Virgin Islands National Park Trivia
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43 free Virgin Islands National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Virgin Islands National Park trivia quiz covers the Caribbean park that takes up about 60 percent of the island of St. John, plus thousands of acres of reef and nearly all of Hassel Island off St. Thomas. It ranges across the famous beaches (Trunk Bay and its underwater snorkel trail, Cinnamon Bay, Maho, Honeymoon and Salt Pond), the Reef Bay and Bordeaux Mountain trails, the Taino petroglyphs, the coral reefs and the wildlife from bats to wild donkeys. There is plenty of history too: the Taino, Columbus's 'eleven thousand virgins', the Danish planters and the sugar mills at Annaberg and Catherineberg, the 1733 uprising led by Breffu, emancipation in 1848, the 1917 sale to the United States, Laurance Rockefeller's 1956 gift that created the park, the 2001 coral reef monument, and the twin Category 5 hurricanes of 2017. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for a beach-day game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Biscayne, Everglades and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 43 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Indo-Pacific species has become invasive in the waters of Virgin Islands National Park?
Lionfish
Lionfish have few natural predators here, and they harm native fish by eating them and competing for food.
Q 02Which port town is the gateway to the park and home to its visitor centre?
Cruz Bay
Cruz Bay, on St. John's west end, has the park visitor centre a short walk from the ferry dock; passenger ferries arrive hourly from Red Hook on St. Thomas.
Q 03Which member of a famous American family donated the land that created the park in 1956?
Laurance Rockefeller
Laurance Rockefeller, through his Jackson Hole Preserve, gave about 5,000 acres to create the park in 1956, on condition the land never be developed; he kept the land under his own resort.
Q 04Which north-shore resort sat on land held back from Virgin Islands National Park's original 1956 land gift?
Caneel Bay
Caneel Bay opened in 1956, and it closed after two Category 5 hurricanes wrecked it in 2017.
Q 05Which park beach, often voted among the world's best, has an underwater snorkelling trail?
Trunk Bay
Trunk Bay had reopened by December 2017, just months after two Category 5 hurricanes battered the island.
Q 06Where did eleven enslaved people from St. John row a stolen boat to freedom in 1840?
Tortola
Tortola: Britain had already freed the enslaved in its islands, so people escaping St. John crossed there to be free.
Q 07Which beach hosts the only campground in Virgin Islands National Park?
Cinnamon Bay
Archaeological digs at Cinnamon Bay have found traces of a settlement from long before Columbus arrived.
Q 08Which beach in Virgin Islands National Park, with shallow seagrass beds, is best known for sea turtles?
Maho Bay
Maho Bay's shoreline was saved when the Trust for Public Land sold the estate to the park in stages, the park's largest addition since 1956.
Q 09Which Virgin Islands National Park trail runs from the visitor centre to Honeymoon Beach?
Lind Point
The Lind Point Trail's upper branch passes a battery that British troops built while occupying the Danish islands in the Napoleonic wars.
Q 10What is the highest point on St. John, reached by a steep trail from Little Lameshur Bay?
Bordeaux Mountain
Bordeaux Mountain, at 1,277 feet, is St. John's highest point; the Bordeaux Mountain Trail climbs steeply from Little Lameshur Bay, and the densely forested summit offers no view.
Q 11Which strenuous Virgin Islands National Park hike passes sugar-mill ruins and ancient petroglyphs on its way to the sea?
Reef Bay
The Reef Bay Trail ends at a sugar factory that switched to steam power and kept producing into the 1900s, long after emancipation.
Q 12The ancient rock carvings beside a waterfall pool in Virgin Islands National Park are usually credited to which people?
Taino
Taino, in the most popular theory; by the time Columbus sailed past in 1493, the island's Taino may already have gone.
Q 13Which Virgin Islands National Park historic district protects a partially restored sugar factory and windmill east of Mary's Point?
Annaberg
Annaberg grew into St. John's largest sugar estate once neighbouring plantations were merged into it.
Q 21Which two Category 5 hurricanes hit the park in September 2017?
Irma and Maria
Irma and Maria struck within two weeks of each other, yet the park had reopened all its roads, trails and beaches by December 2017.
Q 22Which president created the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument off St. John in January 2001?
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton's proclamation brought bans on anchoring and on almost all fishing in the monument's waters.
Q 23After 2005 bleaching, USGS scientists found Hurricane Hole corals growing in what unexpected place?
On submerged mangrove roots
Q 14Clouds of dust from which desert often drift across Virgin Islands National Park?
The Sahara
The Sahara's dust crosses the Atlantic carrying nutrients into Caribbean waters.
Q 15Which territory did the US recognise as Danish in the 1916 Virgin Islands treaty?
Greenland
Greenland: three decades later, just after World War II, the US offered to buy it, and Denmark refused.
Q 16In what form did the US pay Denmark for the Virgin Islands in 1917?
Gold
Gold was the price for islands that had become a financial burden to Denmark, which handed them over on 31 March 1917.
Q 17Which enslaved woman was one of the leaders of the 1733 uprising on St. John?
Breffu
Breffu began her part in the revolt by killing the planter Pieter Krøyer and his wife.
Q 18The 1733 rebels on St. John came mainly from which African kingdom in present-day Ghana?
Akwamu
Many Akwamu rebels had been royals or nobles at home, and they took control of most of the island before French troops crushed the revolt.
Q 19Troops from which French colony were brought in to end the 1733 rebellion?
Martinique
French troops from Martinique landed in 1734 and ended the revolt after Danish efforts had failed; it had begun in November 1733 when rebels smuggled cane bills into the Coral Bay fort inside bundles of wood.
Q 20Which governor-general freed the Danish West Indies' enslaved people in 1848?
Peter von Scholten
Peter von Scholten abandoned Denmark's 12-year plan for gradual emancipation and freed everyone at once.
On submerged mangrove roots, USGS scientists counted at least 30 coral species, making Hurricane Hole a focus of research into how corals may cope with warmer seas.
Q 24After the 2005 bleaching, what killed much of the coral in Virgin Islands National Park?
Disease
Disease took hold because bleached corals have lost the algae that feed them, leaving them starved and vulnerable to infection.
Q 25What is the only native land mammal in Virgin Islands National Park?
Bats
Bats pollinate many of the island's flowers and spread the seeds of its fruit trees.
Q 26Which small isle in Charlotte Amalie harbour is almost entirely within Virgin Islands National Park?
Hassel
Hassel Island was once a peninsula of St. Thomas, until a channel was cut through its narrow isthmus.
Q 27Which marine scientist led the first all-female aquanaut team off St. John in 1970?
Sylvia Earle
Sylvia Earle's team did the same work as the all-male crews before them, at a time when few women worked in such fields.
Q 28Which path from Salt Pond Bay runs down a dry, rocky peninsula to the southernmost point of St. John?
Ram Head
The Ram Head Trail runs about a mile from Salt Pond Bay over a cactus-studded, rocky peninsula to Ram Head, St. John's southernmost point, where cliffs drop some 200 feet to the sea.
Q 29Columbus's 1493 name for the Virgin Islands honoured the 11,000 legendary companions of which saint?
St. Ursula
Columbus called the islands Las Once Mil Vírgenes after St. Ursula and her legendary 11,000 virgin companions, said to have been martyred at Cologne; he never came ashore on St. John.
Q 30What is St. John's nickname?
Love City
St. John is 'Love City', a nickname matched by St. Thomas's 'Rock City' and St. Croix's 'Twin City'; at about 19 square miles it is the smallest of the three main U.S. Virgin Islands.