50 free islands trivia questions with answers. This island trivia quiz roams the whole map: the biggest islands (Greenland, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar) and the most crowded (Java, Honshu, Manhattan), the most remote (Tristan da Cunha, Bouvet, Pitcairn), prison islands from Alcatraz to Robben Island and Devil's Island, wildlife islands with lemurs, kiwi and Komodo dragons, and the strange ones: a lake island in a lake on an island, a Brazilian island of vipers, a Japanese island of rabbits, a Mexican island of dolls, and islands that appear, vanish or never existed at all. The first questions are classroom geography; the last will test people who collect obscure atlases. 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the world's largest island?
Greenland
Australia is usually counted as a continent rather than an island; the island's ice sheet covers 81% of it.
Q 02According to the sagas, why did Erik the Red give the world's largest island its pleasant-sounding name?
To lure settlers there
He had been exiled from Iceland along with his father, who had committed manslaughter.
Q 03Roughly what proportion of the world's largest island is covered by its ice sheet?
81%
The island's population of about 56,000 makes it the least densely populated country on Earth.
Q 04What is the world's second-largest island?
New Guinea
It is split between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia and has the highest plant biodiversity of any island.
Q 05Borneo, the third-largest island, is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and which small sultanate?
Brunei
It sits at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia and is crossed by the equator.
Q 06The world's fourth-largest island split from Africa roughly how many million years ago?
180
Over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else.
Q 07Which island is the world's most populous, with about 158 million people?
Java
It holds about 56% of Indonesia's population on just 7% of its land.
Q 08Which is the world's most remote inhabited island, a six-day boat trip from Cape Town?
Tristan da Cunha
There is no airstrip, and its one settlement is called Edinburgh of the Seven Seas.
Q 09What forced the evacuation of the entire population of the world's remotest inhabited island in 1961?
A volcanic eruption
All 264 islanders took to open boats; most later returned.
Q 10The people of Pitcairn Island are descended from the mutineers of which ship?
HMS Bounty
Nine mutineers and twelve Tahitian women settled it; the population in 2023 was just 35.
Q 11Easter Island got its name because Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen arrived on Easter Sunday of which year?
1722
The island's Polynesian name Rapa Nui was coined after slave raids in the 1860s.
Q 12Roughly how many moai statues survive on Easter Island?
1,000
Chile annexed the island in 1888.
Q 13Which country owns the Galápagos Islands, visited by Darwin aboard HMS Beagle in 1835?
Ecuador
They were UNESCO's first natural World Heritage Site in 1978.
Q 14The Palm Jumeirah artificial islands are in which city?
Q 21Nelson Mandela spent how many of his 27 prison years on Robben Island?
18
The island's name comes from the old Dutch word for seals.
Q 22Devil's Island penal colony is best known for holding which wrongly convicted officer?
Alfred Dreyfus
At its worst the colony had a death rate of 75 percent.
Q 23The Komodo dragon, the world's largest lizard, can weigh up to how much?
150 kg
Females have laid fertile eggs without males in zoo cases of parthenogenesis.
Q 24Lemurs are found in the wild only on which island?
Dubai
Seen from the air they form a trunk, fronds and an outer crescent.
Q 15Which of these has uncontacted inhabitants who killed an American missionary trying to land in 2018?
North Sentinel
Indian law bans approaching within five kilometres, and the navy patrols the waters.
Q 16Brazil's Ilha da Queimada Grande, closed to the public, is famous for what?
Venomous golden lancehead vipers
The snakes were marooned when sea levels rose after the last ice age; only the navy and vetted researchers may visit.
Q 17Socotra, famed for its dragon's blood trees, belongs to which country?
Yemen
About a third of its plant life grows nowhere else.
Q 18The Global Seed Vault sits on which Norwegian Arctic archipelago?
Svalbard
The 1920 Svalbard Treaty recognised Norwegian sovereignty while making it a free economic zone.
Q 19Alcatraz federal prison, closed in 1963, was thought escape-proof mainly because of what?
Strong tides and cold water
Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers vanished in 1962; no bodies were found.
Q 20From November 1969, Alcatraz was occupied for 19 months by which group?
Native American activists
About 1.4 million tourists now visit the island each year.
Madagascar
Their name comes from the Latin for ghosts or spirits of the dead.
Q 25The kiwi lays an egg that can weigh up to what proportion of the female's body?
20%
It is the smallest of the ratites and detects prey with nostrils at the tip of its beak.
Q 26Great Britain is the largest island in Europe. Where does it rank in the world?
Ninth
Ireland, to the west, is about 40 per cent of its size.
Q 27Which island's most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, Europe's tallest active volcano?
Sicily
The Strait of Messina separates it from Calabria.
Q 28Which of Japan's main islands is the world's seventh-largest and second-most populous?
Honshu
It holds about 82% of Japan's population.
Q 29Bermuda's colony began with the 1609 wreck of which ship, bound for Jamestown?
Sea Venture
The survivors built two ships and St George's, founded 1612, is the oldest continuously inhabited English town in the New World.
Q 30How many immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954?
Some 12 million
The first, on 1 January 1892, was 17-year-old Annie Moore from Cork.