Palawan Trivia
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34 free Palawan trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Palawan trivia quiz covers the Philippines' largest province from the Tabon Caves to Tubbataha: the prehistoric finds that made Palawan the 'cradle of civilization', Pigafetta's 1521 landfall, the Brunei and Spanish eras, the American-era plan to trade the island to Denmark, the Second World War on and around Puerto Princesa, and the plebiscites that kept the province whole. It also takes in what visitors come for: the Underground River, the wrecks of Coron, El Nido's swiftlet nests, the Calauit game reserve, Mount Mantalingahan, the peacock-pheasant and the dugong, plus the languages, faiths and economy of Palaweños today. The early questions suit a Philippine geography class or a barkada quiz night; the later ones reward anyone who has spent real time on the island. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 34 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and largest city of Palawan?
Puerto Princesa
Puerto Princesa is the capital, yet it governs itself as a highly urbanised city, so provincial figures usually leave it out.
Q 02Palawan belongs to which administrative region of the Philippines?
Mimaropa
Mimaropa is named for Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan, and a 2005 order moving Palawan to Western Visayas was shelved after protests.
Q 03Palawan is nicknamed the Philippines' Last what?
Frontier
Frontier: the name reflects how wild Palawan remains, with more than half of its original forest cover still standing.
Q 04Palawan lies between the Sulu Sea and which larger sea to its west?
South China Sea
South China Sea: in 2016 a tribunal in The Hague sided with the Philippines, ruling that China had no legal basis for historic rights inside its 'nine-dash line'.
Q 05Palawan's islands stretch from Mindoro in the northeast to which island in the southwest?
Borneo
Borneo: unlike most of the Philippines, Palawan belongs with Borneo to the Sundaland wildlife region, so many of their animals are related.
Q 06What did Palawan voters reject in a March 2021 plebiscite?
Splitting it into three provinces
Splitting it into three provinces lost, after opponents such as the Save Palawan Movement said the law had been railroaded without public consultation.
Q 07The lid of the Manunggul Jar, a burial jar from Palawan's Tabon Caves, shows two figures seated in what?
A boat
A boat: it carries two souls on their voyage to the afterlife, the boatman seated behind a figure whose arms are crossed like a corpse's.
Q 08Evidence from the Tabon Caves shows people have lived on Palawan for more than roughly how many years?
50,000
50,000: much later, people also used the caves as a burial ground, laying their dead to rest in clay jars.
Q 09Coron Bay's famous World War II wreck dives are ships that belonged to which country?
Japan
Japan: US Navy dive bombers caught its supply fleet hiding among the islands on 24 September 1944 and sank ship after ship.
Q 10Palawan was a hub of the prehistoric Maritime Jade Road, whose raw jade came mostly from which island?
Taiwan
Taiwan: lab tests traced jade ear pendants found as far away as Vietnam and Thailand back to a single deposit in eastern Taiwan.
Q 11Pigafetta's 1521 expedition called Palawan 'la terra de missione', meaning what?
The land of promise
The land of promise: Pigafetta said they named it so because they had been starving, until islanders fed them rice cooked in bamboo, pigs and goats.
Q 12Pigafetta recorded that the people of Palawan carried which weapons?
Blowguns
Blowguns: an iron point on the end meant they could fight on, using the blowgun as a spear, once their poisoned darts ran out.
Q 13Which Palawan reef did the US Navy minesweeper USS Guardian run aground on in 2013?
Tubbataha Reef
Tubbataha Reef: unable to tow the minesweeper off, the Navy cut it into pieces to free it without further damaging the reef.
Q 21Palawan's Rasa Island is the stronghold of which rare bird?
Philippine cockatoo
Philippine cockatoo: the pet trade and forest clearing wiped it out across most of the Philippines, so in 2006 Rasa was made a wildlife sanctuary.
Q 22What is the highest peak in Palawan, at 2,086 metres?
Mount Mantalingahan
The province's mountain ranges average about 1,100 metres and are carpeted in virgin forest.
Q 23The Philippines counts the disputed Spratly Islands as part of Palawan under what local name?
Kalayaan Group
Kalayaan Group covers islands that businessman Tomás Cloma claimed in the 1950s, issuing a proclamation that he occupied and owned them.
Q 14Under what name did the 1818 Spanish census record Palawan?
Isla de Paragua
Isla de Paragua was Spain's name for Palawan, and it lived on when the Americans first organised the province as Paragua.
Q 15For much of the 20th century, Palawan's Culion Island was home to what kind of colony?
A leper colony
A leper colony: in 1992 a law turned the old patients' reservation into a municipality of its own.
Q 16In 1992, UNESCO declared all of Palawan province what kind of protected area?
A Man and Biosphere Reserve
A Man and Biosphere Reserve: yet pristine Ulugan Bay, a UNESCO pilot site within it, has also been eyed for a bigger naval base.
Q 17A 1910 scheme by America's envoy to a Scandinavian kingdom would have traded Palawan and Mindanao to which country?
Denmark
Denmark would have given the US Greenland and passed the islands on to Germany for Northern Schleswig, but in the end the US simply bought the Danish West Indies in 1917.
Q 18Survivors of the December 1944 Palawan Massacre, in which 139 American POWs died, escaped with help from whom?
Filipino guerrillas
Filipino guerrillas hid the survivors and relayed the news to MacArthur's headquarters, and a US Navy seaplane later flew them to safety.
Q 19Off Palawan in October 1944, the US submarine Darter sank Admiral Kurita's flagship, named what?
Atago
Atago went down, yet Kurita survived; Darter later ran aground on Bombay Shoal while trailing a damaged cruiser and had to be abandoned.
Q 20Calauit Island's 1976 game reserve was stocked with animals imported from which continent?
Africa
Africa: of the imported herds only giraffes and zebras still survive, and Tagbanwa families were evicted to make room for the park.
Q 24Busuanga, Coron and Culion form the Calamianes group together with which island?
Linapacan
Linapacan completes the Calamianes, the first part of Palawan under Spanish influence; friars sent farther south met stiff resistance from Moro communities.
Q 25Which native language, once Palawan's lingua franca, is still spoken by about 26% of residents?
Cuyonon
Tagalog, now spoken by over half the province, overtook it in the 1990s.
Q 26The 14-pound 'Pearl of Lao Tzu', found off Palawan in 1934, grew inside which creature?
A giant clam
A giant clam: legend says it trapped and drowned the diver, and the pearl's ancient 'Lao Tzu' back-story was later exposed as a hoax.
Q 27Palawan's endemic pheasant is named after which showy bird?
Peacock
Peacock: like one, the male fans out his tail to show off its shimmering eye-spots when he courts a female.
Q 28The endemic Palawan birdwing is what kind of creature?
A butterfly
A butterfly: birdwings are prized by collectors, and ranches rear them to supply that trade under CITES rules.
Q 29Palawan has the Philippines' largest remaining population of which marine mammal?
Dugong
Dugong herds once lived around all the Philippine islands, but drownings in fishing gear and lost seagrass left only isolated groups.
Q 30DNA studies showed the Palawan stink badger belongs not with true badgers but in which animal's family?
Skunk
Skunk: like a skunk, it squirts a foul-smelling fluid from glands under its tail to drive off predators.