Average Portland, Oregon Quiz | 10 Questions | Geography

Answer: Willamette and Columbia

The Hawthorne Bridge, built in 1910, is a vertical lift bridge and is the oldest of that type in use in America. The St. Johns Bridge is a suspension bridge and Portland's tallest. The Willamette River serves as the dividing line between East and West Portland, and the Columbia is the border between Oregon and Washington states.

Answer: Portlandia

Portlandia was sculpted by Raymond Kaskey on the East Coast, and then her components were shipped by train to Oregon. She was assembled and then sent to Portland by barge, where the statue was installed in 1985. She's based on the figure of commerce that appears on Portland's city seal.

Answer: It was tossed to determine Portland's name

Francis Pettygrove, of Portland, Maine, won two out of three tosses. He competed against Asa Lovejoy, of Boston, Massachusetts, to determine which of the men's hometowns would be the namesake for the new settlement.

Answer: Powell's City of Books

Michael Powell opened his bookstore in 1971, using three thousand dollars he'd borrowed for the purpose. He quickly paid off the loan and Powell's has since grown into an empire (the residents here call the original store "City of Books"), with branches all over town and at the airport. In 1996, the entire inventory of Powell's was available online.

Answer: Its elephant breeding program

The zoo's elephant breeding history is the world's most successful. Packy, the patriarch of the Asian elephants here at the zoo, was born in 1962 and had fourteen brothers and sisters. He's sired seven calves himself. The most recent calf is Samudra ('Sam' to all of us), born in August of 2008.

Answer: He created "The Simpsons"

Groening's parents were named Homer and Marge (Marge's maiden name was Wiggum), and he uses many local names for the characters in the wildly successful television program. Flanders, Quimby and Lovejoy are Portland streets, for instance, and Ned Flanders, Mayor Quimby and Reverend Lovejoy are stars of "The Simpsons".

Answer: It's the smallest park in the world

Mill Ends Park is 452 square inches, and sits on a traffic median. Originally there was supposed to be a light pole there, but the city never put up the pole so a local journalist planted flowers there and called it a park. Portland followed suit in 1976. One time the park featured a miniature Ferris wheel, and another time someone built a swimming pool (with diving board) for butterflies within its boundaries.

Answer: Dragon boats

Local, national and international teams compete in the Dragon Boat races every year (they started in 1988), and the use of the beautiful boats is provided by the Portland-Kaohsiung Sister City Association. Each craft is a long, canoe-like boat designed to look like a dragon, and competitors have been racing them in China for over two thousand years.

Answer: Nudity and lap dances

According to some, Portland has more strip clubs than any city in America. Nudity is a way of life, here--every year there's a World Naked Bike Ride and there's a famous poster here of a man in a raincoat flashing one of our public statues, with the caption "Expose Yourself to Art". The man in the photograph is former mayor Bud Clark.

Answer: Microbrews

In 2008, Portland boasted thirty microbreweries in the city, including BridgePort, Widmer, the Lucky Lab and McMenamins. The city hosts the annual Oregon Brewers Festival, the Portland International Beerfest and the Holiday Ale Festival. It's rare to walk for more than a couple blocks without stumbling over a bar that serves one of the local flavors. Prost!