Seychelles Trivia
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48 free Seychelles trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Forty-two questions on Seychelles, the 115-island republic 1,500 km off East Africa that is the continent's smallest and richest country per head. Geography covers Victoria on Mahe, Praslin and La Digue, the granite microcontinent that Wegener used as evidence for continental drift, the Amirantes, Farquhar and Aldabra groups, and Morne Seychellois. History runs from Vasco da Gama's fleet in 1503 and the pirates, through the French Stone of Possession of 1756, the naming for Moreau de Sechelles, the neutral-flag trick of de Quinssy, British rule and the Gran Blan, 1976 independence, Rene's 1977 coup, Mike Hoare's rugby-shirted mercenaries in 1981, India's frigate in 1986, and the opposition's first victory in 2020 under an Anglican priest. Nature and culture cover Aldabra's tortoises, the coco de mer's heaviest seed, the jellyfish tree, 42 percent of land protected, the Seychellois rupee, Creole, sega and moutya, the five-band flag, tuna and tourism, and a piracy fight in the Somali Sea. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its islands, wildlife and leaders, and the sentence that establishes it is quoted under each explanation. Suits a pub quiz, an Indian Ocean geography lesson or a honeymoon planner.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which royals honeymooned in Seychelles?
William and Catherine
William and Catherine. Their ten days on a private island in 2011 were meant to be secret, but a Seychelles official announced their arrival, and the coastguard then helped to guard their privacy.
Q 02What is the capital and largest city of Seychelles?
Victoria
Victoria. The French founded it as L'Etablissement du Roi; the British renamed it in 1841 after their young queen, and it remains one of the world's smallest capitals.
Q 03Seychelles is Africa's smallest country by land area and also ranks last on the continent by what measure?
Population
Population. About 100,000 people were counted at the 2022 census, yet the islands claim more than 1.3 million square kilometres of ocean, roughly 3,000 times their land area.
Q 04Anse Source d'Argent, often called the world's most photographed beach, lies on which Seychelles island?
La Digue
La Digue. Motor vehicles are tightly restricted there, so the bicycle remains the island's main transport and most visitors pedal to the beach.
Q 05Which Aldabra bird is the last flightless bird left in the western Indian Ocean?
The white-throated rail
The white-throated rail. Fossils show an earlier flightless rail was wiped out when the atoll flooded about 136,000 years ago; the same species then flew back in and lost the power of flight a second time.
Q 06Whose Portuguese fleet made the first recorded European sighting of Seychelles?
Vasco da Gama's
Vasco da Gama's. No landing was recorded then: the first came about a century later, in 1609, when English merchant sailors spent several days ashore.
Q 07Seychelles was named in 1756 in honour of the finance minister of which French ruler?
Louis XV
Louis XV. An expedition from Mauritius staked France's claim that year by laying a Stone of Possession, and named the islands after Jean Moreau de Sechelles, who ran the king's treasury.
Q 08How did Seychelles' French commandant de Quinssy respond when a British naval squadron arrived in 1794?
He surrendered without a fight
He surrendered without a fight. With no means of resisting, de Quinssy signed terms that left the settlers alone, renewed them when warships came back, and the colony flourished by supplying all comers.
Q 09The British general Charles Gordon claimed which legendary place lay in Seychelles?
Eden
Eden. Gordon, later killed at Khartoum, visited in 1881 and argued that a palm forest there was the Garden of Eden and its coco de mer palm the Bible's tree of knowledge.
Q 10Which prime minister took power in Seychelles' 1977 coup and stayed president for the next 27 years?
France-Albert Rene
France-Albert Rene. He denied knowing in advance of the plot, carried out by supporters trained in Tanzania, yet he accepted the presidency and did not give it up until 2004.
Q 11Mike Hoare's 1981 mercenaries tried to enter Seychelles disguised as what?
Holidaying rugby players
Holidaying rugby players. They also posed as a beer-drinking charity club bringing toys for orphans, until a customs officer found a rifle hidden in the luggage and a gun battle began.
Q 12Seychelles president Danny Faure made a live 2019 plea to protect the oceans while speaking from where?
A submersible on the seabed
A submersible on the seabed, 120 metres down off the outer islands. In a T-shirt and shorts, Faure told viewers that we have better maps of Mars than of the ocean floor.
Q 13Wavel Ramkalawan, elected in 2020 as the first opposition president since 1977, had what profession?
Q 21What does Seychelles' flag, adopted in 1996, show?
Five oblique bands fanning out from one corner
Five oblique bands fanning out from one corner. Adopted once rival parties shared power, the flag blends their colours and replaced one that was simply the ruling party's banner without its sun.
Q 22What is Seychelles' currency?
The Seychellois rupee
The Seychellois rupee. Pegged to other currencies for decades, it was floated in November 2008 as the country took an IMF bailout in the middle of a foreign-currency crisis.
Q 23Mass tourism reached Seychelles only after what opened in the early 1970s?
Anglican priest
Anglican priest. He won at his sixth attempt, having lost the previous presidential election by only about 200 votes.
Q 14Which actor's foundation helped fund the deal that swapped Seychelles' debt for marine parks?
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio. In the first debt swap of its kind for the sea, conservationists bought about $22 million of Seychelles' debt at a discount, and the country created two vast marine parks in return.
Q 15Aldabra atoll, a UNESCO site, is home to more of which reptile than anywhere else on Earth?
Giant tortoises
Giant tortoises: 100,000 or more of them. Sailors ate their way through the giant tortoises of almost every other island in the region, but Aldabra was too remote and too hard to land on.
Q 16After a 1960s campaign saved Aldabra from becoming a military air base, the base was built on which island instead?
Diego Garcia
Diego Garcia. Scientists and MPs shamed the planners into sparing Aldabra's wildlife, so the base went to an atoll whose own islanders were then removed to make way for it.
Q 17The coco de mer palm, which grows wild on only two islands, is famous for producing what?
The world's heaviest seed
The world's heaviest seed. Long before anyone found the palm, its nuts washed up on distant shores, and people came to believe they grew on trees beneath the sea: the name means 'coconut of the sea'.
Q 18The Vallee de Mai, a World Heritage Site of coco de mer palms, is on which island?
Praslin
Praslin. The valley's palm forest stood untouched until the 1930s, which is why UNESCO lists it as a remnant of natural forest preserved in almost its original state.
Q 19Which rare Seychelles tree, found wild at only four mountain sites, is the sole species in its genus?
The jellyfish tree
The jellyfish tree. For decades it was written off as extinct, until a few trees were found in 1970; it is named for its fruit, which opens out like a tiny jellyfish.
Q 20An exiled sultan reportedly found which country's anthem tune in Seychelles?
Malaysia
Malaysia. The exiled Sultan of Perak and his family are said to have picked up the melody, a popular song of the day, at concerts in Seychelles; Perak made it its anthem, and in 1957 it became 'Negaraku'.
An international airport
An international airport. Britain paid for it to compensate Seychelles for outer islands it had detached in 1965 for military use, and it turned a plantation economy into one built on visitors.
Q 24Seychelles' moutya, a bonfire dance on UNESCO's heritage list since 2021, was begun by which group?
Enslaved workers
Enslaved workers. Brought from Africa by French settlers, they danced it at night in the forest, out of sight of the plantation house, as a comfort against hardship and a way of resisting servitude.
Q 25Most Seychellois belong to which church, a legacy of the islands' early settlers?
Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic. Those settlers were French, and their church held on through a century and a half of British rule: Anglicans, the colonial power's own church, are only about one in twenty.
Q 26Brendon Grimshaw turned Seychelles' Moyenne Island into what?
Nature reserve
Nature reserve. The Yorkshireman bought the island for £8,000 in 1962 and spent decades replanting it and bringing back native wildlife; it is now one of the smallest national parks in the world.
Q 27In 2014 Seychelles overtook the United States for the world's highest rate of what?
Incarceration
Incarceration. In so small a country fewer than 800 prisoners were enough to top the world table, and by 2022 the rate had fallen by about two-thirds.
Q 28Seychelles has been a key participant in fighting piracy committed mainly by whom?
Somali pirates
Somali pirates. With attacks threatening its fishing and tourist trades, Seychelles became one of the region's two main centres for putting captured pirates on trial.
Q 29Which mountain, standing in the national park of the same name, is the highest peak in Seychelles?
Morne Seychellois
Morne Seychellois rises to 905 metres. Much of the forest on its slopes is regrowth, because settlers felled the original hardwoods to repair ships and build houses.
Q 30According to legend, what did the buccaneer La Buse hurl into the crowd at his hanging in 1730?
A coded message
A coded message. In the legend he cried that his treasure belonged to whoever could understand it, and a father and son have since devoted their lives to hunting for it on Seychelles' main island.