50 free Haiti trivia questions with answers. Haiti was the first Black republic, the only nation ever founded by a successful slave revolt, and the second independent country in the Americas. This Haiti trivia quiz covers all of it: the Taíno name that means land of high mountains, Saint-Domingue and the 1791 uprising, Toussaint Louverture, Dessalines and King Henri Christophe, the Citadelle, the 1825 indemnity to France, the US occupation, the Duvaliers, Aristide, the 2010 earthquake and the 2021 assassination of Jovenel Moïse. It is not only history. There are questions on Haitian Creole and Vodou, soup joumou and griot, Barbancourt rum, konpa music, Wyclef Jean and Sweet Micky, the flag and the national motto, the highest peak, the longest river, the 1974 World Cup team, and Haitian-born names like Michaëlle Jean and Edwidge Danticat. It works for Haitian Flag Day on 18 May, Haitian Heritage Month, a classroom unit or a family quiz night. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference source, and the questions run from easy to genuinely hard, so beginners and Haitians alike will find something to argue over.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with which other country?
Dominican Republic
Haiti takes up the western third of the island; the two countries are divided by a 390-kilometre land border.
Q 02What is the capital and largest city of Haiti?
Port-au-Prince
In Haitian Creole the city is written Pòtoprens, and it sits on the Gulf of Gonâve on the country's west coast.
Q 03The name Haiti comes from the Taíno language and means what?
Land of high mountains
The Taíno used the name for the whole island, and Haiti's revolutionaries revived it in 1804 in place of the colonial name.
Q 04What are the two official languages of Haiti?
French and Haitian Creole
Almost every Haitian speaks Creole, while only a minority are fluent in French, which long dominated schools and government.
Q 05In which year did Haiti become the only country established by a successful slave revolt?
1804
It was also the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery outright and the second republic in the hemisphere after the United States.
Q 06The Haitian Revolution began with a mass slave uprising in which year?
1791
Tradition holds that the uprising was launched after a Vodou ceremony at Bois Caïman led by the priest Dutty Boukman.
Q 07Before independence, Haiti was a European colony known by what name?
Saint-Domingue
By the late 1700s it was the richest colony in the world, producing much of Europe's sugar and coffee on the backs of enslaved Africans.
Q 08Where was Toussaint Louverture jailed after deportation, dying there in 1803?
Fort de Joux, France
He was held in a cold mountain fortress in the Jura and died there in April 1803, less than a year before the independence he had fought for.
Q 09Who declared Haiti's independence in 1804 and became its first emperor?
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
He ruled as Jacques I and was assassinated in October 1806, barely two years after taking the crown.
Q 10The Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, was fought in which year?
1803
The defeat forced Napoleon's expeditionary army to evacuate the colony, and 18 November is now celebrated as Armed Forces Day in Haiti.
Q 11Which revolutionary leader crowned himself king of northern Haiti in 1811, its only monarch?
Henri Christophe
He created a full nobility with dukes and counts and, unpopular and ill, took his own life in 1820, reputedly with a silver bullet.
Q 12The Citadelle Laferrière and the Sans-Souci Palace were named UNESCO World Heritage Sites in which year?
1982
The palace, once called the Versailles of the Caribbean, was wrecked by an earthquake in 1842 and has stood in ruins ever since.
Q 13In 1825 Haiti agreed to pay an indemnity to which country in exchange for recognition of its independence?
France
The former colonial power demanded payment for its "lost property", including enslaved people, and the debt weighed on Haiti's finances for well over a century.
Q 21Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated at his home in the capital in which year?
2021
A group of mostly Colombian mercenaries carried out the attack, and the killing plunged the country into a deep political crisis.
Q 22What is the national currency of Haiti?
The gourde
Prices are often quoted in "Haitian dollars", an informal unit worth five gourdes that dates from a time when the currency was pegged to the US dollar.
Q 23What is the highest peak in Haiti?
Pic la Selle
At 2,574 metres it rises in the Massif de la Selle south-east of the capital, and its slopes hold some of Haiti's last remaining pine forest.
Q 14The American occupation of Haiti that began in 1915 lasted until which year?
1934
The Marines stayed for 19 years, and the occupation was pushed by a New York bank that wanted control of Haiti's finances.
Q 15What was the nickname of François Duvalier, dictator of Haiti from 1957 to 1971?
Papa Doc
He had trained as a physician, hence the nickname, and had himself declared president for life in 1964.
Q 16What was the name of the feared death squad that enforced the Duvalier regime?
The Tonton Macoute
The name comes from a Creole folk tale about a bogeyman who carries off misbehaving children in a sack.
Q 17François Duvalier was succeeded in 1971 by his son, who ruled until 1986. What was the son's nickname?
Baby Doc
Jean-Claude was only 19 when he took power, making him one of the world's youngest heads of state at the time.
Q 18Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who served several terms as Haiti's president from 1991, had earlier been what?
A Salesian priest
He preached liberation theology to the poor of the capital's slums before becoming Haiti's first democratically elected president, and was ousted by coups twice.
Q 19The catastrophic 2010 Haiti earthquake, which struck on 12 January, had what magnitude?
7.0
The epicentre was only about 25 km from the capital, and the presidential palace, parliament and cathedral all collapsed.
Q 20The epicentre of the 2010 earthquake was near which town, about 25 km west of the capital?
Léogâne
Estimates put the death toll anywhere from around 100,000 to more than 300,000, making it one of the deadliest earthquakes ever recorded.
Q 24What is the longest river in Haiti, and on the whole island of Hispaniola?
Artibonite
It rises in the Dominican Republic and feeds the Péligre dam and Haiti's main rice-growing valley before reaching the sea.
Q 25Which is the largest of the islands off Haiti's coast, lying in the gulf that shares its name?
Gonâve
It sits in the bay directly west of the capital and is home to tens of thousands of people despite having very little fresh water.
Q 26The island of Tortuga off Haiti's north coast was famous in the 17th century as a haven for what?
Pirates
French buccaneers based there raided Spanish shipping, and the island later lent its name to the pirate port in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
Q 27Haiti is divided into how many departments, its largest administrative units?
10
The newest, Nippes, was carved out of Grand'Anse in 2003; the departments are further split into arrondissements and communes.
Q 28Where does Haiti rank among Caribbean countries by area?
Third
Around 11.4 million people live in a country slightly smaller than the US state of Maryland.
Q 29From the remains of which ship did Columbus build La Navidad on Haiti's coast in 1492?
The Santa María
The flagship ran aground on Christmas Day, which gave the fort its name; the 39 men left behind were all dead by the time Columbus returned a year later.
Q 30Haitian Creole is a creole language based mainly on which European language?
French
Its vocabulary is largely French but its grammar owes much to West African languages, and it is spoken by more than 13 million people worldwide.