50 free Krakatoa trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Krakatoa trivia quiz covers the Indonesian volcano whose 1883 eruption remains one of the most violent events in recorded history. The easy questions handle the basics: where it is, when it blew, how loud it was, the child volcano that rose from the caldera in 1927 and the painting some think shows its sunsets. From there it moves through the pre-1883 record, the name's disputed origins, the eleven explosions of 27 August, the tsunamis that erased Merak and Sebesi, and the pressure wave that circled the Earth three and a half times. The harder half is for geology and history buffs: the three original cones, Verbeek's survey, the spider that greeted the first scientists back, the pumice miner who brought the black rat, the Burning Ashes of Ketimbang, the first sighting of the jet stream and noctilucent clouds, and the 2018 collapse of Anak Krakatau. If you have played our volcanoes or Indonesia quizzes, this is the deep dive on one mountain. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for Krakatoa, the 1883 eruption and Anak Krakatau before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Krakatoa lies in a strait between which two Indonesian islands?
Java and Sumatra
The Sunda Strait sits at a sharp bend in the Indonesian island arc, possibly over unusually weak crust.
Q 02In which year did Krakatoa's catastrophic eruption take place?
1883
The climactic explosions came on 26-27 August.
Q 03What volcanic explosivity index (VEI) is assigned to the 1883 eruption?
6
That is equivalent to about 200 megatons of TNT, four times the yield of the Tsar Bomba.
Q 04The 1883 explosion was roughly how many times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb?
13,000
It ejected approximately 25 cubic kilometres of rock.
Q 05The explosion was heard about 4,800 km away on which Indian Ocean island near Mauritius?
Rodrigues
Listeners there took it for cannon fire from a nearby ship.
Q 06What is the official death toll from the 1883 eruption?
36,417
Most victims were killed by the tsunamis rather than the eruption itself.
Q 07The 1883 eruption destroyed roughly what fraction of Krakatoa island?
Two-thirds
Only the southern part, the Rakata cone, survived, sheared off into a 250-metre cliff.
Q 08What is the meaning of the name of the new island that emerged from the caldera in 1927?
Child of Krakatoa
Anak Krakatau grew about five metres a year until its 2018 collapse.
Q 09The child volcano's collapse in December 2018 caused a tsunami that killed how many people?
437
The volcano lost more than two-thirds of its volume and shrank from 338 m to just 110 m.
Q 10The earliest known mention of Krakatoa's name appears in which Old Sundanese text?
Bujangga Manik
It calls it 'the island of Rakata, a mountain in the middle of the sea'.
Q 11The most likely origin of the name Krakatau is a Sanskrit word meaning what?
Crab or lobster
The Old Javanese rakaṭa also means crab, matching the earliest recorded forms of the name.
Q 12A discounted legend says a local replied 'Kaga tau' to a ship's captain, meaning what?
I don't know
The story resembles similar linguistic myths about the words kangaroo and Yucatán.
Q 13Indonesia has more active volcanoes than any other nation. Roughly how many?
Over 130
Most lie along Java and Sumatra, above the subducting Indo-Australian Plate.
Q 21Krakatoa is part of which UNESCO World Heritage national park, inscribed in 1991?
Ujung Kulon
The land on nearby Banten depopulated by the eruption reverted to jungle and became the park.
Q 22The 1883 eruption sequence began in which month?
May
Strombolian activity started on 20 May and continued for more than five months.
Q 23How many enormous explosions occurred on 27 August 1883?
Eleven
The third, at about 10:02 a.m., was the biggest.
Q 24The third explosion of 27 August holds what record?
Q 14Before 1883, which was the tallest of Krakatoa's three volcanic cones?
Rakata
Rakata stood 820 m; Danan 450 m; Perboewatan just 120 m.
Q 15The Javanese Book of Kings records a cataclysmic eruption of 'mountain Kapi' in which year?
416 AD
The account is considered unreliable, and drilling has ruled out a 535 eruption once blamed for global cooling.
Q 16A Dutch mining engineer saw Krakatoa 'completely burnt and barren' after which year's eruption?
1680
Johann Wilhelm Vogel had seen it green and healthy just two years earlier.
Q 17Crews of which two ships stopped at Krakatoa in 1780 on their way home after Captain Cook's death?
HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery
They found a freshwater spring and a hot spring and described the inhabitants as friendly.
Q 18Which Dutch scientist surveyed Krakatoa in July 1880 and later led the investigation into the eruption?
Rogier Verbeek
He was allowed only a few hours on the island, but his samples proved vital afterwards.
Q 19When researchers first returned in May 1884, what was the only living thing they found?
A spider
Grass shoots were already growing by Verbeek's visit that October.
Q 20Which animal is Johann Handl, who quarried stone on the island from 1916, believed to have introduced?
The black rat
He held a 30-year lease on the eastern half of the island but left after four years.
Loudest sound in history
It was heard 3,110 km away in Perth and measured about 180 decibels at 160 km.
Q 25How many times did the pressure wave circle the globe?
Three and a half
Barographs recorded it seven times over five days.
Q 26The blast ruptured the eardrums of sailors on which ship, about 64 km away?
RMS Norham Castle
It also sent a gasometer pressure gauge in Batavia, 160 km away, off the scale.
Q 27The town of Merak was destroyed by a tsunami of roughly what height?
46 metres
Waves reached 42 metres on the west coast of Java and 24 metres in southern Sumatra.
Q 28Which ship, anchored near Telok Betong, famously rode over the crest of the tsunami and survived?
The Loudon
Its passengers watched the wave sweep the town away entirely.
Q 29How many of the 3,000 people on the nearby island of Sebesi survived?
None
The island, 12 km away, was the nearest settlement to Krakatoa.
Q 30Roughly what share of the eruption's fatalities were caused by pyroclastic flows rather than tsunamis?
About 10%
The flows crossed 40 km of sea to scorch victims on southern Sumatra.