Peter gives an interview to KCRA-TV (NBC) in Sacramento after winning the state geography bee.

Peter Johnston, 13, a seventh-grader at St. Simon School in Los Altos, won the state geography bee April 1 in Sacramento. He is the son of Karen and Lonn Johnston of Palo Alto.

The winning question was, “The summits of the world’s five highest volcanoes are located in which mountain system in the Western Hemisphere?” (The answer is the Andes Mountains.)

Peter missed only one question all day. Nineteen students scored a perfect 8 out of 8 questions in the preliminary round. A 10-question tiebreaker round narrowed the field to 10 children for the final.

The second-place finisher, Ryland Lu, a seventh-grader from Los Angeles, won the state bee last year. More than 100,000 children participated in the school-level bees statewide, and 100 students competed in the state finals.

Peter won his first schoolwide geography bee as a fifth-grader at St. Simon but did not qualify for the state competition. He won the school competition again in sixth grade, then went on to the state bee, where he was eliminated in the preliminary round.

Peter first showed his talent for geography as a kindergartner, when he memorized the street maps of Melbourne, Australia, where his family then lived.

He also enjoys reading, computer programming in C, hiking and gymnastics.

Peter will compete with 54 other fourth- through eighth-grade winners from the states, U.S. territories and Department of Defense schools in the National Geography Bee, scheduled May 24-25, in Washington, D.C. Alex Trebek, the host of the popular TV quiz show “Jeopardy,” will pose the questions. Contestants will compete for three scholarships: $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000.

For more information about the national contest, log on to www.nationalgeographic.com/geographybee.