can differ from the capital: Nevada's capital is Carson City and its largest city is Las Vegas.
Choose from all 50 states, a region or your own shortlist
The wheel can be rebuilt from six lists. In the Entries tab they sit at the top under State lists. On phones and tablets there is no side panel, so the same buttons sit under the Spin button.
- All 50 is the list the wheel opens with. It puts every state on the wheel.
- Starter 16 is a shorter wheel: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Maine, Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois and Michigan.
- Northeast, Midwest, South and West narrow the wheel to one region. Press more regions to add them, and press a chosen one to remove it. The last region stays on, and Starter 16 or All 50 bring the other lists back.
The regions are the four used by the US Census Bureau.
| Region | States | Which states |
|---|---|---|
| Northeast | 9 | Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont |
| Midwest | 12 | Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin |
| South | 16 | Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia |
| West | 13 | Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming |
Some of these placements surprise people. Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia count as the South, and Alaska and Hawaii count as the West.
Under States there is a Find a state box that searches by name or by two-letter code, and a tick box for each state. Tick all and Untick all work on the states the list is showing, and the line above the list counts them, for example "13 of 13 ticked". To spin among a handful of states of your own, press Untick all and tick only those. Show on the wheel chooses what a slice displays: Flag + name, Flag only or Name only.
Changing a list or a tick rebuilds the wheel from the ticked states, so set the lists and ticks first.
Can you read 50 states on one wheel?
On a screen 1,280 pixels wide, the wheel with all 50 states showed a name and a small flag on every slice, and a long name such as North Carolina or South Dakota still fit. The flags are small at that size. If a group needs to read the wheel together, Name only gives the cleanest slices. The result card always shows the full name and a large flag. The 50-state wheel was not measured on a phone, so this page makes no promise about how it reads there.
A random state generator for a vacation
The generator can give you a starting point for a trip. It cannot tell you whether the trip is a good idea. A result is a state and some basic facts, so weather, prices, distances, season and things to do still need another source.
What it does well is break a tie and narrow a list:
- Set the area. If you only want to travel in the West, press West. That leaves 13 states.
- Take out the places you have already been. Press Untick all, or untick states one at a time in the list. Each one you untick leaves the wheel.
- Spin for one, or for a few. Under States per spin, choose 1 state, 2 states or 3 states. The states in one spin are always different, so three states give you three places to compare.
- Look at the map. The card marks every state it drew on one map. The states in a spin are not chosen to sit next to each other, so a three-state spin can be a road trip or three separate trips. In the picture above, a spin returned New York, Maine and Utah.
- Spin again, or remove. Remove winner takes a state off the wheel, which helps when a pick is not an option this time.
Learn the states: the Capital quiz
Under the result, next to States per spin, the Capital quiz button turns each spin into a question. The card shows the flag, the name and the map, and asks "What is the capital of Nevada?" with four answers. Tap one, or press 1 to 4 on a keyboard. The capital and the largest city stay hidden until you answer.
The wrong answers are capitals of other states, taken from the same region first, because capitals in the same part of the country are the ones people mix up. For Nevada in the picture below they are Phoenix, Denver and Santa Fe, which are all in the West. If you pick a wrong answer, it turns red, the right one turns green and a line says "Not quite. It is Carson City." The score, the streak and your best streak update beside the quiz button, and a small reset button starts again from 0.
Guessing blind gives 1 chance in 4 on every question, so over 20 spins a player who knows nothing should land near 5 right.
The quiz asks one state at a time, so States per spin is greyed out while it is on. The score is kept only while the page stays open. Reloading starts again at 0.
To make a quiz easier, narrow the wheel to one region first. Starting with the 9 states of the Northeast or the 13 states of the West gives you a smaller set to learn, and the wrong answers also come from that region. To make it harder, press All 50.
Use it with a class or a group
- A state report for each student. Open the Spin tab (on phones, Settings in the bottom bar, then Spin) and set Mode to Elimination. Each winner leaves the wheel when you close its card, so no state is given twice. The top of the panel counts how many are left. The three modes are explained on the Random Country Generator page.
- A map lesson. Put the page on the board and ask the class to point to the state before showing the card, or switch on Mystery result, which keeps the card on a question mark until you press Reveal. Mystery wheel puts a question mark on every slice.
- A capitals game. Turn on the Capital quiz and let one student answer each spin. Keep score on the board, because the page keeps one score for the whole screen.
- Who answers. Pick the student with the Random Name Picker, or split the class into groups with the Random Team Generator.
- Listening. Read aloud, under Options in the Entries tab, speaks the state's name when a result appears. It shows only in browsers that support speech.
Is the draw random?
Each state on the wheel has the same chance. With all 50 states ticked, that is 1 in 50. In Normal mode every spin is independent, so the same state can come up twice in a row. Switch on Elimination, or press Remove winner, to stop repeats. When you ask for two or three states in one spin, they are always different from each other.
What this generator does not do
- It covers the 50 US states only. There is no Washington, D.C., no territory such as Puerto Rico, and no state or province of another country.
- It shows no population, area, nickname, weather or travel information. The facts are the capital, the largest city, the region and the year the state joined.
- The quiz asks about capitals only. It is multiple choice, with four answers.
- It keeps one score on one screen. The score is not saved and there are no accounts or leaderboards.
Largest city is by the 2020 census, and it can change when newer figures come out.
The flag pictures come from Wikimedia Commons and the map shapes from US Census Bureau boundaries, and both credits are in the Entries panel.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. This page is one. A wheel of US states stops on one state and shows its flag, a map with the state marked, its capital, its largest city, its region and the year it joined the Union. The wheel opens with all 50 states on it.
Yes. It runs in your browser, it is free, and it needs no account or download.
Yes, as a starting point. Choose a region, untick the states you have already visited and spin for one, two or three different states. The card shows the capital, the largest city and the region, but it has no weather, prices or travel times, so check those separately.
It gives the real name of one of the 50 US states each time. It does not make up new state names.
One, two or three. The states in one spin are always different, and one map marks all of them.
Yes. In the Entries tab, untick a state in the list, or press Untick all and tick only the ones you want. Remove winner also takes the state you just drew off the wheel.
No. The wheel has the 50 US states only. For countries, use the Random Country Generator.
Yes. Press Capital quiz under the result. Each spin then asks for the capital of the state with four answers, and your score, streak and best streak show beside the button.