Kauai
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50 free Kauai trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Kauai packs a great deal into a small space: deep gorges, a roadless coast, mountain rainforest and a long record on screen. It also has a history of its own, as the last of the major islands to join the Hawaiian kingdom. This quiz covers the island's geography and place names, its rulers and first foreign visitors, the plantation era, local wildlife and legends, and the films and television series that used it as a backdrop. It suits a trivia night with friends, a classroom unit on the Hawaiian Islands, or anyone planning a trip who wants the stories behind the scenery.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which feral animals overran Kauai after a 1992 hurricane is thought to have blown their pens apart?
Chickens
Chickens roam wild all over Kauai, and some of the escapees are thought to have been gamecocks bred for fighting.
Q 02Which empire's flag flew over a fort built on Kauai in 1817, in a scheme led by a German doctor?
Russia
Russia gained a brief foothold through Georg Anton Schäffer, an agent of the Russian-American Company, until Kauai's ruler expelled his men on the orders of Kamehameha I.
Q 03Which ten-mile Kauai canyon, up to 3,000 feet deep, is called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific?
Waimea
Waimea is Hawaiian for reddish water, a nod to the red soil that washes off the canyon's weathered basalt walls.
Q 04Which Spielberg film used Kauai's Manawaiopuna Falls, reachable only by helicopter, as a backdrop?
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park made the cascade so famous that it is now nicknamed Jurassic Falls. A hurricane hit Kauai on the last scheduled day of the shoot.
Q 05Which privately owned island off Kauai, bought for $10,000 in 1864, is known as the Forbidden Isle?
Niihau
Niihau has stayed with the descendants of Elizabeth Sinclair, the Scottish planter who bought it, and remains off-limits to outsiders unless they are invited.
Q 06Mount Waialeale, a 5,148-foot peak near the centre of Kauai, is promoted as one of Earth's what?
Wettest spots
It is one of the wettest spots on Earth, averaging more than 373 inches of rain a year since 1912. The name Waialeale means rippling or overflowing water.
Q 07Which British captain made Europe's first recorded contact with Hawaii, off Kauai in January 1778?
James Cook
James Cook came upon Kauai by accident while crossing the Pacific on his third voyage, and stayed in the area only about two weeks before sailing on.
Q 08Which 2002 Disney film is set on Kauai, with Hanapepe as the model for its heroine's hometown?
Lilo & Stitch
Lilo & Stitch was first pitched with its alien crash-landing in rural Kansas, before the story moved to Kauai.
Q 09Which beings of Hawaiian legend are credited with building Kauai's 900-foot Alekoko Fishpond wall?
Menehune
Menehune are said to be dwarf-like master builders who lived in Hawaii before the Hawaiians arrived, hiding in deep forests and valleys.
Q 10Which nickname does Kauai, the fourth-largest of the main Hawaiian Islands, use for itself?
The Garden Isle
The Garden Isle sits beside other Hawaiian island nicknames: Maui is the Valley Isle, named for the isthmus between its two volcanic masses.
Q 11Which 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein film musical was shot around Hanalei Bay on Kauai's north shore?
South Pacific
South Pacific used Hanalei Bay for its beach scenes, while matte paintings supplied the distant views of the mythical isle Bali Hai.
Q 12Which 1992 storm, the most powerful on record to strike Hawaii, made landfall on southern Kauai?
Hurricane Iniki
Hurricane Iniki came ashore with 140 mph winds just 18 days after Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida. Its name is Hawaiian for a strong and piercing wind.
Q 13Which Kauai surfer returned to competition after a tiger shark bit off her left arm in 2003?
Bethany Hamilton
Q 21Which ruler kept Kauai unconquered, then agreed in 1810 to become a vassal of Kamehameha I?
Kaumualii
Kaumualii settled the matter by diplomacy, promising that Kauai would pass to Kamehameha's heir on his death, so the island was never taken in battle.
Q 22What made Kamehameha I cancel his second invasion of Kauai, after his first attempt failed in 1796?
An epidemic
An epidemic broke out among the forces Kamehameha had gathered, and Kauai later joined his kingdom by negotiation rather than conquest.
Q 23What name did the British expedition that reached Kauai in 1778 give the Hawaiian archipelago?
Sandwich Islands
Bethany Hamilton was 13 when she was attacked off Tunnels Beach, and her memoir Soul Surfer became a 2011 feature film.
Q 14What does Na Pali, the name of Kauai's rugged 16-mile northwest coast, mean in Hawaiian?
The cliffs
The cliffs, or more exactly many cliffs, is the meaning, and the name fits: they rise as much as 4,000 feet above the Pacific.
Q 15Which Hawaiian island lies roughly 70 miles southeast of Kauai, across the Kaieiewaho Channel?
Oahu
Oahu sits beyond the Kaieiewaho Channel, also called the Kauai Channel, where the seabed drops more than 11,000 feet.
Q 16Which 1961 Elvis Presley film ends with a wedding on the lagoon of Kauai's Coco Palms Resort?
Blue Hawaii
Blue Hawaii made the hotel famous, and it hosted Hawaiian-style weddings for decades until a 1992 hurricane destroyed it.
Q 17Which 1981 adventure film shot the exterior scenes of its Peru-set opening on location on Kauai?
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark begins with the Paramount logo dissolving into a real peak, Kalalea Mountain on Kauai.
Q 18Which blowhole in the Koloa district of Kauai's south shore can shoot spray as high as 50 feet?
Spouting Horn
Spouting Horn was known in Hawaiian simply as puhi, meaning blowhole, and each spout through the lava rock comes with a hissing sound.
Q 19Which crop, first planted there by ancient Hawaiians, fills the flooded fields of Kauai's Hanalei Valley today?
Taro
Taro farms along the Hanalei River grow most of Hawaii's crop, though a century ago nearly all of this plain was planted with rice instead.
Q 20Which crop made Koloa on Kauai the site of Hawaii's first commercially successful plantation?
Sugarcane
Sugarcane had long been raised by Hawaiians on small plots, but the 1835 Koloa venture began an industry that dominated the islands' economy for a century.
Sandwich Islands honoured the fourth Earl of Sandwich, who was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time.
Q 24Which trade good did Kauai's people prize so highly in 1778 that scraps of it bought plentiful food?
Iron
Iron was so sought after that British sailors could exchange even a single nail for generous supplies of fresh provisions.
Q 25Which Kauai-born royal became Hawaii's delegate to Congress and is honoured with a state holiday?
Prince Kuhio
Prince Kuhio, born at Koloa in 1871, was the only member of Congress born into royalty, and in 1919 he introduced the first Hawaii statehood bill.
Q 26Princeville on Kauai honours an 1860 visit by the son of Kamehameha IV and which royal consort?
Queen Emma
Queen Emma was the mother of Prince Albert Kamehameha, and the planter who named Princeville for the boy also tried the name Emmaville nearby, which never stuck.
Q 27Which widow of Kamehameha I forced Kauai's last independent king to marry her, sealing the union?
Kaahumanu
Kaahumanu, by then the kingdom's effective political force, made the match to bind Kauai to the rest of the chain, and the couple had no children.
Q 28Which religion's Iraivan Temple on Kauai was built from granite blocks hand-carved in India?
Hinduism
Hinduism gained the Western Hemisphere's first all-stone, white granite temple here, raised by traditional methods without modern tools or electricity.
Q 29Which art form is honoured at the shrine to the goddess Laka in Kauai's Haena State Park?
Hula
Hula is linked to several archaeological sites in the park, which is often called the end of the road because the north shore highway stops there.
Q 30Which seasoning, traditionally mixed with red volcanic clay, is produced at Hanapepe on Kauai?
Sea salt
Sea salt coloured with alaea clay turns brick red, and Hawaiians traditionally used it to cleanse and bless tools, canoes, homes and temples.