Dominica
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49 free Dominica trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Dominica trivia quiz is about the Nature Island of the Caribbean, the mountainous Windward Island between Guadeloupe and Martinique, and not the Dominican Republic, which has its own quiz. It covers Columbus's Sunday sighting, the Kalinago and their territory, French and British rule, independence in 1978, the Caribbean's first female prime minister, and the two hurricanes that flattened the island. There is plenty of nature: the world's second-largest hot lake, the critically endangered parrot on the flag, resident sperm whales, the mountain chicken frog and 365 rivers. The first questions suit anyone who has cruised through Roseau; the last ones test people who know what Waitukubuli means and where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01By what nickname is Dominica known for its lush, largely rainforested landscape?
Nature Island of the Caribbean
Nature Island of the Caribbean. Rugged mountains and a shortage of sandy beaches kept mass tourism away, so Dominica markets its rainforest and wildlife to eco-tourists instead.
Q 02What is the capital of Dominica?
Roseau
Roseau. French settlers named it for the reeds, roseaux, that lined its river, and it became the capital after malaria from nearby swamps drove the British out of their first choice, Portsmouth.
Q 03Columbus named the island Dominica because he first sighted it on what?
A Sunday
A Sunday. He sighted it on Sunday 3 November 1493 and named it from the Latin dies Dominica, the Lord's day; Carib resistance then kept every European power from colonising it for some 200 years.
Q 04Which French island is Dominica's nearest neighbour to the south?
Martinique
Martinique. Dominica sits between two French islands, with Guadeloupe to its north, yet it ended up a British colony after the two powers fought over it for more than a century.
Q 05Which word begins the official name of Dominica, independent since 1978?
Commonwealth
Commonwealth. The Commonwealth of Dominica became independent on 3 November 1978 under Patrick John, whose government was brought down by mass protests within a year.
Q 06Which Dominica landmark, reached on foot through the Valley of Desolation, is the world's second-largest of its kind?
Boiling Lake
Boiling Lake. It is a flooded volcanic vent about 60 metres across, kept churning by steam and gas rising from magma below, and only New Zealand's Frying Pan Lake is bigger.
Q 07Dominica's Champagne Reef, a popular snorkelling spot, gets its name from what?
Gas bubbles from the seabed
Gas bubbles from the seabed. Volcanic gases escape through cracks in the sea floor and rise in warm, fizzing streams, so snorkellers swim through water that looks like a freshly poured glass.
Q 08Which critically endangered bird, found only on Dominica, appears on the national flag?
Sisserou parrot
Sisserou parrot. Dominica's national bird, also called the imperial amazon, pairs for life in the high rainforest, and hurricanes have repeatedly knocked back its tiny population.
Q 09The bird on Dominica's flag makes it one of very few national flags to feature which colour?
Purple
Purple. The usual explanation for its rarity is cost: the dye was long too expensive to use on flags, and Dominica's has it only because the bird really is that colour.
Q 10The ten green stars on Dominica's flag represent what?
Its ten parishes
Its ten parishes. Playwright Alwin Bully designed the flag in early 1978 as independence neared, and it has been modified three times since, most recently in 1990.
Q 11The indigenous Kalinago people called the island Wai'tu kubuli, meaning what?
Tall is her body
Tall is her body. The Kalinago name outlived Columbus's label in at least one place: the island's signature footpath is the Waitukubuli National Trail.
Q 12Which peak, named for the 'little devil' seabird, is Dominica's highest?
Morne Diablotins
Morne Diablotins. The 1,447-metre volcano is named for the diablotin, or black-capped petrel, a night-flying seabird that scientists rediscovered over Dominica's mountains in 2015.
Q 13Dominica is popularly said to have how many rivers?
365
365. Dominicans say there is one for every day of the year, and the heavy rain that falls on the island's mountains keeps them flowing.
Q 21Which Dominica-born novelist wrote Wide Sargasso Sea?
Jean Rhys
Born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams in 1890, she depicts the island obliquely in the 1966 novel.
Q 22Wide Sargasso Sea, partly set on Dominica, was written as a prequel to which classic novel?
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre. The prequel gives a past to Bertha, the 'madwoman in the attic', recasting her as Antoinette, a Creole heiress renamed and locked away by her English husband.
Q 23The 'mountain chicken', long hunted as a delicacy on Dominica, is actually what kind of animal?
A giant frog
A giant frog. One of the world's largest frogs, it was hunted for its meaty legs until a fungal disease that reached the island pushed it to the brink of extinction.
Q 14Which cetacean lives in Dominica's waters year-round, making the island a prime spot for watching them?
Sperm whale
Sperm whale. Families of them live off Dominica all year, and researchers have tracked the same mothers and calves there since 2005.
Q 15Who became the Caribbean's first female prime minister when she took office in Dominica in 1980?
Eugenia Charles
The 'Iron Lady of the Caribbean' was also the island's first woman lawyer and urged the US to intervene in Grenada in 1983.
Q 16Dominica's 'Iron Lady' prime minister urged the United States to intervene in which country in 1983?
Grenada
Grenada. As chair of the regional bloc of neighbouring island states she made the appeal for help, then appeared on television beside Ronald Reagan to defend the invasion.
Q 17Who became Prime Minister of Dominica in January 2004, when his predecessor died in office?
Roosevelt Skerrit
Roosevelt Skerrit. His predecessor was the second prime minister to die in office in under four years, so the post passed to the education minister, who was just 31.
Q 18Which Category 5 hurricane made a direct landfall on Dominica on 18 September 2017?
Maria
Maria. It exploded from a Category 1 to a Category 5 storm in about a day, reaching full strength just before it crossed the island.
Q 19Which 1979 hurricane wrecked the homes of most people on Dominica, months after its independence?
David
David. It struck on 29 August 1979 and also flattened most of the island's crops, so the new nation spent its first years rebuilding with outside aid.
Q 20Which Pirates of the Caribbean film used Dominica as Pelegosto, its island of cannibals?
Dead Man's Chest
Dead Man's Chest. The crew arrived in spring 2005 to film the cannibal village and Tia Dalma's river hideout on location, giving the island's economy a welcome lift.
Q 24Which 1970s dance music, pioneered by the Dominica band Exile One, helped pave the way for zouk?
Cadence-lypso
Cadence-lypso. Gordon Henderson's group fused Haitian cadence with Trinidadian calypso, and the blend became one of the styles Kassav' drew on when they created zouk.
Q 25Despite two centuries of British rule, which is the largest religious denomination in Dominica?
Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic. Most Dominicans are Catholic, a legacy of the French who settled the island decades before Britain took control in 1763.
Q 26Dominica's Waitukubuli National Trail holds which distinction?
Longest hiking route in the Caribbean
Longest hiking route in the Caribbean. It runs 115 miles from the island's southern tip to the Cabrits in the north, split into 14 segments so that each can be walked on its own.
Q 27Morne Trois Pitons, established in 1975, was Dominica's first what?
National park
National park. It takes its name from a three-peaked volcano, and UNESCO listed it in 1997 for its rare mix of rainforest, fumaroles, hot springs and crater lakes.
Q 28Which currency does Dominica use?
East Caribbean dollar
East Caribbean dollar. Eight island economies share it, and it has been pegged at EC$2.70 to the US dollar since 1976, so its exchange rate has not moved in decades.
Q 29Dominica was ceded to Great Britain in 1763 under an agreement signed in which city?
Paris
Paris. The 1763 treaty ended the Seven Years' War, but France seized the island back in 1778 and only a second peace, in 1783, returned it to Britain for good.
Q 30In 1838, Dominica became the first British Caribbean colony whose elected assembly was controlled by which group?
Members of African descent
Members of African descent. Their majority pressed for laws to help the newly freed, which so alarmed the planters that in 1865 London made half the assembly's seats appointed.