100 free Caribbean Sea trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Caribbean Sea trivia quiz is about the body of water itself rather than the islands around it: where it starts and stops, how deep it goes, what lives in it and how it got its name. The easy questions are ones any beach-goer can try: which ocean it belongs to, which peninsula and which big islands bound it, what its name comes from, when hurricane season runs and what famous canal links it to the Pacific. From there it moves through the straits that connect it to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, the five basins of its floor, the currents that sweep through it and the reefs that line its western shore. The harder end is for geographers and divers: the Cayman Trough, the Caribbean plate, the Anegada Passage, the age of the sea, Kick 'em Jenny, the Great Blue Hole, Isla de Aves, the extinct Caribbean monk seal, the lionfish invasion, the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, coral bleaching figures, the tsunami threat and the odd fact that Barbados and Trinidad are officially in the Atlantic. A few questions on Columbus, pirates and rum round it out. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the sea, its straits, reefs and wildlife before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Caribbean, oceans and coral reef quizzes next.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Caribbean Sea lies southwest of which sea, famous for its floating seaweed?
The Sargasso Sea
Both are parts of the North Atlantic in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere.
Q 02The name Caribbean comes from which native people?
The Caribs
They were one of the region's dominant peoples when Europeans arrived in the late 15th century.
Q 03The Greater Antilles form the sea's northern boundary, running from Cuba east to which island?
Puerto Rico
The Lesser Antilles then take over, curving south from the Virgin Islands.
Q 04Roughly how large is the Caribbean Sea?
About 2,750,000 sq km
That makes it one of the largest seas on Earth.
Q 05What is the deepest point of the Caribbean Sea?
The Cayman Trough
It plunges to 7,686 metres between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica.
Q 06The transform fault of the sea's deepest trough continues onshore into Guatemala as which fault system?
Polochic-Motagua
The trough is also known as the Bartlett Deep and contains a slowly spreading ridge, the Mid-Cayman Rise.
Q 07What is the world's second-largest coral wall, running along Central America's Caribbean coast?
The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef
It is also popularly known as the Great Mayan Reef.
Q 08Which four countries does the Great Mayan Reef run along?
Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras
It stretches from Isla Contoy at the tip of the Yucatán to the Bay Islands of Honduras.
Q 09The Belize Barrier Reef was declared a World Heritage Site in which year?
1996
It covers 963 square kilometres and forms part of the Great Mayan Reef.
Q 10Which strait between Cuba and Haiti lets Atlantic water into the Caribbean?
The Windward Passage
It is 80 km wide and lies on the direct shipping route between the Panama Canal and the US east coast.
Q 11The Yucatán Channel links the Caribbean Sea with which body of water?
The Gulf of Mexico
It separates Cuba from Mexico and is nearly 2,800 metres deep near the Cuban coast.
Q 12The Mona Passage separates which two islands?
Hispaniola and Puerto Rico
It was the site of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in 1918.
Q 13The Anegada Passage separates the British Virgin Islands from which island?
Sombrero
It is 2,300 metres deep and was the site of the 1867 Virgin Islands earthquake and tsunami.
Q 21How many magnitude-7.5+ earthquakes hit the Caribbean in the 500 years before 2010?
About a dozen
The 12 January 2010 Haiti quake measured about 7.0; another 7.2 quake struck Haiti in August 2021.
Q 22By how much do the sea's monthly average surface temperatures vary across the year?
No more than 3 °C
The hydrology is highly homogeneous, and the salinity is about 3.6 percent.
Q 23Which ocean current, entering from the tropical Atlantic, chiefly drives the Caribbean's climate?
The North Equatorial
Warm, moist trade winds blowing from the east create both rainforest and semi-arid climates around the sea.
Q 14Into how many basins is the Caribbean seafloor divided?
Five
They are the Yucatan, Cayman, Colombian, Venezuelan and Grenada basins, separated by underwater ridges.
Q 15Which two island nations on the Lesser Antilles shelf are officially in the Atlantic, not the Caribbean Sea?
Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados
The International Hydrographic Organization's eastern limit stops just before Trinidad.
Q 16Which mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlies the sea and Central America?
Caribbean
The plate covers about 3.2 million square kilometres and borders four others.
Q 17The Caribbean Sea is estimated to be how old?
160 to 180 million years
It formed when a horizontal fracture split Pangaea during the Mesozoic.
Q 18Pressure from which tectonic plate to the east gives the Lesser Antilles their volcanic activity?
The South American
A severe eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902 caused many casualties.
Q 19Kick 'em Jenny, an active submarine volcano, lies 8 km north of which island?
Grenada
Its first recorded eruption broke the surface and sent steam 275 metres into the air.
Q 20In which year was Kick 'em Jenny first recorded erupting, generating two-metre tsunamis on nearby coasts?
1939
The name had earlier been used for a nearby rock or strait, perhaps because of the rough waters.
Q 24The Caribbean Current, turning north between Cuba and Mexico, is renamed after which peninsula?
Yucatán
It flows northwestward from the coast of South America and originates in the Atlantic South Equatorial Current.
Q 25Cool upwelling keeps which islands arid?
Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao
The so-called ABC islands lie off South America's dry northern coast.
Q 26The Caribbean hurricane season runs during which months?
June to November
Most hurricanes strike in August and September; about nine tropical storms form each year, five reaching hurricane strength.
Q 27Per the National Hurricane Center, how many hurricanes struck the Caribbean from 1494 to 1900?
385
Many form off West Africa and track west across the Atlantic; others develop within the sea itself.
Q 28The Caribbean is home to roughly what share of the world's coral reefs?
About 9%
They cover about 50,000 square kilometres, mostly off the islands and the Central American coast.
Q 29Coral bleaching happens when warm water kills off which symbiotic organisms living inside coral polyps?
Zooxanthellae
These microscopic plants feed the coral and give it its colour.
Q 30After which sea is the Caribbean ranked as the second-most-polluted?
The Mediterranean Sea
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of solid garbage are dumped into it each year.