Maui Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
60 free Maui trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Maui trivia quiz covers the whole of the Valley Isle: the geology of Haleakalā and the West Maui Mountains, the 620 curves of the Road to Hāna, Lahaina's years as capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the humpback whales that winter in the ʻAuʻau Channel, the surf at Peʻahi and Hoʻokipa, and the demigod the island is named for. It also digs into the sugar and pineapple era, the resorts of Kaʻanapali and Wailea, Molokini, the silversword, and the wildfire that reshaped Lahaina in 2023. It is written for people who have been to Maui and want to test what they picked up, and for anyone planning a trip who wants to arrive knowing more than the guidebook. The early questions are easy; the later ones will challenge a lifelong resident. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries, park service material and other primary references before publishing, so you can trust the facts and enjoy the argument.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Where does Maui rank in size among the Hawaiian Islands?
Second-largest
At about 727 square miles it trails only the Big Island.
Q 02Maui's nickname comes from the low isthmus that joins its two volcanoes. What is the island called?
The Valley Isle
The isthmus is only about six miles wide, and Kahului sits on it.
Q 03How high is Haleakalā's summit, Puʻu ʻUlaʻula (Red Hill)?
10,023 feet
Measured from the seafloor the volcano is about five miles tall.
Q 04What does the name Haleakalā mean in Hawaiian?
House of the sun
Early Hawaiians applied the name to the whole mountain, not just the summit crater.
Q 05In legend, the demigod Māui snared the sun from Haleakalā's summit in order to do what?
Slow it down and lengthen the day
His grandmother, who lived in the crater, is said to have helped him.
Q 06Who voices the demigod Maui in Disney's Moana?
Dwayne Johnson
He returned for Moana 2 and played the role again in the 2026 live-action remake.
Q 07Which town is the county seat of Maui County?
Wailuku
It sits just west of the island's biggest town, Kahului.
Q 08Kahului Airport's code is OGG. What does it honour?
Aviation pioneer Bertram "Jimmy" Hogg
Hogg was a Kauaʻi-born pilot who flew for what became Hawaiian Airlines into the late 1960s.
Q 09Which explorer became the first European to see Maui, in November 1778, without ever landing?
James Cook
He could not find a suitable landing spot and sailed on.
Q 10The 1790 Battle of Kepaniwai on Maui was fought at the mouth of which famous gorge?
ʻĪao Valley
The invaders landed at Kahului with about 1,200 warriors while Maui's king was away on Oʻahu.
Q 11The name Kepaniwai means "the damming of the waters". What dammed the stream during the 1790 battle?
The bodies of the dead
None of Maui's major chiefs died, but the losses among ordinary warriors were enormous.
Q 12Which king moved the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom from Lahaina to Honolulu in 1845?
Kamehameha III
He had lived on the sacred island of Mokuʻula in the middle of Lahaina from 1837 to 1845.
Q 13Lahainaluna Seminary, founded in 1831, printed the first newspaper west of which mountain range?
The Rocky Mountains
Its students, including the historian David Malo, helped translate the Bible into Hawaiian.
Q 21What shape is Molokini, the islet off Maui's south coast?
A crescent
It is the rim of a partly submerged volcanic crater and shelters snorkellers from the channel's currents.
Q 22Molokini sits in the ʻAlalākeiki Channel between Maui and which other island?
Kahoʻolawe
The islet is a state seabird sanctuary and is home to some 250 marine species.
Q 23In which year were Molokini and its surrounding waters declared a Marine Life Conservation District?
1977
The protected area covers the islet, the crater and 77 acres of seabed.
Q 24Which branch of the US military ended live-fire training on Maui County's smallest island in 1990?
Q 14Lahaina's giant banyan tree, planted in 1873, grew from a seedling sent by missionaries in which country?
India
Sheriff William Owen Smith planted it to mark 50 years since the first Protestant mission in the town.
Q 15By 2005 the Lahaina banyan had how many trunks?
16
It was the largest banyan in Hawaii and covered a quarter-mile circumference of the park.
Q 16In 1827 the British whaling ship John Palmer did what to Lahaina?
Shelled the town
Governor Hoapili built the Old Lahaina Fort four years later to keep rowdy sailors in check.
Q 17Whaling in Lahaina collapsed at the end of the 19th century mainly because of what?
Petroleum replaced whale oil
Whalers had come to Lahaina for fresh water, fruit and potatoes to restock their ships.
Q 18Roughly what proportion of Lahaina was destroyed by the August 2023 wildfire?
80%
More than 2,200 buildings burned and 102 people died, making it one of the deadliest US wildfires in a century.
Q 19How many bridges does the Hāna Highway cross between Kahului and Hāna?
59
Forty-six of them are only one lane wide, and most date from 1910.
Q 20Approximately how many curves are there on the Road to Hāna?
620
The 52-mile trip takes about two and a half hours without stops.
The Navy
The whole island was handed to the state of Hawaii in 1994 after decades as a bombing range.
Q 25Maui is Hawaii's leading whale-watching centre. Which whales winter in the sheltered ʻAuʻau Channel?
Humpbacks
A national marine sanctuary protecting them was designated in 1992, with its education centre in Kīhei.
Q 26Sunny Kīhei receives no more than how much rain in a year?
10 inches
At one point it was among the fastest-growing towns in the United States.
Q 27Big Bog, above Hāna on Haleakalā, averaged roughly how much rain a year from 1978 to 2007?
404 inches
That is more than 33 feet of rain, and it falls only a few miles from arid Kīhei.
Q 28Roughly how many people lived on Maui at the 2020 census?
168,000
That makes it the third most populous Hawaiian island after Oʻahu and the Big Island.
Q 29In which year did commercial sugar production on Maui finally end?
2016
Sugar had been one of the island's two main crops for more than a century.
Q 30Hawaii's first commercial winery, founded on Maui in 1974, initially made wine from what?
Pineapple
Founder Emil Tedeschi came from a Napa Valley winegrowing family.