French Guiana
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50 free French Guiana trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
French Guiana is a corner of France on the South American mainland, where rainforest covers almost everything and rockets rise over the Atlantic coast. Few places pack so many surprises into one territory: a space base beside the jungle, the ruins of a feared penal colony, and borders that upend what most people think they know about France. This quiz gathers the best fun facts about French Guiana and turns them into questions. It covers geography and borders, wildlife, the spaceport and its launches, the convict era, local festivals and food, and the athletes, writers and politicians who were born there. It suits curious travellers, geography fans and anyone who enjoys a fact that is hard to believe at first. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you guess wrong.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01France's longest land border runs for about 730 kilometres alongside which country?
Brazil
Brazil shares a 730-kilometre frontier with French Guiana, which is legally part of France. Spain comes second, even though its border is the longest France has in Europe.
Q 02Which currency is official in French Guiana, even though it lies on the South American mainland?
Euro
Euro notes are legal tender because French Guiana is fully part of France. The territory even appears in its own small box beneath the map printed on the banknotes.
Q 03Which famous observatory lifted off from a launch pad in French Guiana on Christmas Day 2021?
James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope left Earth from the Guiana Space Centre on 25 December 2021. The launch was so precise that the fuel it saved may double the telescope's working life.
Q 04Which tiny islet off French Guiana gave its name to a notorious penal colony that France ran until 1953?
Devil's Island
Devil's Island itself was kept for political prisoners, while most convicts were held on neighbouring islands or in mainland camps. The vast majority of those shipped out never returned to France.
Q 05Which hot red chili pepper shares its name with the capital city of French Guiana?
Cayenne
Cayenne is both a fiery pepper and the capital and largest city of French Guiana. French colonists founded the town in 1643, and about half the territory's people now live in or around it.
Q 06Which sea turtle, the largest of all living turtles, nests in huge numbers in French Guiana?
Leatherback
Leatherback turtles can weigh 500 kilograms, and the Amana Nature Reserve in French Guiana is one of their largest nesting sites in the world. Females come ashore to breed only every two to three years.
Q 07Rockets leaving French Guiana get an extra push from Earth's spin by launching near which line?
The Equator
The Equator is only about 500 kilometres south of the launch pads. Rockets heading east borrow speed from Earth's rotation there, so they need less energy to reach orbit.
Q 08Which 1969 bestseller by Henri Charrière recounts escapes from French Guiana's penal colony?
Papillon
Papillon sold more than 1.5 million copies in France alone and reached cinemas four years later. Researchers now believe much of the story was borrowed from other inmates.
Q 09Convicts in French Guiana often caught which insects to sell to scientists and collectors abroad?
Butterflies
Butterflies from the rainforest fetched good prices on the international market. With long sentences and little hope of paid work, convicts netted them for both science and hobby collections.
Q 10Which tarantula of French Guiana and its neighbours is the heaviest spider in the world?
Goliath birdeater
The Goliath birdeater can weigh 175 grams, with a body up to 13 centimetres long. Only the giant huntsman spider beats it for leg span.
Q 11Which coastal town in French Guiana sits beside the launch pads of the Guiana Space Centre?
Kourou
Kourou had fewer than 25,000 residents in 2023, yet the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency lies just outside it. Four hills ring the town at the mouth of its river.
Q 12Which country, once known as Dutch Guiana, faces French Guiana across the Maroni River?
Suriname
Suriname lies on the west bank, and no bridge spans the river, so travellers cross by ferry or canoe. Part of the border farther upstream is still disputed between the two sides.
Q 13Which river, bridged in 2011 to give French Guiana its first road link abroad, forms its eastern border?
Oyapock
Q 21Which French Guiana-born colonial governor became the first Black person buried in the Panthéon?
Félix Éboué
Félix Éboué, the grandson of slaves, governed Chad in 1940 and swung it behind the Free French, giving the movement a territorial base. French Guiana's main airport now carries his name.
Q 22Which poet from French Guiana founded the Négritude movement alongside Aimé Césaire and Léopold Senghor?
Léon Damas
Léon Damas met Césaire at secondary school, and in 1935 the three friends published a student review that laid the foundation of the movement. It rejected the political, social and moral domination of the West.
Q 23Which justice minister born in French Guiana brought in the 2013 law legalising same-sex marriage?
The Oyapock bridge was finished in 2011 but only opened to the public in March 2017. Unpaid construction bills and unstaffed customs posts kept it closed for more than five years.
Q 14Which rocket family, named after a princess of Greek myth, has launched from French Guiana since 1979?
Ariane
Ariane is the French spelling of Ariadne, the Cretan princess who helped Theseus escape the labyrinth. The family's first flight succeeded on Christmas Eve 1979.
Q 15Which Russian rocket flew 27 times from French Guiana until the 2022 invasion of Ukraine?
Soyuz
Soyuz rockets had to be adapted to the tropical climate before their first liftoff from the jungle pad in 2011. All but one of the missions flown from there succeeded.
Q 16France built its spaceport in French Guiana after losing a rocket base in which newly independent country?
Algeria
Algeria became independent in 1962, which cost France its launch site at Hammaguir in the Sahara. French Guiana was chosen two years later, partly for its open sea to the east and north.
Q 17Which French president decided in 1964 to build a space base in French Guiana?
Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle wanted the base to replace a lost desert launch site and to stimulate the local economy. The first rockets fired from it were small Véronique research rockets.
Q 18Which famous French military corps keeps a regiment in French Guiana to guard the spaceport?
Foreign Legion
The Foreign Legion has stationed its 3rd Infantry Regiment beside the launch site since 1973. The regiment also runs a jungle training centre where foreign troops come to learn forest combat.
Q 19Firefighters from which French city's brigade are posted to protect the Guiana Space Centre?
Paris
Paris has a fire brigade that is a unit of the French Army, so its firefighters are soldiers. Besides the city itself, they protect a few sites of national importance, including the launch pads.
Q 20Which metal draws thousands of illegal miners, known as garimpeiros, into French Guiana's rainforest?
Gold
Gold lures an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 undocumented miners into the interior. French police and soldiers have mounted operations against their hidden camps since 2003.
Christiane Taubira
Christiane Taubira also drove a 2001 law that recognised the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity. She grew up as one of 11 children raised by a single mother.
Q 24Which French singer, born in French Guiana in 1917, is credited with helping to inspire bossa nova?
Henri Salvador
Henri Salvador released the song Dans mon île in 1957, and it is thought to have influenced the creators of the style. He was just as famous for his rich, catchy laugh, a running joke in his comic songs.
Q 25Which winger born in French Guiana won the 2012 Champions League with Chelsea and played in a World Cup final?
Florent Malouda
Florent Malouda played for France in the 2006 final and, in 2017, also turned out for the team of his home region. Before moving to London he won four straight league titles with Lyon.
Q 26Which striker born in French Guiana starred for West Bromwich Albion and won five caps for England?
Cyrille Regis
Cyrille Regis was born in Maripasoula, the largest commune in France by area, and moved to England as a small child. He won his only major trophy, the 1987 FA Cup, with Coventry City.
Q 27Which mosquito-borne disease, alongside yellow fever, gave French Guiana a deadly reputation until the 1950s?
Malaria
Malaria and yellow fever kept the population stagnant throughout the penal colony era. Eradication campaigns began in 1949, and the number of residents has since grown more than tenfold.
Q 28Which masked female character rules Carnival in French Guiana and picks her own dance partners?
Touloulou
Touloulou dancers cover every inch of skin and even disguise their voices so that nobody can recognise them. At the masked balls it is they who invite the men to dance, and the men may not refuse.
Q 29French Guiana's Carnival, considered the world's longest, begins right after which Christian feast?
Epiphany
Epiphany opens a season of weekend parades and masked balls that lasts until Ash Wednesday. A mythical king called Vaval reigns over the festivities and dies on the final day.
Q 30Which palm fruit gives its name to the rich broth that families in French Guiana cook at Easter?
Awara
Awara pulp is simmered for hours with smoked fish, salted meats, chicken and vegetables. A local proverb says that anyone who eats the stew will one day return to French Guiana.