This Caribbean trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the whole region, not just the beach brochure version. You will meet the largest island and the smallest nation, the volcano that buried a capital, the sea's deepest trench, the country founded by a slave revolt, and the tiny island that two European powers have shared since 1648. The questions run from easy (which island is home to Kingston and Blue Mountain coffee?) to genuinely hard (which 1968 single named an entire genre?), so it works for a pub quiz round, a classroom geography unit or a pre-cruise warm-up. Music, food, sport, politics and natural history all get a turn. Every answer was checked against a primary reference page and each question carries the sentence that supports it, so you can trust the answer key when someone at the table argues.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which is the largest country in the Caribbean by area?
Cuba
It is also third by population, behind Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Its capital and largest city is Havana.
Q 02What is the capital city of Jamaica?
Kingston
The capital moved there from Spanish Town in 1872. The indigenous Ciboney name for the island, Xaymaca, meant 'Land of Wood and Water'.
Q 03The island of Hispaniola is shared by Haiti and which other country?
Dominican Republic
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.
Q 04Which music genre originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s?
Reggae
The word itself was popularised by a 1968 Toots and the Maytals single. Ska and rocksteady came first and fed into it.
Q 05Rum is distilled from the juice or molasses of which plant?
Sugarcane
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.
Q 06Where did Christopher Columbus first make landfall in the Americas in October 1492?
An island in the Bahamas
The islanders called it Guanahani; Columbus named it San Salvador. Its exact identity among the Bahamian islands is still debated.
Q 07Which country was the first in the Americas to abolish slavery and the only one founded by a slave revolt?
Haiti
The revolution ran from 1791 to 1804 and also made it the second republic in the Americas after the United States.
Q 08The steelpan is the national instrument of which country?
Trinidad and Tobago
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.
Q 09Which Caribbean country's flag shows a split-open nutmeg fruit?
Grenada
The flag was adopted at independence in 1974. The country is nicknamed the 'Island of Spice' for its nutmeg and mace production.
Q 10Which island became a republic on 30 November 2021, replacing the monarchy with a ceremonial president?
Barbados
The then Prince Charles attended the swearing-in in Bridgetown. The same day the country made Rihanna a National Hero.
Q 11The deepest point of the Caribbean Sea, about 7,686 metres down, lies in which undersea feature?
Cayman Trough
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.
Q 12Trinidad is home to the world's largest natural deposit of which substance?
Asphalt
Pitch Lake in southwest Trinidad has been mined commercially since the 19th century and is a tourist attraction in its own right.
Q 13Which island group's capital is Nassau, on New Providence?
The Bahamas
The archipelago has around 700 islands and more than 2,500 cays, most of them uninhabited. It became independent from Britain in 1973.
Q 21Saint Lucia was nicknamed the 'Helen of the West' because it changed hands so often between Britain and whom?
France
The name refers to Helen of Troy, the woman fought over. Its capital Castries was burned during the British recapture of 1796.
Q 22Which Saint Lucian poet won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature?
Derek Walcott
His epic Omeros (1990) reworks characters from the Iliad among Caribbean fishermen. Naipaul, from Trinidad, won the prize in 2001.
Q 23Nelson's Dockyard, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016, is on which island?
Antigua
The Georgian naval yard in English Harbour is named for Horatio Nelson, who was stationed there in the 1780s.
Q 14The West Indies cricket team won the first two Cricket World Cups, in 1975 and which other year?
1979
They reached a third straight final in 1983 but lost to India. Only Australia has since matched the back-to-back feat.
Q 15The highest peak in the entire Caribbean, Pico Duarte, is in which country?
Dominican Republic
At roughly 3,100 metres it gives Hispaniola the 16th-highest maximum elevation of any island on Earth.
Q 16Blue Mountain Peak, the highest point in Jamaica, stands at roughly what elevation?
2,256 m
The range gives its name to the famous Blue Mountain coffee grown on its slopes.
Q 17The 1902 eruption of Mont Pelée destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre on which French island?
Martinique
The capital moved to Fort-de-France afterwards. In 2023 the Pelée volcano and the Pitons du Carbet became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Q 18The Soufrière Hills volcano destroyed Plymouth, the capital of which British territory?
Montserrat
Two-thirds of the population left, mostly for the UK. The island is nicknamed 'The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean' for its Irish heritage.
Q 19Boiling Lake, the world's second-largest hot spring, is on which island?
Dominica
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.
Q 20Which is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere by both area and population?
Saint Kitts and Nevis
It covers 261 square kilometres with roughly 48,000 people. Its capital, Basseterre, is on the larger of its two islands.
Q 24Rihanna was declared a National Hero of which country in 2021?
Barbados
She was born in the parish of Saint Michael and had already been named a government ambassador in 2018.
Q 25Curaçao's famous liqueur is flavoured with the dried peel of which local citrus fruit?
Laraha
The laraha is a bitter orange descended from Valencia oranges the Spanish planted, which turned inedible in the island's dry climate.
Q 26Willemstad is the capital of which Dutch Caribbean island?
Curaçao
The Dutch West India Company founded it in 1634 on the Schottegat inlet. Its pastel waterfront is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Q 27Saint Martin has been split between French and Dutch control since a treaty signed in which year?
1648
The Treaty of Concordia was signed on a hill on the border between Marigot and Philipsburg. The Dutch side is smaller but more populous.
Q 28Philipsburg is the capital of which constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands?
Sint Maarten
Its Princess Juliana International Airport is famous for jets skimming Maho Beach on final approach.
Q 29Aruba became a separate constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in which year?
1986
It lies just 29 kilometres off Venezuela's Paraguaná peninsula. Curaçao and Sint Maarten followed as constituent countries in 2010.
Q 30The United States has held its oldest overseas naval base, at Guantánamo Bay, since which year?
1903
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.