100 Fun Facts About Caribbean Sea

The Caribbean Sea lies southwest of which sea, famous for its floating seaweed?

Both are parts of the North Atlantic in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere.

The name Caribbean comes from which native people?

They were one of the region's dominant peoples when Europeans arrived in the late 15th century.

The Greater Antilles form the sea's northern boundary, running from Cuba east to which island?

The Lesser Antilles then take over, curving south from the Virgin Islands.

Roughly how large is the Caribbean Sea?

That makes it one of the largest seas on Earth.

What is the deepest point of the Caribbean Sea?

It plunges to 7,686 metres between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica.

The transform fault of the sea's deepest trough continues onshore into Guatemala as which fault system?

The trough is also known as the Bartlett Deep and contains a slowly spreading ridge, the Mid-Cayman Rise.

What is the world's second-largest coral wall, running along Central America's Caribbean coast?

It is also popularly known as the Great Mayan Reef.

Which four countries does the Great Mayan Reef run along?

It stretches from Isla Contoy at the tip of the Yucatán to the Bay Islands of Honduras.

The Belize Barrier Reef was declared a World Heritage Site in which year?

It covers 963 square kilometres and forms part of the Great Mayan Reef.

Which strait between Cuba and Haiti lets Atlantic water into the Caribbean?

It is 80 km wide and lies on the direct shipping route between the Panama Canal and the US east coast.

The Yucatán Channel links the Caribbean Sea with which body of water?

It separates Cuba from Mexico and is nearly 2,800 metres deep near the Cuban coast.

The Mona Passage separates which two islands?

It was the site of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in 1918.

The Anegada Passage separates the British Virgin Islands from which island?

It is 2,300 metres deep and was the site of the 1867 Virgin Islands earthquake and tsunami.

Into how many basins is the Caribbean seafloor divided?

They are the Yucatan, Cayman, Colombian, Venezuelan and Grenada basins, separated by underwater ridges.

Which two island nations on the Lesser Antilles shelf are officially in the Atlantic, not the Caribbean Sea?

The International Hydrographic Organization's eastern limit stops just before Trinidad.

Which mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlies the sea and Central America?

The plate covers about 3.2 million square kilometres and borders four others.

The Caribbean Sea is estimated to be how old?

It formed when a horizontal fracture split Pangaea during the Mesozoic.

Pressure from which tectonic plate to the east gives the Lesser Antilles their volcanic activity?

A severe eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902 caused many casualties.

Kick 'em Jenny, an active submarine volcano, lies 8 km north of which island?

Its first recorded eruption broke the surface and sent steam 275 metres into the air.

In which year was Kick 'em Jenny first recorded erupting, generating two-metre tsunamis on nearby coasts?

The name had earlier been used for a nearby rock or strait, perhaps because of the rough waters.

How many magnitude-7.5+ earthquakes hit the Caribbean in the 500 years before 2010?

The 12 January 2010 Haiti quake measured about 7.0; another 7.2 quake struck Haiti in August 2021.

By how much do the sea's monthly average surface temperatures vary across the year?

The hydrology is highly homogeneous, and the salinity is about 3.6 percent.

Which ocean current, entering from the tropical Atlantic, chiefly drives the Caribbean's climate?

Warm, moist trade winds blowing from the east create both rainforest and semi-arid climates around the sea.

The Caribbean Current, turning north between Cuba and Mexico, is renamed after which peninsula?

It flows northwestward from the coast of South America and originates in the Atlantic South Equatorial Current.

Cool upwelling keeps which islands arid?

The so-called ABC islands lie off South America's dry northern coast.

The Caribbean hurricane season runs during which months?

Most hurricanes strike in August and September; about nine tropical storms form each year, five reaching hurricane strength.

Per the National Hurricane Center, how many hurricanes struck the Caribbean from 1494 to 1900?

Many form off West Africa and track west across the Atlantic; others develop within the sea itself.

The Caribbean is home to roughly what share of the world's coral reefs?

They cover about 50,000 square kilometres, mostly off the islands and the Central American coast.

Coral bleaching happens when warm water kills off which symbiotic organisms living inside coral polyps?

These microscopic plants feed the coral and give it its colour.

After which sea is the Caribbean ranked as the second-most-polluted?

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of solid garbage are dumped into it each year.

Approximately how many species of fish have been documented in the Caribbean Sea?

They include bull, tiger, silky and Caribbean reef sharks, tarpon and Atlantic Goliath grouper.

Caribbean marine life includes Indian and Pacific ocean species trapped when which land bridge rose from the sea?

The isthmus cut off the once-continuous tropical seaway.

Which regional marine mammal, last seen in 1952, was declared extinct by the US in 2008?

The final sighting was at Serranilla Bank; the seals were hunted for oil and meat.

Caribbean green turtle numbers fell from about 91 million to roughly how many by 2006?

Hawksbill turtles crashed from 11 million to under 30,000 in the same period.

The hawksbill turtle has long been hunted for its shell, sold under what name?

In Japan the material is known as bekko.

Which invasive fish spread through the Caribbean, possibly after Hurricane Andrew wrecked a Florida aquarium?

One had already been found off Dania Beach, south Florida, as early as 1985.

The queen conch, a giant Caribbean sea snail, was long known by which scientific name?

It is now placed in the genus Aliger and belongs to the true conch family Strombidae.

How many species of mammals are found in the Caribbean?

They include sperm whales, humpback whales and dolphins; solenodons and hutias live nowhere else.

What seaweed hotspot, detected by satellite, has formed from West Africa into the Caribbean?

Its formation was analysed with multi-sensor satellites in a new era of monitoring.

The Great Blue Hole, a marine sinkhole 318 metres across, lies near the centre of which small atoll?

Jacques Cousteau brought the Calypso there in 1971 and called it one of the world's top five dive sites.

How deep is the Great Blue Hole?

Stalactites inside show it formed as a dry cave in several stages of the ice ages before the sea flooded it.

Bonaire National Marine Park, one of the world's oldest marine reserves, was established in which year?

It protects the sea around Bonaire and Klein Bonaire from the high-water line down to sixty metres.

Isla de Aves, a Venezuelan guano island in the eastern Caribbean, is never wider than what?

It is 375 metres long and rises just 4 metres above the sea on a calm day, which is why its legal status as island or rock is disputed.

The Gulf of Venezuela connects the Caribbean Sea to which oil-rich lake through a 54 km strait?

Colombia and Venezuela have a long-running unresolved dispute over control of the gulf.

The Panama Canal, linking the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific, opened in which year?

By 2008, 14,702 vessels a year were passing through it.

Europeans called the Caribbean the North Sea to distinguish it from which South Sea?

Spanish dominance in the region went unchallenged for the first century of colonisation.

How many species of birds have been recorded in the Caribbean, 163 of them endemic?

Endemics include the todies, Fernandina's flicker and the palmchat; 48 of them are threatened with extinction.

Which pirate's ship was the forty-gun Queen Anne's Revenge?

Samuel Bellamy was another pirate drawn to the busy sea lanes.

Rum, the region's famous drink, is first mentioned in records from which island around 1650?

It was probably being made across other islands before that.

As of 2015, how many island territories does the Caribbean Sea area contain, plus 12 continental countries?

Spain, England, the Dutch Republic, France, Courland and Denmark all colonised parts of it.

Which group of the Lesser Antilles lies in the south of the arc?

The Leeward Islands lie in the north and the Leeward Antilles run west along the Venezuelan coast.

Which island of the Greater Antilles is the most populated?

It is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic; Cuba is the largest island in area.

The Caribbean Sea, a major oil-producing area, yields roughly how much oil per year?

The surrounding fishing industry lands about 500,000 tonnes of fish a year.

Which small Baltic duchy was among the European powers that colonised Caribbean islands after Spain?

England, the Dutch Republic, France and Denmark also grabbed islands after the first century of Spanish dominance.

By what alternative name, derived from a Spanish term, was the Caribbean Sea known in various European languages?

The Spanish called the lands the Antillas after Columbus's landings.

What is the approximate salinity of Caribbean seawater?

Its surface colour runs from blue-green to green, and Atlantic deep water spills in below.

Roughly how many plant species grow in the Caribbean, about half of them endemic?

Some 6,500 are found nowhere else, including the Bayahibe rose, national flower of the Dominican Republic.

The ceiba is the national tree of Guatemala and which Caribbean island?

Mahogany serves as national tree for both the Dominican Republic and Belize.

In 1993, roughly what share of sewage from Central American and Caribbean island countries was properly treated?

The sea's fishing industry lands about 500,000 tonnes a year despite the pollution.

How many tourists visit the Caribbean each year, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization?

In 1991–92 roughly 8 million of them arrived on cruise ships.

The deepest known hydrothermal vents, found in the Caribbean in 2010, honour which explorer?

At nearly 5,000 metres down, the field is one of the few vent sites known in the abyssal zone and displaced the Mid-Atlantic's Ashadze field as the deepest.

Port Royal, the 'wickedest city in the world', largely sank in an earthquake in which year?

A pocket watch dug from the harbour in 1959 had stopped at about 11:43, fixing the moment two-thirds of the town slid into the sea.

Which Spanish treasure galleon, sunk off Cartagena in 1708, was finally located in 2015?

Found 600 metres down, the wreck set off a fight between Spain, which claims it as a warship, and Colombia, which calls it national patrimony.

Which 2005 hurricane deepened over the Caribbean to 882 mbar, the lowest Atlantic pressure ever?

Its eye shrank to a record 3.7 km across, and the pressure fell 97 mbar in a single day.

After Hurricane Hattie flattened Belize City in 1961, the capital was moved to which inland site?

A storm tide of up to 14 feet swept a city built at sea level; the new capital was finished in 1970, and Jimmy Cliff's breakthrough single was named after the storm.

The deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record swept the Lesser Antilles in which year?

An estimated 22,000 people died from Barbados to Sint Eustatius, and the losses crippled the British fleet in the middle of the American Revolution.

Which capital city was buried when Montserrat's Soufrière Hills volcano erupted from 1995?

By August 1997 most of the town lay under pyroclastic deposits, and about two-thirds of Montserrat's population left the island.

RMS Rhone, a famous wreck dive, sank in an 1867 hurricane off Salt Island in which territory?

She had only just been switched to the Caribbean route from Brazil, and her coaling stop had moved from St Thomas because of a yellow fever outbreak.

Grenada's bronze Christ of the Abyss thanks islanders for rescuing passengers of which ship?

The 180-metre Italian liner is still the region's largest shipwreck, its upper decks lying about 30 metres down off St George's.

Cubans call the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs landing by the name of which beach?

Brigade 2506, some 1,400 CIA-trained exiles, was beaten within three days and surrendered on 20 April.

What is the nickname of the prickly-pear barrier Cuba planted around Guantánamo Bay in 1961?

The 1903 lease set the rent at $2,000 a year in gold coin; Cuba has cashed only one payment since the revolution, which Castro blamed on confusion.

Guinness named which inlet on Vieques the world's brightest bioluminescent bay in 2006?

The glow comes from the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense, which flashes neon blue whenever the water is disturbed.

Which sculptor created the world's first underwater sculpture park, off Grenada, in 2006?

Vicissitudes, a ring of life-size children holding hands, is its best-known piece, and the park draws snorkellers away from fragile natural reefs.

Stingray City, where visitors pet wild southern stingrays on a sandbar, is in which territory?

The rays are thought to have gathered after fishermen cleaned their catch in the calm shallows and the animals learned that engine noise meant food.

Saba Bank, the Atlantic's largest submarine atoll, is a national park of which country?

Lying entirely underwater a few kilometres south of Saba, it covers more than 2,400 square kilometres, the largest protected nature area in the Netherlands.

Navassa Island, held by the US under the Guano Islands Act, is also claimed by which country?

Sea captain Peter Duncan claimed it in 1857 for its guano, and President Buchanan backed him with an executive order the following year.

Willemstad's Queen Emma Bridge, which swings aside for ships, is what type of bridge?

Built in 1888, it once charged a toll that barefoot walkers were spared; free ferries carry pedestrians across whenever it swings open.

Sailing with Ojeda in 1499, Vespucci named a coast 'Little Venice' after seeing what?

Veneziola became Venezuela in Spanish, though one crew member claimed the name came from a local people called the Veneciuela.

Nueva Cádiz, a Spanish town founded on tiny Cubagua off Venezuela by 1515, grew rich on what?

The oyster beds were exhausted within decades; by 1539 fewer than 50 people remained, and the ruins now lie partly under the sea.

A resident group of which whales lives off Dominica all year round?

Spinner, spotted and bottlenose dolphins are also common there, making the island a whale-watching destination.

Under IWC rules, whalers on Bequia may take how many humpback whales a year?

Whaling came to the island with Yankee whalers in the 1800s; the quota is rarely met and some years see no catch at all.

More than 97% of which Caribbean reef grazer died in a 1983 mass mortality?

Without the urchins grazing, leafy macroalgae overgrew many reefs and coral cover fell even further.

Acropora palmata, a key Caribbean reef-builder, is commonly named after which animal's antlers?

Its population crashed by about 97% between 1980 and 2006, when it was listed under the US Endangered Species Act.

Thalassia testudinum, the seagrass carpeting Caribbean shallows, is commonly called what?

It spreads mainly by underground rhizomes, so whole meadows can be clones, and it cannot survive in fresh water.

Which Caribbean crustacean marches in single-file lines of hundreds across the seabed in autumn?

Nobody knows why they march, though the parades tend to follow the first autumn storms.

Nassau groupers gather by the thousand to spawn in December and January, timed to what?

Fishing those predictable gatherings helped make the species critically endangered; one of the last viable sites is Glover's Reef off Belize.

Which Welsh privateer sacked Panama City in 1671 and later became lieutenant governor of Jamaica?

The raid broke a fresh peace treaty, so he was arrested and shipped to London, where he was feted and knighted in 1674 instead.

Which English privateer was buried at sea in a lead-lined coffin off Panama in 1596?

He died of dysentery after a failed attack on Panama and asked to be dressed in full armour first; divers still hunt for the coffin.

Who led the Spanish defence of Cartagena de Indias against Admiral Vernon's huge 1741 expedition?

His plan was to stall until the late-April rains; disease and downpours then drove the British, who lost over 9,500 men, back to Jamaica by mid-May.

Which British admiral beat de Grasse at the 1782 Battle of the Saintes, fought off Dominica?

The win scuppered a Franco-Spanish plan to invade Jamaica, and Rodney is often credited with pioneering the tactic of breaking the enemy line.

Where does Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, rank among the world's natural harbours by size?

It is nearly landlocked, about 16 km long, and sheltered by the Palisadoes spit that also carries the island's second airport.

Panama's island-studded Caribbean province of Guna Yala was formerly known by what name?

The Guna won autonomy after an armed rebellion in February 1925; the spelling changed from Kuna in 2011 to better match their own name.

In July 2024, Hurricane Beryl made its first landfall as a Category 4 on which Grenadine island?

It damaged or destroyed 99% of the buildings there and went on to become the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic.

Record-setting Hurricane Gilbert made a Category 5 landfall in 1988 on which Mexican island?

Its 888 mbar central pressure stood as the Atlantic record for 17 years, and it had already raked Jamaica end to end on its way west.

Which author wrote all his Bond novels at Goldeneye, his clifftop home on Jamaica's north coast?

Dr. No and Live and Let Die were filmed nearby, and Sting wrote Every Breath You Take at the same desk while on holiday there in 1982.

In 1962 Kennedy avoided the word 'blockade' and called the naval cordon of Cuba a what?

A blockade is legally an act of war, so Washington sought OAS approval under the Rio Treaty, and Argentine and Venezuelan warships joined the cordon.

What was the US codename for the October 1983 invasion of Grenada?

It followed the execution of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop; 25 October is now a Grenadian holiday called Thanksgiving Day.

From 1641, the buccaneers based on Tortuga off Hispaniola called themselves what?

Columbus had named the island in 1492 because its outline in the morning mist reminded him of a turtle's shell.

The Pitons, twin volcanic spires rising from the sea near Soufrière, stand on which island?

Gros Piton rises 798 metres and can be hiked without ropes; the pair and 2,909 surrounding hectares form a World Heritage Site.

Stranded in Jamaica in 1504, Columbus kept his men fed by correctly predicting what?

He had beached his last two caravels on 30 June 1503, and the islanders had cut off food after six months.