50 free Biscayne National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Biscayne National Park trivia quiz covers the watery park just south of Miami, where 95 percent of the acreage is Biscayne Bay and the northern end of the Florida Reef. Questions range across the four ecosystems (mangrove shoreline, bay, coral limestone keys and offshore reef), the wildlife (manatees, American crocodiles, sea turtles, Schaus' swallowtail, the elkhorn and staghorn corals) and the geology of the keys. The human story is stranger than most parks: the Tequesta, 44 documented shipwrecks and the only underwater archaeological trail in the park system, the Jones family lime plantations, the Cocolobo Cay Club and its four presidential guests, Bebe Rebozo's parking ticket that got a Park Service director fired, CIA training camps for the Bay of Pigs, Stiltsville's shacks on the flats, Mark Honeywell's ornamental lighthouse, the paper city of Islandia and the six-lane 'Spite Highway' bulldozed down Elliott Key to sabotage the monument. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy this one, try our Everglades and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Biscayne National Park is in which US state?
Florida
It sits just south of Miami, running from just below Key Biscayne down to just north of Key Largo.
Q 02Roughly what share of the park's 173,000 acres is dry land?
About 5 percent
Only 9,075 acres are land, split between the offshore keys and the mainland mangrove fringe; everything else is bay and reef.
Q 03Elliott Key is the park's largest island. Which is second, at about 660 acres?
Old Rhodes Key
Elliott Key itself is about 8 miles long and less than a mile wide; Sands Key and Totten Key follow at 420 and 380 acres.
Q 04How many islands lie within the park boundaries?
42
They run in a north–south line 5 to 9 miles off the mainland, shifting from sandy barrier islands in the north to coral rock platforms in the south.
Q 05The park's offshore waters hold the northern end of which coral system, one of the largest in the world?
The Florida Reef
Reefs cover about half the park, with some 4,000 individual patch reefs; elkhorn coral dominates the shallows and staghorn below about 10 metres.
Q 06How many distinct ecosystems does the park protect?
Four
Mangrove shoreline, the shallow bay, the coral limestone keys and the offshore reef; the mangrove nurseries feed the whole system.
Q 07Which people occupied the islands and shoreline for about 4,000 years until the Spanish arrived?
The Tequesta
They lived on fish and shellfish with no real farming; Ponce de León called the bay 'Chequescha' after them in 1513.
Q 08The name Biscayne is often traced to a shipwrecked sailor from which region of Spain?
The Basque Country
The 'Biscaino' or 'Viscayno' lived in the area for a time; the alternative theory is a general allusion to the Bay of Biscay.
Q 09How many documented shipwrecks lie within the park?
44
They span the 16th to 20th centuries; 43 are listed on the National Register as the Offshore Reefs Archeological District.
Q 10The 1975 discovery of which 1748 Royal Navy wreck led to a ruling that it was an archaeological site, not salvage?
HMS Fowey
It lies in Legare Anchorage, some way from the reef that carries its name and its iron lighthouse.
Q 11The Maritime Heritage Trail in the park is unique in the National Park Service system. Why?
It lies entirely underwater
Snorkelers and divers visit wrecks including the Arratoon Apcar, Erl King, Alicia, Lugano and the shallow Mandalay (1966).
Q 12Two 18th-century pirates who reputedly used Elliott Key as a base shared what name?
Black Caesar
A creek named for them separates Elliott Key from the island to its south.
Q 13Which famous bird artist visited Elliott Key in 1832?
John James Audubon
Robert E. Lee surveyed the bay for fort sites in 1849, and fleeing Confederates passed through on the way to Cuba in 1865.
Q 21Which exiled Venezuelan president kept a house on Soldier Key until his extradition in 1963?
Marcos Pérez Jiménez
The dictator had fled Caracas in 1958; the northern keys were a favourite hideaway for the rich and the wanted alike.
Q 22In 1960 landowners on Elliott Key incorporated a city to push for development. What was it called?
Islandia
Twelve of eighteen landowners voted it into being to lobby for a causeway; only landowners could vote, which is why Janet Reno's office ruled every election invalid in 1990.
Q 23What did the paper city's supporters do to Elliott Key in 1968 to spoil it as a monument site?
Bulldozed a six-lane road down its centre
Q 14Which former US vice president spent two nights in Biscayne Bay in 1865 while fleeing to Cuba?
John C. Breckinridge
He had been James Buchanan's vice president before becoming a Confederate general and secretary of war.
Q 15Israel Lafayette Jones, who bought Porgy Key in 1897, built one of the east coast's biggest plantations growing what?
Key limes and pineapples
He bought Totten Key for a dollar an acre in 1911 and sold it for $250,000 in 1925; his sons later became fishing guides to senators and presidents.
Q 16What did Lancelot Jones keep when he became the first Elliott Key landowner to sell to the Park Service?
A life estate on three acres
He got $1,272,500, about a third of the development value, at age 70; he stayed on Porgy Key in a two-room shack until just before the 1992 hurricane and died in 1997 aged 99.
Q 17Which Miami Beach developer built the Cocolobo Cay Club on Adams Key in 1922?
Carl G. Fisher
Guests included Warren Harding, Harvey Firestone, Jack Dempsey and Will Rogers; the 1929 crash cost him his fortune and Garfield Wood revived the club in 1934.
Q 18How many US presidents visited the Cocolobo Cay Club over the years?
Four
Harding was a member; Hoover fished with the Joneses; Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all came as senators when Bebe Rebozo owned the place.
Q 19What happened to Bebe Rebozo in 1972 that made him urge Nixon to fire Park Service director George Hartzog?
A ranger ticketed him for tying up at a government dock
Nixon replaced Hartzog with his head of travel arrangements, who admitted he did not know the Park Service from the Boy Scouts.
Q 20In the early 1960s the CIA used Elliott Key to train Cuban exiles for what?
The Bay of Pigs invasion
The main facility was Ledbury Lodge, the only hotel ever built on the key; exiles were still trying to stage mock landings there in 1988.
'Elliott Key Boulevard', privately called Spite Highway, destroyed 7 miles of forest; it grew back and the island's only real trail follows it today.
Q 24What was the 1962 bay-shore seaport and refinery proposal backed by shipping magnate Daniel Ludwig called?
SeaDade
It would have needed a 40-foot channel dredged through the bay and cut through the reef; environmentalists formed the Safe Progress Association to stop it.
Q 25Which president signed the law creating Biscayne National Monument in October 1968?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Congressman Dante Fascell and Herbert Hoover Jr. had championed it; the visitor center at Convoy Point now bears Fascell's name.
Q 26In which year was the monument expanded and redesignated a national park?
1980
The expansion pushed the boundary almost to Key Biscayne and took in the Ragged Keys and the Safety Valve shoals.
Q 27Biscayne Bay was originally meant to be part of which other national park?
Everglades
Ernest Coe's early Everglades plan also included Key Largo and the land where Homestead now stands; the trimming secured consensus in 1947.
Q 28What is the shack community on pilings in the northern bay called?
Stiltsville
'Crawfish' Eddie Walker started it in the 1930s, selling bait, beer and a crawfish chowder called chilau; gambling was legal a mile offshore.
Q 29At its 1960s peak, how many structures stood in the stilt-shack community?
27
Fires and hurricanes whittled them down; only six survived by 2021, none older than the 1960s, and a trust now looks after them.
Q 30Which 1992 hurricane destroyed most of the stilt shacks and drove the last resident off Porgy Key?
Andrew
It also wrecked Homestead Air Force Base next door, prompting a plan for a commercial airport whose flight paths the Air Force blocked in 1999 to protect the park.