Samoa Trivia
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49 free Samoa trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Forty-four questions on Samoa, the Polynesian nation that jumped across the International Date Line and switched sides of the road in the same decade. Geography covers Apia, Upolu and Savai'i, Mount Silisili, the Saleaula lava fields, To Sua ocean trench and the eight islets. History runs from the Lapita landings at Mulifanua, Roggeveen and Bougainville's 'Navigator Islands', the 1889 hurricane that wrecked three navies in Apia harbour, the Tripartite Convention, German Samoa, the 1918 flu carried by the SS Talune, Black Saturday and the Mau, to 1962 independence, the 1997 name change and Fiame Naomi Mata'afa's first female premiership. Culture rounds cover fa'a Samoa and the matai, the 'ava ceremony, the pe'a and malu tattoos, fa'afafine, the siva and slap dance, the fale, Nafanua and Sina and the Eel, the tala, the Southern Cross flag, Robert Louis Stevenson as Tusitala at Vailima, the Baha'i temple, and rugby's Manu Samoa. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its islands and its people, and the sentence that establishes it is quoted under each explanation. Suits a pub quiz, a Pacific studies class or anyone with a ticket to Faleolo.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Samoa lies in the Pacific roughly halfway between New Zealand and where?
Hawaii
Hawaii. Samoa also kept to Hawaii's side of the date line, almost a full day behind New Zealand, until it jumped across at the end of 2011.
Q 02Which Hollywood star was given the Samoan title Seiuli by Samoa's head of state in 2004?
Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson. The Rock's mother is Samoan and he descends from chiefs, and the title also thanked him for supporting charities and relief work in the islands.
Q 03Which pottery-making seafarers were the first people to settle the Samoan Islands, about 3,000 years ago?
The Lapita
The Lapita. Their stamped pottery marks Samoa's oldest known site, which nobody dug for: it came up in dredge spoil when a ferry berth was enlarged at Mulifanua in 1973.
Q 04Which name did the French explorer Bougainville give the Samoan islands in 1768?
The Navigator Islands
The Navigator Islands. The name stayed on maps for more than a century, though France's next visit ended in blood: La Perouse lost several of his crew in a clash on Tutuila in 1787.
Q 05A storm on 15 March 1889 ended a stand-off in Apia harbour between which three navies?
Germany, Britain and the United States
Germany, Britain and the United States. The cyclone wrecked or beached all six German and American warships; only Britain's HMS Calliope, engines straining, crept out to sea and survived.
Q 06Under the 1899 Tripartite Convention the larger, westerly islands became a colony of which empire?
Germany
Germany. Its rule lasted only until 1914, and chiefs who resisted it, led by a chief named Lauaki, were shipped into exile on Saipan in 1909.
Q 07Which rugby nation did Samoa stun 16-13 on its World Cup debut in 1991?
Wales
Wales. The 1987 semi-finalists were beaten on their own ground in Cardiff and went out in the pool stage, while the newcomers marched on to a quarter-final.
Q 08Which traditional drink is shared at Samoa's most solemn ceremonies?
Kava
Kava. Samoans call it 'ava; it is made from the root of a pepper plant, and drinkers customarily tip a little onto the ground before and after their cup.
Q 09Roughly what fraction of Samoa's population died in the 1918-19 influenza epidemic?
One fifth
One fifth. The administrator let sick passengers come ashore from a ship without quarantine, and a royal commission later found neglect and poor judgement.
Q 10The non-violent independence movement that colonial police fired on in Apia in 1929 was called what?
The Mau
The Mau. The name means a firmly held opinion; its leader, Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III, was shot while trying to calm the crowd, and the day became known as Black Saturday.
Q 11Who was head of state when Samoa became independent in 1962?
Two chiefs jointly
Two chiefs jointly, for life. One died in 1963 and the other carried on alone until 2007, after which parliament began electing heads of state for five-year terms.
Q 12Until 1997 Samoa was officially known as what?
Western Samoa
Western Samoa. The name dated from the islands' partition in 1899, and when 'Western' was dropped, American Samoa protested that the change diminished its own Samoan identity.
Q 13Why did Samoa switch from driving on the right to the left in 2009?
To import cheaper used cars
Q 21Tusitala's 1892 book on the great powers' scramble for Samoa is titled what?
A Footnote to History
A Footnote to History. The preface explains the modest title: an affair worth 'a note of a few lines in any general history' had been expanded into a whole volume.
Q 22The traditional Samoan male tattoo, worn from the waist to the knees, is called what?
Pe'a
Pe'a. Missionaries tried to stamp tattooing out and succeeded on many Polynesian islands, but Samoans never gave it up and later helped revive the art in Tahiti.
Q 23People born male who take on a feminine gender role are known in Samoa as what?
Fa'afafine
Fa'afafine. They are a recognised third gender, and Samoan scholars call the outsiders' story that families short of daughters raise a son as a girl a myth.
To import cheaper used cars. Samoa wanted an end to costly left-hand-drive imports from America, so at 6am one September morning sirens sounded and every driver changed sides.
Q 14Why did Samoa skip 30 December 2011 and jump west across the date line?
To match trading partners
To match trading partners. Samoa's Friday had been Saturday in Australia and New Zealand, leaving only four shared working days a week; the jump made it five, and neighbouring Tokelau skipped the day as well.
Q 15Who became Samoa's prime minister in 2021 after a constitutional crisis?
Fiame Naomi Mata'afa
Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, the first woman in the post. Locked out of parliament by her rivals, she took the oath in a tent outside, and two months later the Court of Appeal ruled the ceremony binding.
Q 16Who alone may stand for election to Samoa's parliament?
Holders of matai chiefly titles
Holders of matai chiefly titles. Every adult has had the vote since a 1990 referendum, but candidates must still be matai, the leaders each extended family chooses for itself.
Q 17Which bat-and-ball sport did Samoans remake as a village game with teams of any size?
Cricket
Cricket. It arrived in the 19th century, and in the Samoan version, kirikiti, whole villages play while spectators sing and the hosts lay on the food.
Q 18Samoa's flag is red with a blue canton bearing white stars in the shape of which constellation?
The Southern Cross
The Southern Cross. The flag flew with only four stars when it was introduced in 1948 and gained its smaller fifth star the following year.
Q 19What is Samoa's currency?
The tala
The tala. The name is the Samoan form of 'dollar', as its hundredth, the sene, is of 'cent'; it replaced the pound in 1967 at two tala to the pound.
Q 20Which author settled at Vailima, was called Tusitala and was buried on Mount Vaea in 1894?
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson. Tusitala means 'teller of tales'; when he died, Samoans cut a path up Mount Vaea overnight and bore his coffin to the summit on their shoulders.
Q 24The traditional Samoan way of life, taking in custom, social order and language, is called what?
Fa'a Samoa
Fa'a Samoa. It has withstood centuries of European influence: outside the capital, many traditions of village life remain virtually unchanged.
Q 25What is the traditional Samoan house, open-sided with no walls, called?
Fale
Fale. With no walls to shut, a family simply lets down blinds of plaited palm fronds at night or when the weather turns.
Q 26In Samoan legend Nafanua won back her people's land on Savai'i and became the goddess of what?
War
War. In one telling the fighting stopped when the wind lifted her top: her enemies, seeing they had been beaten by a woman, gave up in shame.
Q 27The Samoan legend of 'Sina and the Eel' explains the origin of what?
The first coconut tree
The first coconut tree. In the legend it grew where the eel's head was buried, and the three marks on a husked coconut are said to be the eel's two eyes and mouth.
Q 28What buried villages on Samoa's island of Savai'i between 1905 and 1911?
Lava flows
Lava flows. Mount Matavanu erupted on and off for six years; the lava fields and the ruins in them are now a visitor sight, below Mount Silisili, Samoa's highest point.
Q 29Which root crop, once Samoa's biggest export, was all but wiped out by a leaf blight in the 1990s?
Taro
Taro. It brought in more than half of Samoa's export earnings in 1993; then leaf blight struck, and the next year's exports all but vanished.
Q 30Samoa's national rugby union team is nicknamed what?
Manu Samoa
Manu Samoa. Though the country has only about 200,000 people, the side reached the World Cup quarter-finals at its first attempt in 1991 and did so again in 1995.