Maldives Trivia
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49 free Maldives trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
The Maldives is a chain of 26 atolls and nearly 1,200 coral islands scattered across the Indian Ocean, the smallest country in Asia and the lowest-lying nation on Earth. This quiz starts with the geography most visitors never learn: how much of the country is actually sea, how high its highest natural point is, which island is the biggest, and why the capital Malé is one of the most crowded places on the planet. From there it works through 2,500 years of history: the Buddhist kingdom, the conversion to Islam in the 12th century, Ibn Battuta's stint as a judge, the cowrie shells that made the islands the 'Money Isles', the Portuguese garrison thrown out in 1573, the British protectorate, independence in 1965, the republic of 1968, Operation Cactus in 1988, the 2004 tsunami and the underwater cabinet meeting of 2009. Culture and daily life get their turn too: the Dhivehi language and its right-to-left Thaana script, the dhoni, tuna and mas huni, the green-and-red flag, Bodu Beru drumming and the first resort of 1972. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Maldives, Malé, the flag and Maldivian cuisine, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Maldives lies in which ocean?
Indian
Indian Ocean: the chain sits astride busy east-west shipping lanes, which is why far bigger powers compete for influence over so small a country.
Q 02Under Maldivian law, where are tourists allowed to drink alcohol?
On resort islands
On resort islands: in this officially Muslim country visitors cannot bring alcohol in or carry it off a resort, and drinking on an inhabited island can mean arrest and deportation.
Q 03Which line crosses the Maldives' island chain?
Equator
Equator: it is hot and humid here all year, so the seasons are told apart by the monsoon winds, one dry and one wet, and not by the temperature.
Q 04Of the roughly 1,200 islands in the Maldives, most are what?
Uninhabited
Uninhabited: only about 200 have permanent residents, and the tourist resorts sit on separate islands of their own, away from local communities.
Q 05The Maldives holds which superlative among the world's countries?
Lowest-lying
Lowest-lying: most of its land lies less than a metre above the waves, so rising seas threaten the country's very existence.
Q 06The Maldives' islands sit on the tops of what?
Sunken volcanoes
Sunken volcanoes: the islands grew up on the crowns of an ancient volcanic range as it sank beneath the sea, which is why none of them has a hill to speak of.
Q 07By the 2010s the Maldives was home to the world's largest fleet of which kind of aircraft?
Seaplanes
Seaplanes: most resorts occupy a small island of their own, so guests are flown out from the main airport and set down on the water beside their hotel.
Q 08The Maldives is the smallest country on which continent?
Asia
Asia: all its dry land adds up to only about 300 square kilometres, yet the islands are strung out along a chain more than 800 kilometres long.
Q 09In 2008 the Maldives' incoming leader planned a fund to buy what?
A new homeland
A new homeland: he called the fund an insurance policy, so that Maldivians forced out by rising seas would not end up as climate refugees living in tents.
Q 10Which geography word is English said to have borrowed from the language of the Maldives?
Atoll
Atoll: most dictionaries trace it to the islanders' word for their ring-shaped reefs, and Charles Darwin's writings on how such reefs form made it a standard term.
Q 11The name Maldives is thought to derive from Sanskrit words meaning what?
Garland of islands
Garland of islands: the likeliest root is the Sanskrit maladvipa, a name that fits because the islands trail across the sea in a long looping chain, like a necklace.
Q 12What is the official language of the Maldives?
Dhivehi
It is an Indo-Aryan tongue closely related to Sinhala.
Q 13The modern Maldivian script, Thaana, is written in which direction?
Right to left
Right to left: several of its letters were modelled on Arabic numerals and the script runs the same way as Arabic, though numbers within a line still run left to right.
Q 21In 2009 the Maldives pledged to become what within ten years?
Carbon-neutral
Carbon-neutral: the country planned to switch entirely to renewable power, its president hoping that the nation with most to lose from rising seas could spur others to follow.
Q 22Before becoming a republic in 1968, the Maldives had been ruled for centuries by whom?
Sultans
Sultans: the throne was scrapped for a republic in 1953, brought back within months, then abolished for good after a referendum in 1968.
Q 23The Maldives' first bridge between islands, opened in 2018, was paid for largely by which country?
China
China: a grant and a cheap loan from Beijing covered most of the bill, which is why the crossing from the capital opened as the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge.
Q 14Until its king converted to Islam in the 12th century, which religion did the Maldives follow?
Buddhism
Buddhism: the earliest known settlers were Buddhists, and tradition credits one visiting Muslim scholar with persuading the king, and with him the whole country, to change faith.
Q 15In Maldivian legend, a Muslim traveller converted the islands by ridding them of what?
A demon
A demon: it was said to demand a young girl each month until a Muslim traveller took her place and recited the Quran all night, after which the king converted.
Q 16Which Moroccan traveller served as chief judge in the Maldives and married into its royal family in the 1340s?
Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta meant only to pass through but was plied with gifts to take the post, stayed about nine months, and quit amid feuds after failing to make the island women cover up.
Q 17For centuries, traders shipped what from the Maldives to be used as money as far away as Africa?
Cowrie shells
Cowrie shells: the islands supplied most of them, and the glossy little shells passed from hand to hand as small change in markets thousands of miles away.
Q 18The medieval Maldives was famous for exporting coir rope, which is made from what?
Dried coconut husk
Dried coconut husk: its coarse fibre resists salt water, so Arab shipwrights used the rope to sew the planks of their vessels together in place of nails.
Q 19Which European power garrisoned the Maldives in 1558, only to be expelled about 15 years on?
Portugal
Portugal: its soldiers had seized the capital by force, and it took a revolt by the islanders themselves, not a rival empire, to throw them out.
Q 20From 1887 to 1965 the Maldives had which status under Britain?
Protectorate
Protectorate: Britain took charge of defence and foreign affairs while the islands went on governing themselves at home, so colonial officials never ran daily life there.
Q 24How did Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's 30-year presidency end in 2008?
Election defeat
Election defeat: after six terms won in yes-or-no referendums with no rival on the ballot, he allowed a multiparty contest and was beaten in the run-off.
Q 25Which country airlifted troops to crush the 1988 coup attempt in the Maldives, in Operation Cactus?
India
India: paratroopers flew in within hours of the president's appeal and retook the capital that night, and the navy then ran down the ship on which the fleeing gunmen held hostages.
Q 26The gunmen who tried to overthrow the Maldives' government in 1988 were hired from which country?
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka: a Maldivian businessman hired Tamil militants there, and they stormed the capital before dawn but never caught the president, who hid in a safe house until foreign paratroopers arrived.
Q 27Which co-founder of the Maldivian Democratic Party won the country's first multi-party presidential election?
Mohamed Nasheed
Mohamed Nasheed: an activist jailed many times under the old regime, he beat the man who had once imprisoned him and then urged the country to move on without retribution.
Q 28To highlight climate change, where did the Maldives hold a world-first cabinet meeting in 2009?
Underwater
Underwater: ministers in scuba gear sat at a table on the sea bed and used hand signals to approve a call for every country to cut its emissions.
Q 29Who was sworn in as the eighth President of the Maldives in November 2023?
Mohamed Muizzu
Mohamed Muizzu: the former mayor of the capital had campaigned on sending home foreign troops based in the islands, and he asked for their withdrawal within days of winning.
Q 30The Maldives temporarily withdrew from which organisation in 2016, rejoining in 2020?
The Commonwealth
The Commonwealth: it had warned the islands they risked suspension for backsliding on democracy, so the government walked out, and its successor took the country back in.