Can you name the cities that house branches of the U.S. Federal Reserve?

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Federal Reserve Cities Quiz

Rating:	Report a mistake
Created by: HenryFieldstone -
Contributed: August 28th, 2009
Published: January 7th, 2010
Category: Geography
Plays: 39,771

Tags: Numbers Quizzes, City Quizzes, federal, reserve, US Federal, branches, house

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Archived comments: show them

	dje:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 16:31 GMT	14 points
	if you want a proof- look at some one dollar bills, in the circle to the left of washington's face theres a different letter and a city name underneath it

	kagomeshuko:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 17:34 GMT	-3 points
	I had no idea.

	mcory:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 17:35 GMT	10 points
	I aced this quiz. I always spend 10 minutes studying a new dollar bill in case there are flaws. Did you know that if the serial numbers don't match, a dollar can be worth up to $1.50? It's all the fun of playing the lottery but you get to keep your money.

	caramba:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 18:11 GMT	0 points
	11/12 by guessing big cities (guess which one I missed), but I don't see how the time could be cut down at all. Good to see some more quizzes by HF this week.

	Mick9:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 19:37 GMT	5 points
	That was super easy. :) But I have an advantage over other people. I'm a member of wheresgeorge.com and this is just common knowledge for people that regularly go on the forums there! haha

	Illini13:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 20:51 GMT	1 point
	what is the numbering system for, i was just wondering? perhaps their listing by the government or the list of when they were founded?

	jayrodss7:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 20:59 GMT	-2 points
	@Illini13 i think the numbers were explained in the movie Catch Me If You Can. Checks get routed to each branch according to its number or something like that. but they are probably in the order in which they were founded

	conradmcmasters:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 22:26 GMT	1 point
	I keep a bill from each city in my wallet and have bills from each city in the other denominations in my house. I have no idea why, but I was always fascinated by this as a kid.

	marpocky:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 22:32 GMT	9 points
	Crazy that San Francisco has the only one west of Dallas. I would have thought Denver or Seattle would have one.

	Tavix:	Jan 7th, 2010 at 22:46 GMT	6 points
	Missouri of all places has the most branches. If I knew that, I'd get Kansas City!

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	jenb:	Jan 8th, 2010 at 00:42 GMT	3 points
	@conradmcmasters...me too! When I first started babysitting and making money I'd put all the money in order by letter and knew all the locations by heart. Some money doesn't have that on it anymore I think...or maybe I'm thinking of other denominations. Anyway, I missed #4 for a while and then thought A,B,C,D...D is cleveland! Glad this obscure obsession paid off :-)

	pbrown:	Jan 8th, 2010 at 01:47 GMT	2 points
	Not nearly as many cities make coins. I think Philadelphia is the only city that makes both forms of currency. It would be cool for this quiz to have the option to have to each city based on their letter.

	HumuloneRanger:	Jan 8th, 2010 at 02:03 GMT	7 points
	@pbrown The Fed doesn't print currency - that's done by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in DC and Fort Worth - but it can create money out of thin air.

	TimeAndTide:	Jan 8th, 2010 at 05:18 GMT	8 points
	@marpocky: The 12 Federal Reserve Districts were created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. My guess is that those regions were constructed to more-or-less reflect population distributions at the time. Back then the western part of the U.S. was pretty sparsely populated (many parts still are), so the western regions are quite large. Denver and Seattle were much less major cities back then, while St. Louis and Kansas City were two of the most important cities west of the Mississippi. Ah, the times sure have changed.

	cynicallynaive:	Jan 8th, 2010 at 06:00 GMT	2 points
	I knew that time studying US paper money because I was a very geeky kid would pay off one day!

	flameape77:	Jan 8th, 2010 at 14:13 GMT	1 point
	Very good quiz!

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	Rigid:	Jan 8th, 2010 at 15:14 GMT	1 point
	@Illini13: The numbers were all assigned at the same time. They were roughly east to west - although obviously not exactly (e.g. Richmond is east of Cleveland).

	cynicallynaive:	Jan 9th, 2010 at 05:10 GMT	1 point
	@TimeAndTide: To reinforce your point, you can send commenters to another recent featured Geography quiz, "US Largest Cities (1910)". If it were decided today we'd probably have a FRB of Phoenix instead of Richmond.

	RoloTomasi:	Jan 9th, 2010 at 06:07 GMT	4 points
	@mcory: "I always spend 10 minutes studying a new dollar bill in case there are flaws...if the serial numbers don't match, a dollar can be worth up to $1.50". Ten minutes to make (up to) 50 cents? That's nearly $3 an hour! And that's assuming every bill is flawed. I hope you didn't quit your day job!

	briantravelman:	Jan 9th, 2010 at 17:10 GMT	-4 points
	We just recently learned this in Economy, but we got different cities! We had Washington DC too, and we had a city in Texas! Houston I think! Ya! I'm sure of it! Washington should be on here deffinately! What is your information source?

	Rigid:	Jan 11th, 2010 at 17:59 GMT	3 points
	@briantravelman: I don't know what course "Economy" is, but you're obviously not learning geography. Dallas is in Texas, and it's branch #11 in the answers. Washington DC does NOT have a branch. Here's a link http://www.federalreserve.gov/OTHERFRB.HTM

	Rigid:	Jan 11th, 2010 at 18:01 GMT	2 points
	Sorry, I should have said "bank" instead of "branch." Each of the 12 are banks.

	MikeySRT:	Jan 13th, 2010 at 16:30 GMT	-1 points
	try mine

	WCRoentgen:	Jan 15th, 2010 at 00:35 GMT	2 points
	Interesting how many of these cities are also the locations of the 11 circuits of the U.S. courts of Appeals (8 out of the 11 to be exact).

	tenta20:	Jan 15th, 2010 at 02:59 GMT	1 point
	Richmond. Agh.......... Good quiz nonetheless.

	Asdfaeou:	Jan 19th, 2010 at 13:21 GMT	3 points
	The only thing that would improve this quiz would be instead of numbers, it be letters. A "What federal reserve city does each letter on a US Bill stand for"

	midlifecrisis:	Jan 20th, 2010 at 17:56 GMT	1 point
	I also guessed Denver and Seattle, but missed KC and Richmond.

	arcad:	Jan 22nd, 2010 at 19:05 GMT	1 point
	ok if the letter on the left of GW is a fact,I have a dollar bill in my hand with an L to the left. I don't see a city or state in the list that starts with an L...anyone?

	Bretzky:	Feb 1st, 2010 at 15:50 GMT	3 points
	@arcad: The 'L' refers to the letter's numerical sequence in the alphabet. 'L' is the 12th letter of the alphabet, so it corresponds to the 12th Federal Reserve branch bank: San Francisco. 'A' corresponds to Boston, 'B' to New York, and so on.

	Bretzky:	Feb 1st, 2010 at 16:11 GMT	1 point
	@WCRoentgen: That makes sense when you consider that the court of appeals system and the Federal Reserve system were created only 22 years apart. The cities that were the primary urban areas in 1891 likely did not change that much to 1913 when the Fed was created. Although, unlike the Federal Reserve system, the original appeals court system only had nine regions, so they added three by the time they created the Fed.

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	Mick9:	Aug 21st, 2010 at 05:45 GMT	4 points
	@nick98 True, there is a Kansas City, KS, but there's an even BIGGER Kansas City, MO. It's where the Royals play baseball.

	OrtegaSB:	Sep 28th, 2010 at 06:58 GMT	4 points
	Proof that sporcle users are mature and not crazy: the comment thread for this Federal Reserve-related game has not been overrun by conspiracy theorists talking about New World Order and Illuminati and whatnot...if only one could say that about youtube