50 Fun Facts About Caribbean

Which is the largest country in the Caribbean by area?

It is also third by population, behind Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Its capital and largest city is Havana.

What is the capital city of Jamaica?

The capital moved there from Spanish Town in 1872. The indigenous Ciboney name for the island, Xaymaca, meant 'Land of Wood and Water'.

The island of Hispaniola is shared by Haiti and which other country?

The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island. Hispaniola and Saint Martin are the only two Caribbean islands split between two sovereign states.

Which music genre originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s?

The word itself was popularised by a 1968 Toots and the Maytals single. Ska and rocksteady came first and fed into it.

Rum is distilled from the juice or molasses of which plant?

The plant originated in Island Southeast Asia, where fermented cane wines were made for thousands of years. French-Caribbean 'rhum agricole' uses fresh cane juice rather than molasses.

Where did Christopher Columbus first make landfall in the Americas in October 1492?

The islanders called it Guanahani; Columbus named it San Salvador. Its exact identity among the Bahamian islands is still debated.

Which country was the first in the Americas to abolish slavery and the only one founded by a slave revolt?

The revolution ran from 1791 to 1804 and also made it the second republic in the Americas after the United States.

The steelpan is the national instrument of which country?

Prime Minister Patrick Manning declared it so in 1992 and Parliament formalised it the next year. The pan even appears on the national coat of arms.

Which Caribbean country's flag shows a split-open nutmeg fruit?

The flag was adopted at independence in 1974. The country is nicknamed the 'Island of Spice' for its nutmeg and mace production.

Which island became a republic on 30 November 2021, replacing the monarchy with a ceremonial president?

The then Prince Charles attended the swearing-in in Bridgetown. The same day the country made Rihanna a National Hero.

The deepest point of the Caribbean Sea, about 7,686 metres down, lies in which undersea feature?

It runs between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica. The Puerto Rico Trench is deeper still, but it lies in the Atlantic, not the Caribbean Sea.

Trinidad is home to the world's largest natural deposit of which substance?

Pitch Lake in southwest Trinidad has been mined commercially since the 19th century and is a tourist attraction in its own right.

Which island group's capital is Nassau, on New Providence?

The archipelago has around 700 islands and more than 2,500 cays, most of them uninhabited. It became independent from Britain in 1973.

The West Indies cricket team won the first two Cricket World Cups, in 1975 and which other year?

They reached a third straight final in 1983 but lost to India. Only Australia has since matched the back-to-back feat.

The highest peak in the entire Caribbean, Pico Duarte, is in which country?

At roughly 3,100 metres it gives Hispaniola the 16th-highest maximum elevation of any island on Earth.

Blue Mountain Peak, the highest point in Jamaica, stands at roughly what elevation?

The range gives its name to the famous Blue Mountain coffee grown on its slopes.

The 1902 eruption of Mont Pelée destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre on which French island?

The capital moved to Fort-de-France afterwards. In 2023 the Pelée volcano and the Pitons du Carbet became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Soufrière Hills volcano destroyed Plymouth, the capital of which British territory?

Two-thirds of the population left, mostly for the UK. The island is nicknamed 'The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean' for its Irish heritage.

Boiling Lake, the world's second-largest hot spring, is on which island?

It is the youngest island in the Lesser Antilles and is still being shaped by volcanic activity. Its critically endangered Sisserou parrot lives nowhere else.

Which is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere by both area and population?

It covers 261 square kilometres with roughly 48,000 people. Its capital, Basseterre, is on the larger of its two islands.

Saint Lucia was nicknamed the 'Helen of the West' because it changed hands so often between Britain and whom?

The name refers to Helen of Troy, the woman fought over. Its capital Castries was burned during the British recapture of 1796.

Which Saint Lucian poet won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature?

His epic Omeros (1990) reworks characters from the Iliad among Caribbean fishermen. Naipaul, from Trinidad, won the prize in 2001.

Nelson's Dockyard, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016, is on which island?

The Georgian naval yard in English Harbour is named for Horatio Nelson, who was stationed there in the 1780s.

Rihanna was declared a National Hero of which country in 2021?

She was born in the parish of Saint Michael and had already been named a government ambassador in 2018.

Curaçao's famous liqueur is flavoured with the dried peel of which local citrus fruit?

The laraha is a bitter orange descended from Valencia oranges the Spanish planted, which turned inedible in the island's dry climate.

Willemstad is the capital of which Dutch Caribbean island?

The Dutch West India Company founded it in 1634 on the Schottegat inlet. Its pastel waterfront is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Saint Martin has been split between French and Dutch control since a treaty signed in which year?

The Treaty of Concordia was signed on a hill on the border between Marigot and Philipsburg. The Dutch side is smaller but more populous.

Philipsburg is the capital of which constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands?

Its Princess Juliana International Airport is famous for jets skimming Maho Beach on final approach.

Aruba became a separate constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in which year?

It lies just 29 kilometres off Venezuela's Paraguaná peninsula. Curaçao and Sint Maarten followed as constituent countries in 2010.

The United States has held its oldest overseas naval base, at Guantánamo Bay, since which year?

It began as a coaling station. Since 1974 the US has paid an annual lease equal to $4,085 in 1934 dollars, which Cuba's government refuses to cash.

The failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba took place in which month and year?

About 1,400 exile paramilitaries landed at Playa Girón, which is what Cubans call the battle. The Cuban Missile Crisis followed the next year.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 lasted how many days?

It ran from 16 to 28 October. In Cuba it is called the October Crisis and in Russia the Caribbean Crisis.

The Bacardi rum company was founded in 1862 in which Cuban city?

Founder Facundo Bacardí Massó was a wine merchant born in Sitges, Catalonia. The company has stayed family-owned for seven generations.

Havana became the capital of Cuba in which year?

The city was originally founded in 1514 on the south coast and moved to its present harbour in 1519, quickly overtaking Santiago thanks to its strategic port.

Which 1968 Toots and the Maytals single is credited with naming the genre it belongs to?

It was the first popular song to use the word, which until then was Kingston slang.

Bob Marley was born in which small Jamaican village?

He formed the Teenagers with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer in 1963; the group became the Wailers. He is buried in the same village.

Usain Bolt's 100 m world record of 9.58 seconds was set in which year?

It shaved 0.11 seconds off his own 9.69, the biggest single improvement since electronic timing began. He was born in Sherwood Content, Trelawny.

The Trinidad Carnival street parade is held on the Monday and Tuesday before which day?

The pre-dawn J'ouvert celebration opens Carnival Monday. Steelbands, calypso and soca all grew out of the festival.

Calypso music has its roots in kaiso, a tradition brought to Trinidad's plantations from which region?

Enslaved Africans brought kaiso and canboulay traditions with them; the resulting calypso spread across the Antilles by the mid-20th century.

Merengue, added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2016, is the signature dance of which country?

It developed in the mid-19th century, originally played on European stringed instruments before the accordion took over.

Jamaican jerk seasoning is built on Scotch bonnet peppers and which spice?

Both are native to Jamaica and were used by the Taíno, who cooked meat over pimento wood on a barbacoa, the origin of the word barbecue.

El Yunque National Forest is a landmark of which Caribbean territory?

The peak reaches 3,494 feet in the Sierra de Luquillo. The territory is an unincorporated part of the United States styled a commonwealth.

Which archipelago in the Sargasso Sea is NOT Caribbean, though an associate member of CARICOM?

The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos also do not touch the Caribbean Sea, but they are still counted as Caribbean.

George Town, capital of the British territory south of Cuba, sits on which of its three islands?

The territory is a major offshore financial centre because it charges no income tax. The first recorded permanent resident, Isaac Bodden, was born there around 1661.

Cockburn Town, capital of the Turks and Caicos Islands, is on which island?

It has been the capital since 1766, though the tourist hub is Providenciales. The territory lies about 1,040 km southeast of Miami.

The capital of the British Virgin Islands, Road Town, is on which island?

The largest island is only about 20 km long and 5 km wide, yet holds most of the territory's population.

The capital of Anguilla shares its name with what geographic feature?

The whole island is low-lying: its highest point, Crocus Hill, rises just 240 feet. In 1969 Britain sent 300 troops after Anguillans rejected union with Saint Kitts.

The two official languages of Haiti are French and what?

In Creole the country's name is written Ayiti, with a y and no h.

Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom on 6 August of which year?

The same year saw Trinidad's independence. The Bahamas followed in 1973 and Barbados in 1966.

Gros Piton, the taller of Saint Lucia's twin volcanic peaks, rises to roughly what height?

Petit Piton is 743 m. 'Piton' simply means mountain peak in French; the pair are joined by the Piton Mitan ridge.