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The State Picker Wheel is a free random state generator. It loads all 50 US states and picks one at random when you spin. Switch the Region menu to add Washington, D.C. and the US territories, narrow the wheel to one of the four US Census regions, or spin Canadian provinces or Australian states instead.
It runs in any browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with no sign-up.
What Is the State Picker Wheel?
It is a spinning wheel preloaded with US states (and other regional lists) that chooses one fairly at random. Teachers, travelers and game hosts use it whenever a choice should be left to chance.
Every option is a plain text list in the entries box, so you can trim it to the states you care about or add your own lines, such as cities or national parks, before spinning.
How to Use the Random State Generator
Choose your filters, check the list, then spin. The whole thing takes a few seconds and needs no account.
- Choose a set from the Region menu. The default is All 50 US states.
- Check the entries box. Each line is one state, and you can delete or add lines freely.
- Spin by clicking the wheel, pressing the SPIN button, or pressing Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac). On a phone, a floating SPIN button appears when you scroll the wheel out of view.
- Read the result in the pop-up. From there you can Spin again, Remove from wheel, Copy the result, or share it to WhatsApp, X or Facebook.
Tip: to pick between a few states you are considering for a trip or a move, delete the rest and spin.
Region Sets You Can Spin
The Region menu offers nine ready-made lists. Picking one replaces the entries with that list.
- All 50 US states
- 50 states + Washington, D.C. (51 entries)
- States, D.C. & US territories: adds Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands (56 entries)
- US Northeast: 9 states, from Maine to Pennsylvania
- US Midwest: 12 states, from Ohio to the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas
- US South: 16 states, from Delaware and Maryland to Texas and Oklahoma
- US West: 13 states, including Alaska and Hawaii
- Canadian provinces & territories: all 13
- Australian states & territories: all 8
The four US regions follow the US Census Bureau's definitions, so they are a reliable way to split the country into study units or trip zones. In the official Census grouping, D.C. also belongs to the South; add it as a line if you want it there.
Regions of 23 countries, with flags
Beyond the US, the Region menu has the provinces, states, counties, prefectures and regions of Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Dutch Caribbean, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Each slice shows the region's flag, and the result window shows the flag full size. Turn off Show flags for a plain text wheel.
Spin Modes for Quizzes and Challenges
The Spin mode setting, in the Settings tab, decides what happens to a state after it wins. Pick the mode before you start a session.
Normal
Winners stay on the wheel, so the same state can come up twice in a row. Use it for one-off picks.
Elimination
Each winner is removed, so no state is picked twice. Use it to work through all 50 states once, for example one state a day for a geography challenge or a capitals quiz. You can also remove a single winner by hand with Remove from wheel in the result pop-up.
Accumulation
Winners stay on, and the Results tab keeps score with a leaderboard of wins. It suits a long-running game, such as tallying which states come up most during a road-trip license plate game.
Whatever the mode, the Results tab lists every spin in order. Copy results puts the list on your clipboard and Clear results starts fresh.
Ways to Use a Random State Picker
The wheel turns a dry list of places into a game, which is why it shows up in classrooms and on road trips.
Classrooms and geography lessons
Spin a state and ask for its capital, its neighbors or its region. Elimination mode lets a class cover all 50 without repeats, and the region filter breaks the map into smaller units.
Road trips and travel planning
Let the wheel choose your next destination, or filter to one region and spin for the next state on a long drive. Weights let you favor states you are most excited about.
License plate game and family games
Spin a target state and see who spots its plate first, or use the wheel for 20 Questions and charades with a geography theme.
Draft order and fun assignments
Assign each person a state to research, cook a regional dish from, or root for. The Canadian and Australian lists work the same way for international classes.
Is the State Wheel Fair?
Yes. In Normal mode every state on the wheel has exactly the same chance, unless you add weights yourself.
The result is chosen with your browser's crypto.getRandomValues, a cryptographically secure random number source, before the animation starts. The spin then lands on that pre-chosen slice, so the speed of your click, the spin length and the wheel's starting position have no effect on who wins.
Everything runs in your browser. Your list, saved wheels and results history are stored on your device and nothing is uploaded.
Customizing, Saving and Sharing Your Wheel
Edit the list by hand
The entries box holds one state per line. Delete a line to drop a state, type a new line to add one, or use Shuffle and Sort A–Z to reorder. Import .txt/.csv loads a list from a file, Clear empties the box, and Reset brings back the default list. Set your filters first, because changing a filter rebuilds the list.
Give some entries a better chance
Turn on Weights in the Settings tab, then put a number from 1 to 10 and a dot in front of a line. Writing "3.California" gives that state three times the chance of a plain entry. Leave weights off when everyone expects an even draw.
Rename the result and set the pace
Result title changes the heading in the result pop-up, and Spin length sets how long the wheel turns, from 1 to 15 seconds. Confetti and sound can be switched on or off.
Save, share and embed
Save wheel keeps your list under My saved wheels in this browser. The share-link icon copies a URL that contains your entries and filters, so friends open the exact same wheel. The embed icon copies an iframe code for your own site or blog, and full screen hides the side panel for a TV or projector.