100 Fun Facts About Caribbean

Cuba, Hispaniola and Jamaica belong to which group of Caribbean islands?

Greater Antilles. The name sets the big islands apart from the Lesser Antilles, the arc of small islands that curves from Puerto Rico down towards the coast of Venezuela.

What is the capital city of Jamaica?

Kingston. It was settled by survivors of the 1692 earthquake that wrecked Port Royal across the harbour, and it took over from Spanish Town as the capital in 1872.

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

Dominican Republic. French settlers took over the island's western end, which Spain gave up to France in 1697, so the west became Haiti while the larger east stayed Spanish-speaking.

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

Reggae grew out of ska and rocksteady in Jamaica around 1968, slowing the tempo and pushing the bass forward; Bob Marley and the Wailers carried it worldwide in the 1970s.

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

Sugarcane. Molasses is the syrup left behind when sugar is crystallised out of cane juice, so Caribbean sugar plantations could turn a by-product into rum.

What name did Columbus give the island where he first landed in the Americas in October 1492?

San Salvador. The Lucayans living there called it Guanahani, and scholars are divided over which island it was; the one on the map as San Salvador was Watling's Island until the 1920s.

Which Caribbean country won its independence in 1804 after a successful revolt by enslaved people?

Haiti. The rising that began in 1791 defeated an army sent by Napoleon, yet the United States did not officially recognise the new country until 1862.

What is the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago?

Steelpan. It was first hammered out of oil drums in the poor districts around Port of Spain in the 1930s, and in 2024 the government moved to put it on the coat of arms in place of Columbus's three ships.

Which Caribbean country's flag shows a nutmeg?

Grenada. The nutmeg in the hoist stands for its name as the Isle of Spice: sugar was once the island's main crop, but nutmeg and other spices took over as the sugar estates declined.

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

Barbados. Sandra Mason, until then the Queen's governor-general, was sworn in as president at a midnight ceremony in Bridgetown watched by the then Prince Charles, and Rihanna was declared a national hero.

The deepest point of the Caribbean Sea, more than 7,000 metres down, lies in which undersea feature?

Cayman Trough. It runs between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, and in 2010 a British expedition found the world's deepest known volcanic vents on its floor, about 5 km down.

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

Asphalt from Pitch Lake, near La Brea in southwest Trinidad, has been dug commercially since the 19th century; Sir Walter Raleigh used it to caulk his ships in 1595.

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

The Bahamas. Pirates such as Blackbeard used the islands as a base until Woodes Rogers, the first royal governor and a former privateer himself, drove them out in 1718.

The West Indies won the first two World Cups, in 1975 and 1979, in which sport?

Cricket. Captain Clive Lloyd's hundred won the 1975 final and Viv Richards's unbeaten 138 the next, both at Lord's, but India upset them there in a third straight final in 1983.

Pico Duarte, the Caribbean's highest peak, rises in which mountain range?

Cordillera Central. It lifts Pico Duarte above 3,000 metres, yet the same country also holds the lowest point in the Caribbean, the salt lake Enriquillo, some 46 metres below sea level.

Which Jamaican mountain range gives its name to a world-famous coffee?

Blue Mountains. Most of the crop is exported to Japan, and the range also holds Jamaica's highest point, Blue Mountain Peak, at 2,256 metres.

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

Martinique. The blast killed nearly all of Saint-Pierre's 30,000 or so people within minutes; one of the very few survivors was a prisoner in an underground cell, and Fort-de-France took over as the chief town.

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

Montserrat. The volcano woke in 1995 after centuries of quiet and buried Plymouth in 1997; more than half the islanders left, many for Britain, and the government moved north to Brades.

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

Dominica. The lake is a flooded fumarole, a volcanic vent that keeps the water near 90C at its edges, and reaching it takes a hike of about three hours each way through the Valley of Desolation.

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

Saint Kitts and Nevis. It covers just 261 square kilometres and nearly shrank further: in 1998 about 62% of Nevis voters backed leaving the federation, short of the two-thirds required.

Saint Lucia changed hands 14 times between Britain and France, earning a nickname taken from which figure of Greek myth?

Helen of Troy. Like the woman the Greeks and Trojans went to war over, the 'Helen of the West Indies' was fought for again and again until the British took permanent possession in 1814.

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

Derek Walcott. His 1990 epic Omeros moves the heroes of Homer's Iliad to the Caribbean, and he shares both a birthday, 23 January, and a birthplace, Castries, with the island's other Nobel winner, the economist Arthur Lewis.

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

Antigua's English Harbour shelters the Georgian naval yard, named for Horatio Nelson, who was stationed there from 1784 to 1787 enforcing the Navigation Acts against American traders.

What is the national dish of Jamaica?

Ackee and saltfish pairs the boiled yellow arils of the ackee fruit with salted cod; unripe ackee is poisonous, so only fruit that has opened naturally is cooked.

Blue Curaçao, the cocktail liqueur, gets its flavour from the dried peel of what kind of fruit?

Bitter orange. The island's laraha descends from oranges the Spanish planted in 1527; the arid climate left the fruit too bitter to eat, but planters later found that its sun-dried peel was wonderfully fragrant.

Willemstad is the capital of which Dutch Caribbean island?

Curaçao. The Dutch West India Company courted Jewish settlers from Brazil in the 1650s to populate the island, and the synagogue their community consecrated in Willemstad in 1732 is the oldest in continuous use in the Americas.

Legend says Saint Martin's French-Dutch border was settled by what kind of contest?

A walking race. A Frenchman and a Dutchman supposedly set off around the coast in opposite directions, and tellings that blame the Dutchman's gin or rum explain why the French side came out larger.

Philipsburg is the capital of which part of the Dutch Caribbean?

Sint Maarten. It became a country within the Dutch kingdom on 10 October 2010, when the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved, and jets landing at its airport pass so low over Maho Beach that plane-watching is a tourist draw.

Which island left the Netherlands Antilles in 1986 to become a separate country within the Dutch kingdom?

Aruba. The deal pencilled in full independence for 1996, but the plan was shelved at Aruba's own request in 1990, leaving it an autonomous country under the Dutch crown.

Under the 1903 lease for Guantánamo Bay, the US agreed to pay Cuba how much rent a year?

$2,000. The rent was payable in US gold coin, and a 1934 treaty keeps the lease running until both governments agree to end it or the navy abandons the base, so Cuba cannot cancel it alone.

Which US president approved the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961?

John F. Kennedy. He inherited the CIA plan from Eisenhower and let it go ahead, but the exiles were beaten within days, and the fiasco strengthened Castro, who openly embraced socialism and drew closer to the Soviet Union.

Which Soviet leader pulled his missiles out of Cuba in 1962?

Nikita Khrushchev. He announced the withdrawal on 28 October after Washington promised not to invade the island, and in a side deal kept from the public the US agreed to take its own Jupiter missiles out of Turkey.

Which rum brand's bat logo recalls the fruit bats that roosted in its first Cuban distillery?

Bacardi. Facundo Bacardi bought the distillery in Santiago de Cuba in 1862, and the firm went into exile after Castro's government seized its Cuban assets without compensation in 1960.

Spain's treasure fleets from Mexico and South America met in which harbour before crossing the Atlantic together?

Havana. The fleet loaded at Veracruz and the fleet from Cartagena joined up in its bay for the voyage home to Seville, and provisioning them enriched the port, which had become the island's capital by the 1550s.

Toots Hibbert's 1968 hit with the Maytals, '54-46 That's My Number', is named after which of his numbers?

Prison number. Hibbert was jailed on a marijuana charge in the 1960s, and after his release he turned the experience into a hit song.

Where in Jamaica was Bob Marley born?

Nine Mile. He left the mountain village in Saint Ann parish as a boy for Trench Town, the city slum his songs made famous, but he was brought home in 1981 and lies in a mausoleum there.

Usain Bolt set his 9.58-second 100 m world record at the 2009 World Championships in which city?

Berlin. Bolt had begun celebrating before the line when he set the old mark at the Beijing Olympics, and a year later he took a full 0.11 seconds off it.

Trinidad's Carnival street parade fills the two days before which day?

Ash Wednesday. French planters brought Carnival to the island as masked balls held before the Lenten fast began, and the people they had enslaved are said to have answered with carnivals of their own that mocked the masters' balls.

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

West Africa. Enslaved singers improvised veiled, mocking lyrics about the powerful, and their heirs the calypsonians became the people's newspaper, slipping political jabs past colonial censors with double meanings.

Which instrument drives merengue típico, the traditional form of the dance's music?

Accordion. German traders swapped the instruments for tobacco in the late 19th century, and the button accordion soon pushed aside the guitars that had led the trio alongside the tambora drum and the güira scraper.

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

Allspice. It is a single dried berry, not a blend: the English coined the name in the 1620s because it seemed to combine the flavours of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, and Jamaicans know it as pimento.

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

Puerto Rico. El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest in the US national forest system, and at under 29,000 acres it is one of the smallest forests in that system yet, the Forest Service says, one of the most biologically diverse.

Which associate member of CARICOM lies in the Sargasso Sea, far to the north of the Caribbean itself?

Bermuda. Often wrongly lumped in with the West Indies, it sits alone in the Atlantic with Cape Hatteras in North Carolina as its nearest land, yet it joined the Caribbean Community as an associate member in 2003.

George Town, capital of the British territory south of Cuba, sits on which island?

Grand Cayman. It is by far the largest and most populous of the territory's three islands, and because the islands have never levied an income tax, George Town grew into a major offshore financial centre.

Cockburn Town, capital of a British territory north of Hispaniola, stands on which island?

Grand Turk. Salt collectors from Bermuda founded the town in 1681, the oldest settlement in the Turks and Caicos, and it has stayed the seat of government since 1766 though Providenciales is now the busiest island and tourist hub.

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

Tortola. The largest and most populous island of the group lies just across a narrow channel from the US Virgin Islands, and that closeness and constant trade are why this British territory uses the US dollar as its currency.

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

The Valley. Anguillans threw out the Saint Kitts police in 1967, British troops landed in 1969, and the revolt ended with what islanders had long petitioned for: direct British rule, separate from Saint Kitts.

Haiti's two official languages are French and which other, spoken by virtually everyone in the country?

Creole. Virtually every Haitian speaks it, whereas French, the language most schools teach in, is spoken fluently by only a small minority of the population.

Jamaicans voted in 1961 to leave which body?

West Indies Federation. Jamaica had joined the union in 1958, and its vote to quit set off the collapse of the federation, which was dissolved in 1962 as Jamaica became independent that August while staying in the Commonwealth.

The two triangles at the centre of Saint Lucia's flag stand for which landmark?

The Pitons. Neither Gros Piton nor Petit Piton is the island's highest point, which is Mount Gimie, but the twin volcanic spires rising straight from the sea near Soufrière became the national symbol and a World Heritage Site.

Which 1993 Disney comedy is loosely based on Jamaica's debut at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary?

Cool Runnings softens a harder story: the real four-man sled crashed on its third run in Calgary and the team did not officially finish.

HMS Bounty was taking which plant to the Caribbean as food for the enslaved when its crew mutinied?

Breadfruit filled the ship's great cabin, more than 1,000 potted plants, until the mutineers threw them into the sea. Bligh delivered a second cargo aboard HMS Providence.

Which US Founding Father was born out of wedlock on a Caribbean island and orphaned as a child?

Alexander Hamilton owed his escape to a storm: his vivid letter about a 1772 hurricane so impressed community leaders that they raised a fund to send him north to study.

Which fictional spy was created at a novelist's estate on the north coast of Jamaica?

James Bond dates from 17 February 1952, when Ian Fleming began Casino Royale at Goldeneye. He wrote all his Bond stories there over the next 12 years.

Rastafari, a faith born in 1930s Jamaica, reveres which Ethiopian emperor, seen by many followers as divine?

Haile Selassie even gave the faith its name: before his 1930 coronation he was Ras Tafari Makonnen. Many Rastas see him as the Second Coming of Jesus.

Which NBA great was a teenage swimmer on Saint Croix until Hurricane Hugo wrecked his training pool?

Tim Duncan tried training in the ocean instead, but a fear of sharks ended his swimming dreams, and he took up basketball at 14.

Which venomous striped fish from the Indo-Pacific is now a major invader of Caribbean reefs?

Lionfish were probably first released off Florida in the 1980s, and one was found off Dania Beach as early as 1985. Honduran park staff have tried training sharks to eat them.

The Great Blue Hole, a marine sinkhole made famous by Jacques Cousteau, lies off which country?

Belize's Great Blue Hole sits near the centre of Lighthouse Reef, an atoll about 70 km from the mainland. Cousteau ranked it among the world's top five dive sites.

Which Welsh privateer became Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica and later lent his name to a rum?

Henry Morgan was arrested on Charles II's orders before the same king knighted him in 1674. Seagram launched the Captain Morgan rum brand in 1944.

Which word for a Caribbean pirate comes from French hunters who smoked wild meat on Hispaniola?

Buccaneer comes from the boucan, the wooden grill on which the hunters smoked meat to sell to passing raiders. They turned to piracy only gradually, as Spain tried to wipe them out.

Which Cuban dictator fled into exile at New Year 1959 as Fidel Castro's revolution triumphed?

Fulgencio Batista took more than US$300 million with him, by one count. He had been warned that one of his generals was secretly bargaining to put him on trial.

Which singer, born Robyn Fenty, has been declared a National Hero of her Caribbean homeland?

Rihanna grew up singing into a hairbrush so often that neighbours nicknamed her 'Robyn Redbreast'. Her homeland had already made her an ambassador in 2018.

Which Harlem-born singer, raised partly in Jamaica, had a hit with 'Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)'?

Harry Belafonte made chart history with the album Calypso in 1956: it was the first LP by a single artist to sell a million copies.

Which American novelist lived for two decades at Finca Vigía, a house in Cuba that is now a museum?

Ernest Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea there, about a fisherman from the nearby town of Cojímar. He had paid $12,500 for the property.

Which dance, celebrated in a Chubby Checker hit, began at wakes in Trinidad and Tobago?

Limbo gave pop culture the chant 'How low can you go?', from Chubby Checker's 'Limbo Rock'. American troops also took up the dance as a fitness exercise.

Which rum cocktail shares its name with a beach and an iron mine near Santiago de Cuba?

Daiquiri is credited to Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer in Cuba around the war of 1898. A congressman who bought the mines may have taken the drink to New York clubs.

More than 140,000 indentured labourers came to Trinidad between 1845 and 1917 from which country?

India supplied the workers once slavery ended in 1834. They brought the tassa drum and the harmonium, and roti became one of Trinidad's favourite street foods.

The Caribbean became the 'West Indies' because Columbus believed he had reached which continent?

Asia was the goal: Columbus sailed west in 1492 seeking a sea route to the spice trade. The Spanish later added 'West' to tell his islands from the East Indies.

Which Caribbean sea snail, eaten in fritters and salads, has a pink-lipped shell blown as a horn?

Queen conch can reach about 35 cm in shell length, and Caribbean peoples also cut the shells into knives, axe heads and chisels. Overfishing now threatens it in many areas.

Jamaica has long been a major producer of bauxite, the ore that is the world's main source of which metal?

Aluminium starts as bauxite, which is first processed into alumina. A slump in bauxite prices helped stall Jamaica's economy in the 1980s.

Who became the first sitting US president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge in 1928?

Barack Obama's three-day trip in March 2016 included a baseball game in which the Tampa Bay Rays played an exhibition against Cuba's national team.

The US bought Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix for $25 million from which country?

Denmark had agreed to sell back in 1867 for $7.5 million, and islanders approved the transfer. The US Senate never voted on that treaty, so the sale waited until 1917.

Which Jamaican town, the main base of 17th-century pirates, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692?

Port Royal drew pirates from as far away as Madagascar. For decades it served as Jamaica's unofficial capital, while Spanish Town kept the official title.

Which general, born into slavery, led the revolution in Saint-Domingue and died in a French prison?

Toussaint Louverture was seized in 1802 at a parley a French general had invited him to, then jailed in the Fort de Joux. He died before the revolution's final victory.

Hammock and canoe come from the language of which Caribbean people, the first Columbus met?

Taíno words also gave English 'barbecue' and 'hurricane', the last from juracán. Their dugout canoes could carry as many as 150 people.

What name is given to the Atlantic crossing that took millions of enslaved people to the Caribbean?

Middle Passage was the second side of a trading triangle: ships left Europe with manufactured goods, crossed with captives, then sailed home with rum and tobacco.

Jamaica's flag, the only national one without red, white or blue, has a cross of which colour?

Gold recalls the shining sun. The diagonal cross replaced a striped first design that looked too much like the flag of Tanganyika.

London's August street carnival, led by the British Caribbean community, is held in which district?

Notting Hill staged its first outdoor event in August 1966, when a street party for local children turned into a procession behind Russell Henderson's band.

The hurricane season in the Caribbean officially runs from 1 June to the last day of which month?

November 30 became the closing date by 1965. The season was first defined as 15 June to 31 October, the months when the tropics were routinely monitored.

Which Bob Marley greatest-hits album has spent more than 900 weeks on the US Billboard 200 chart?

Legend was only the second album to pass 900 weeks on that chart, after Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. It is the best-selling reggae album of all time.

Which Jamaican communities descend from people who escaped slavery and won treaties from Britain?

Maroons won land and autonomy in the 1739 treaty, but at a price: they agreed to hand back anyone who escaped slavery after it was signed.

Which president of the Black Star Line shipping company became Jamaica's first national hero?

Marcus Garvey's body was returned to the island in 1964 for reburial in National Heroes Park. He had launched his UNIA movement in July 1914.

Which Jamaican genre, born in the late 1950s with an offbeat guitar chop, was the direct forerunner of rocksteady?

Ska was born when the supply of fresh American R&B records dried up and Jamaican producers cut their own. By one account, Prince Buster flipped the shuffle beat to stress the offbeats.

Which upbeat genre did Lord Shorty create in 1970s Trinidad to revive calypso for younger listeners?

Soca was first spelled 'sokah' by Lord Shorty. A journalist misspelled it in a 1976 article, and he let the error stand to avoid confusion.

Which Cuban religion, also called Regla de Ocha, grew from Yoruba beliefs brought by the enslaved?

Santería means 'way of the saints': Yoruba deities were matched with Catholic saints, since Catholicism was the only religion Spanish rulers legally permitted.

Which cocktail flavouring, made in Trinidad, is named after the Venezuelan town where it began?

Angostura was devised as a tonic by Johann Siegert, a German surgeon general in Simón Bolívar's army, who began selling it in 1824.

Which South American country has English as its official language and hosts CARICOM's headquarters?

Guyana is the only country on the South American mainland where English is official, and it counts itself part of the Caribbean region.

Which small predator was released on Jamaica in 1872 to kill the rats plaguing its plantations?

Mongoose numbers grew from just nine animals. Taken to other Caribbean islands, the species wiped out native snakes on many of them.

Cuba is the only home of the world's smallest bird, a two-gram species known by which name?

Bee hummingbird males average just 5.5 cm long. In a typical day the birds eat up to half their body weight in food.

Which ship reached Tilbury in 1948 with Caribbean migrants and gave its name to a generation?

Empire Windrush carried 1,027 passengers and two stowaways on that voyage. Six years later an engine-room fire sank the ship in the Mediterranean.

Gustavia, the main town of Saint Barthélemy, is named after a king of which former colonial ruler?

Sweden got the island cheaply in 1784: Louis XVI, deeming it of little worth, traded it away in return for trading privileges in Gothenburg.

La Soufrière, the volcano that erupted violently in 1979 and 2021, is on which Caribbean island?

Saint Vincent had warning in 1979, when thousands of residents evacuated to nearby beaches and no one was killed. The 2021 activity began with a slowly growing lava dome.

Which Caribbean territory's two main islands form a butterfly shape, split by the Salée River?

Guadeloupe's wings are a study in contrast: Basse-Terre in the west is mountainous and volcanic, while Grande-Terre in the east is mostly flat.

Which language, a blend of Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch, is the most widely spoken on Bonaire?

Papiamento is written Papiamentu on Bonaire itself, and scholars still dispute whether it grew out of Portuguese or out of Spanish.

Which wading bird, a national bird of Trinidad and Tobago, has a sanctuary in the Caroni Swamp?

Scarlet ibis stands for Trinidad, while the cocrico represents Tobago. Both birds appear on the national coat of arms.

Which Cuban poet, killed fighting Spanish troops in 1895, wrote the verses sung in 'Guantanamera'?

José Martí wrote Versos Sencillos in the town of Haines Falls, New York, where his doctor had sent him to regain his strength.

Which tiny Caribbean island has the world's shortest commercial runway, just 400 metres long?

Saba's airstrip has cliffs dropping to the sea at both ends and is too short for jets. Its Mount Scenery is also the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Which Caribbean beach tree, called 'little apple of death' in Spanish, has sap that blisters skin?

Manchineel is dangerous even in the rain: water dripping through its leaves carries the sap and can blister the skin of anyone sheltering beneath the tree.

Which painter, the only one in all eight Impressionist exhibitions, was born on Saint Thomas?

Camille Pissarro became a father figure to younger painters. Paul Cézanne said of him, 'he was a father for me'.

Which Trinidadian street food of curried chickpeas on fried flatbread was created in Princes Town?

Doubles got the name when customers of Emamool Deen, who sold curried chickpeas on a single flatbread, began asking him to double the bara.