50 free Everglades National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Everglades National Park trivia quiz covers the great wetland at the tip of Florida, the first national park created to protect an ecosystem rather than scenery. Questions cover the slow river flowing out of Lake Okeechobee, the sawgrass sloughs, hammocks, pinelands, cypress domes and the largest mangrove system in the Western Hemisphere, plus the wildlife: alligators and crocodiles together, the Florida panther, manatees, roseate spoonbills and the invading Burmese python. History ranges from the Calusa and Tequesta through the plume hunters, the drainage schemes of Governor Broward, Ernest Coe's campaign, Marjory Stoneman Douglas's River of Grass, Harry Truman's 1947 dedication, the Nike missile base built after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Hurricane Andrew's pythons and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. There are also questions on Shark Valley, Flamingo, the Anhinga Trail and the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway. 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 Biscayne and Dry Tortugas quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly what share of the original Everglades does the national park protect?
About 20 percent
The park is nonetheless the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the biggest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi.
Q 02The Everglades are fed by a very slow river flowing out of which body of water?
Lake Okeechobee
The sheet of water moves about a quarter of a mile a day and can be 40 to 70 miles wide on its way to Florida Bay.
Q 03Whose 1947 book gave the Everglades the nickname 'River of Grass'?
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
She published it a month before the park was dedicated, campaigned for the Everglades until her death at 108, and has been called the 'Grande Dame of the Everglades'.
Q 04What made Everglades unusual among national parks when it was established?
It was the first to protect an ecosystem, not scenery
Earlier parks preserved mountains, geysers and canyons; persuading people that a shifting wetland deserved the same status took decades.
Q 05Which president dedicated Everglades National Park on 6 December 1947?
Harry Truman
Congress had authorised it in 1934 with a rider banning any spending for five years; Senator Spessard Holland and editor John Pennekamp helped raise the land money.
Q 06Everglades is one of only three places on Earth to hold which trio of designations?
Biosphere reserve, World Heritage Site and Ramsar wetland
UNESCO named the biosphere reserve in 1976 and the World Heritage Site in 1979; the Ramsar listing came in 1987.
Q 07How does the park rank in size among national parks in the contiguous United States?
Third, after Death Valley and Yellowstone
It covers about 1.5 million acres across three counties, and roughly a million people visit each year.
Q 08The Everglades hold the largest ecosystem of which kind in the Western Hemisphere?
Mangrove forest
Red, black and white mangroves line the coast, sheltering 220 fish species and forming Florida's first line of defence against hurricanes.
Q 09How many threatened or protected species live in the park?
36
They include the Florida panther, American crocodile and West Indian manatee, among 350 bird, 300 fish, 40 mammal and 50 reptile species.
Q 10South Florida is the only place in the world where which two reptiles live side by side?
Alligators and crocodiles
The American crocodile tolerates the saltier coastal water; it did not spread north because of cold, not because of the alligators.
Q 11Roughly how many Florida panthers survived in the wild in the 1970s?
Around 20
Numbers climbed to an estimated 230 by 2017 and about 200 remain in 2024; it is the only confirmed cougar population in the eastern United States.
Q 12Which 1992 event is widely blamed for boosting the Everglades' population of invasive Burmese snakes?
Hurricane Andrew wrecking a breeding facility
Released pets had been sighted since the 1930s, but a breeding population was only confirmed in 2000; importing the snakes was banned in 2012.
Q 13By how much had road sightings of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and rabbits fallen where pythons spread?
Q 21What was 'The Hole in the Donut'?
A farming tract left out of the original park
It was too valuable as farmland to buy in 1947; a Cold War Nike missile base was later built on part of it.
Q 22The Cold War Nike site HM-69 inside the park was built in response to what?
The Cuban Missile Crisis
It opened in 1964 with above-ground launchers because of the high water table, carried some nuclear warheads and closed in 1979.
Q 23Why were the Nike missile launchers in the Everglades built above ground, unlike most such sites?
88 to 100 percent
Pythons wiped out a reintroduced marsh rabbit population in under 11 months and will eat almost any bird, mammal or alligator.
Q 14How many pythons did 1,600 hunters remove in the first Florida Python Challenge in 2013?
68
The 2023 edition took 209 with 1,050 participants; more than 2,000 have been caught since 2005, some over 17 feet long.
Q 15Which two Native peoples lived on Florida's southern tip when the Spanish arrived, separated by the Everglades?
Tequesta and Calusa
The Tequesta lived in one big village at the mouth of the Miami River and the Calusa in 30 villages to the west; both were gone by 1800.
Q 16What is the highest point in the park, rising some 20 feet above sea level?
A Calusa-built shell mound
Everywhere else the land sits between zero and 8 feet; Chokoloskee Island is another Calusa midden roughly 20 feet high.
Q 17Which land developer turned conservationist led the 1928 commission to create the park?
Ernest F. Coe
His original vision included Key Largo, Big Cypress and Biscayne Bay, all protected separately later; the main visitor center near Homestead bears his name.
Q 18Which Florida governor campaigned in 1904 on draining the Everglades?
Napoleon Bonaparte Broward
His 1905–1910 canals let developers sell tracts at $30 an acre and opened land for sugar cane; Broward County is named for him.
Q 19Why were entire rookeries of wading birds shot in the Everglades in the early 20th century?
For plumes to decorate women's hats
Alligators, frogs and fish were hunted on a huge scale too, and melaleuca and Australian pine were introduced to help drainage.
Q 20What was Royal Palm State Park, created in 1916?
The first protected piece of the Everglades
It became the site of the park's first visitor center and is now the Royal Palm area where the Anhinga Trail begins.
The water table was too high for underground silos
The three launch units held four missiles each; the fire-control site is now the park's Daniel Beard Research Center.
Q 24The Shark Valley Visitor Center's 15-mile loop leads to what?
A two-story observation tower
It lies on the Tamiami Trail west of Miami; tram tours run in the busy winter season.
Q 25How long is the Wilderness Waterway canoe trail from Everglades City to the park's southern outpost?
99 miles
Backcountry campsites along it include chickees, raised platforms over the water; permits are required.
Q 26The Anhinga Trail, one of the park's most visited spots, is how long?
Half a mile
It runs through sawgrass marsh from the Royal Palm area, with alligators, turtles and wading birds close at hand; the Gumbo Limbo Trail nearby is the same length.
Q 27The Guy Bradley Visitor Center and marina are at which old settlement on Cape Sable?
Flamingo
A 38-mile road from the Coe visitor center winds there through pineland, cypress, marl prairie and coastal forest; a dirt road first reached it in 1922.
Q 28What happened to the original lodge at the park's southern outpost in 2009?
It was demolished after hurricane damage
Katrina, Wilma and Rita all hit the park in 2005; 125 mph winds and an 8-foot surge wrecked the 50-year-old lodge, and Irma did more damage in 2017.
Q 29What did the 1960 Hurricane Donna leave along the coastal forest for miles?
Nothing but standing dead snags
Storms are part of the ecosystem: within 30 years the trees had completely recovered.
Q 30How many distinct ecosystems does the National Park Service recognise in the park?
9
They include freshwater sloughs, marl prairies, hardwood hammocks, pinelands, cypress, coastal forest, coastal lowlands, Florida Bay and the marine estuary, shifting with the water.