Pacific Islands
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50 free Pacific Islands trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Pacific covers about a third of the planet, and scattered across it are thousands of islands: coral atolls barely above the waves, volcanic peaks, and island nations whose stories run from ancient canoe voyages to the Second World War and the internet age. This quiz covers the island countries and territories of Polynesia and Micronesia and the larger islands to the west, along with a few famous islands around the Pacific Rim. Expect questions on countries and capitals, explorers and castaways, wartime battles, myths, food, wildlife and the odd fact that sounds made up but is true. It is pitched for curious players and quiz hosts alike. Most questions are gettable with a little thought, a handful are for South Pacific specialists, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Pacific nation skipped 30 December 2011 by moving west across the International Date Line?
Samoa
Samoa switched its clocks from UTC−11 to UTC+13 at the end of 2011. The change redrew the date line so that it now passes to the east of the country.
Q 02Villagers on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu came to revere which British royal as a divine being?
Prince Philip
Prince Philip heard about his followers and sent them a signed photograph. They replied with a traditional pig-killing club, and he posed with it for a second picture.
Q 03Which Pacific nation, whose capital is Funafuti, earns millions by leasing its internet domain, .tv?
Tuvalu
Tuvalu was simply assigned .tv as its country code, but the match with television made the domain valuable. By 2019 its royalties made up 8.4% of government revenue.
Q 04Which actor bought the Polynesian atoll of Tetiʻaroa after filming Mutiny on the Bounty nearby?
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando first saw the atoll in 1960 while scouting film locations and decided to buy it in 1966. A resort on one of its islets now carries his name.
Q 05Which home of the moai statues did Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen name after the holiday he arrived on?
Easter Island
Easter Island was first sighted by Roggeveen on Easter Sunday, 5 April 1722, while he was hunting for a rumoured land. Chile annexed it in 1888.
Q 06Which Pacific country, whose capital is Port Moresby, has about 840 languages, more than any other?
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea leans on English and Tok Pisin as shared languages, because many of its hundreds of language groups are very small.
Q 07Land diving on Pentecost Island, with vines tied to the ankles, inspired which modern extreme sport?
Bungee jumping
Bungee jumping pioneer AJ Hackett named the Vanuatu ritual as an inspiration. In 1995 the islanders said they would seek royalties from commercial jump operators.
Q 08Which Polynesian kingdom was hit by a tsunami when an undersea volcano erupted in January 2022?
Tonga
Tonga never gave up its sovereignty to a foreign power. That makes it the only Pacific nation to have kept its own monarchy without a break.
Q 09Which Marshall Islands atoll did the United States use for 23 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958?
Bikini
Bikini gave its name to the two-piece swimsuit. A French designer unveiled it in Paris in July 1946, four days after the first public bomb test at the atoll.
Q 10Which Pacific nation, whose capital is Tarawa, extends into all four of Earth's hemispheres?
Kiribati
Kiribati is pronounced KIRR-i-bass, because the letters 'ti' stand for an s sound in the Gilbertese language. The country is made up of 32 atolls and one solitary island, Banaba.
Q 11In which sport did Fiji win its first ever Olympic medal, a gold, at the 2016 Games in Rio?
Rugby sevens
Rugby sevens is Fiji's national sport, and the Games had never included it before 2016. The men's team won gold again at the next Olympics.
Q 12Which US territory in the western Pacific, whose capital is Hagåtña, boasts that America's day begins there?
Guam
Guam lies on the Asian side of the International Date Line, so each calendar day reaches it long before the US mainland. Spain ceded the island to the United States after the war of 1898.
Q 13Which island, the largest in French Polynesia, is home to the territory's capital, Papeʻete?
Tahiti
Tahiti is also the highest island in French Polynesia, rising to 2,241 metres at Mont Orohena. It is the remains of two extinct volcanoes joined by an isthmus.
Q 21Which Pacific nation, whose flag shows a golden full moon, created the world's first shark sanctuary in 2009?
Palau
Palau banned commercial shark fishing throughout its waters. It is also home to Jellyfish Lake, where golden jellyfish migrate across the water every day.
Q 22Which volcanic Pacific archipelago, a province of Ecuador, inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution?
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands were formally claimed by Ecuador in February 1832, while Darwin's survey voyage was already under way. His ship reached them in September 1835.
Q 23On which Micronesian islands did people treasure rai, stone money discs up to 3.6 metres across?
Yap
Q 14Which British territory in the Pacific is peopled by descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers?
Pitcairn Islands
Pitcairn Islands families descend mainly from nine mutineers and twelve Polynesian women. In 1856 all 193 islanders sailed away to resettle on Norfolk, but some soon came back.
Q 15Which aviator vanished in 1937 while searching for tiny Howland Island on a flight around the world?
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan never reached the refuelling stop. A stone tower on the island is still known as Earhart Light.
Q 16Which raft did Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl sail from Peru to Polynesia in 1947 to test a migration theory?
Kon-Tiki
Kon-Tiki, built from nine balsa logs, drifted for 101 days before smashing into a reef in the Tuamotus. Heyerdahl named the raft after an Inca god.
Q 17Which British survey ship gave its name to the deepest known point in any ocean, in the Mariana Trench?
HMS Challenger
HMS Challenger first located the spot during its expedition of 1872–1876. A second survey ship of the same name established its record-setting depth in the early 1950s.
Q 18Which trickster of Polynesian myth is said to have fished up islands with a magical hook?
Māui
Māui is also said to have captured the Sun to lengthen the days and to have stolen fire for humans from the underworld. Versions of his exploits are told right across Polynesia.
Q 19Which belt of volcanoes and earthquakes runs for about 40,000 km around the rim of the Pacific Ocean?
Ring of Fire
The Ring of Fire produces about 90% of the world's earthquakes. It also holds around two-thirds of all the planet's active or dormant volcanoes.
Q 20Which dormant Hawaiian volcano is the tallest mountain on Earth when measured from its base on the ocean floor?
Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea rises about 9,330 metres from the sea bed, more than Everest stands above sea level. Less than half of that height shows above the waves.
Yap islanders rarely moved the biggest discs. A stone changed hands when the community added the transfer to its spoken history, so ownership never depended on where it stood.
Q 24Which French painter sailed for Polynesia in 1891 and died at Atuona in the Marquesas Islands in 1903?
Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin left Europe promising to come back a rich man. Instead his last years in the islands were marked by poor health and money troubles.
Q 25Which ceremonial Pacific drink is made from the root of a plant in the pepper family?
Kava
Kava takes its scientific name, Piper methysticum, from Latin and Greek words meaning 'intoxicating pepper'. The same word covers both the plant and the drink.
Q 26Which tree-climbing crustacean of Pacific islands is the largest arthropod living on land?
Coconut crab
The coconut crab can weigh up to 4.1 kg. It is the only species in its genus and a giant land-living relative of the hermit crabs.
Q 27Which Pacific atoll gave its name to the 1942 battle in which the US sank four Japanese carriers?
Midway
Midway cost Japan all four of the fleet carriers it sent into the battle: Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū. The US Navy lost one carrier, the Yorktown.
Q 28Which Scottish novelist spent his last years at Vailima in the South Pacific, where locals called him Tusitala?
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson took the name Tusitala, which means teller of tales. When he died in 1894, islanders carried his body up nearby Mount Vaea and buried him overlooking the sea.
Q 29Which of the Solomon Islands saw the first major Allied land offensive against Japan, in August 1942?
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal was fought over for six months, from 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943. The campaign took in major battles both on land and in the surrounding seas.
Q 30Which Polynesian food plant was HMS Bounty carrying to the West Indies when its crew mutinied in 1789?
Breadfruit
Breadfruit was wanted as cheap food for enslaved workers on Caribbean plantations. After the mutiny, William Bligh led a second expedition that delivered the plants in the 1790s.