49 Fun Facts About Bermuda

What is the capital of Bermuda?

Hamilton became Bermuda's capital in 1815, taking over from St George's; confusingly, the city sits in Pembroke Parish, not in the separate Hamilton Parish.

Which US state holds the closest land to Bermuda?

North Carolina's Cape Hatteras is Bermuda's nearest land; though often lumped in with the Caribbean, the island lies nearly a thousand miles north of it.

How many islands and islets make up Bermuda?

About 180: the usual count is 181 islands and islets, but the largest are joined by bridges into what looks like a single fish-hook of land.

Bermuda is named after an explorer of which nationality?

Spanish navigator Juan de Bermúdez sighted the islands in the early 1500s and left them his name, but Spain never settled them, so they lay empty until English castaways arrived a century later.

Early sailors called Bermuda the 'Isle of Devils' because of what?

The 'Isle of Devils' name came from raucous bird calls and wild hogs at night: the eerie cries were probably cahows, and the hogs had been left by passing ships.

Which ship's wreck on Bermuda's reef in 1609 led to English settlement?

The Sea Venture, flagship of a relief fleet bound for Jamestown, was driven onto Bermuda's reef in a 1609 storm; everyone aboard survived.

Which two ships did the castaways of 1609 build on Bermuda to finish their voyage to Jamestown?

Deliverance and Patience were built from the wreck's timbers and local wood; when the castaways finally reached Jamestown in May 1610 they found the colony starving.

Which status did the Town of St George in Bermuda gain in 2000?

UNESCO World Heritage listing also covers the forts around the town, built and rebuilt from 1612 into the 20th century, which show how English defences changed as artillery improved.

Which pioneering conservation law did Bermuda's Assembly pass in 1620?

A ban on killing young sea turtles is thought to be the first conservation law in the Americas, but it left adults unprotected, and Bermuda's own nesting turtles were all but wiped out.

Bermuda's flag is unusual among British Overseas Territories for being based on which flag?

The Red Ensign, normally the flag of British merchant ships, is flown on land in Bermuda with the territory's arms added, while most other overseas territories use a Blue Ensign ashore.

Bermuda was long known by a second name honouring which admiral of the wrecked 1609 relief fleet?

Sir George Somers died on Bermuda in 1610; his heart was buried there while his body was shipped home to Dorset, and the colony became known as the Somers Isles.

The first two enslaved people brought to Bermuda, in the 1610s, were sent to do what?

Dive for pearls was the plan: the ship Edwin was sent to the West Indies and came back with one Black man and one Native American to work as divers.

What did American sympathisers steal from a Bermuda storehouse one night in August 1775?

About 100 barrels of gunpowder were carried off to waiting American boats on 14 August 1775; soon afterwards the Continental Congress exempted Bermuda from its trade embargo.

Which cocktail's name is a registered trademark of Gosling's, the Bermuda rum company?

Dark 'n' Stormy is Gosling's trademark, and the firm has gone to court to stop rivals marketing the drink under that name unless it is made with its own Black Seal rum.

Which flower did Bermuda grow for export to New York as a mainstay of its economy around 1900?

Easter lily bulbs were shipped to New York until a virus ravaged the fields; plant pathologist Lawrence Ogilvie identified it in the 1920s and revived the trade.

Which US law of 1930 killed Bermuda's agricultural exports and pushed it toward tourism?

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 priced Bermuda's vegetables out of the American market, so the island leaned harder on a tourist trade that had begun in Victorian times.

After Bermuda's railway closed in 1948, what did its route become?

Walking trail: the Bermuda Railway Trail follows a line built when cars were banned on the island; costly to keep up, it lost money and closed after only 17 years.

Which Bermuda hotel housed more than a thousand British mail censors during the Second World War?

The Princess, a harbourside hotel opened in 1885, became the Imperial Censorship station, where staff nicknamed Censorettes examined transatlantic mail for traces of Axis spies.

Which office did Sir Richard Sharples hold in Bermuda when he was assassinated in 1973?

Governor Sir Richard Sharples was shot outside Government House; the two hangings that followed in 1977 set off days of rioting and were the last executions carried out in Bermuda.

How did Bermudians vote in the 1995 independence referendum?

A large majority against independence, about 74% of voters, was recorded in the August 1995 referendum, which the opposition PLP had urged supporters to boycott.

Roughly how high is Town Hill, Bermuda's highest point?

80 metres: Town Hill reaches just 79 m, and the low-lying islands have no rivers or freshwater lakes, so households collect rainwater from their roofs.

Bermuda's islands are made mostly of what rock, sitting on an extinct volcano?

Limestone forms the islands: wind blew limy beach sand into dunes that hardened into rock, capping the summit of a long-extinct volcano.

Bermuda's mild winters are attributed to which ocean current?

The Gulf Stream flows nearby and keeps Bermuda entirely free of frost, even though the island lies nearly a thousand miles north of the Caribbean.

The 1609 shipwreck that led to Bermuda's settlement is widely thought to have inspired which Shakespeare play?

The Tempest, written about 1611, opens with a storm-wrecked ship and castaways on a strange island, and one line even speaks of the 'still-vexed Bermoothes'.

Bermuda's national bird, the cahow, was rediscovered in 1951 after being presumed extinct for roughly how long?

300 years: thought wiped out by the 1620s, the cahow was down to its last few pairs when found in 1951, and conservationists have since resettled it on Nonsuch Island.

Bermudians are still nicknamed after which vegetable, a prized island export in the 19th century?

Onions from Bermuda sold so well in 19th-century America that islanders became known by the name, until Texas farmers grew 'Bermuda onions' of their own and took the market.

Which bird, locally called the longtail, is Bermudians' first sign of spring?

The white-tailed tropicbird lives far out at sea and comes ashore only to breed, so its return to Bermuda's cliffs in late February or March signals spring.

Bermuda's Somerset Bridge is reputed to be the world's what?

Smallest drawbridge: Somerset Bridge's hand-opened plank leaves a gap only just wide enough for a sailboat's mast to slip through.

A British force that sailed from Bermuda in August 1814 went on to burn which American city?

Washington was the target: the raid that left the White House in flames was planned in Bermuda, where the Royal Navy had just begun building its dockyard on Ireland Island.

What colour are Bermuda's famous beaches?

Pink comes from foraminifera: the red shells of these tiny sea creatures are ground up by the surf and mixed into Bermuda's white sand.

Bermuda's currency, adopted in 1970, is pegged at par with which other one?

The Bermudian dollar, introduced in 1970 to replace the pound, is fixed at par with the US dollar, and US cash circulates alongside it.

What kind of tax did Bermuda first introduce in 2025, having never had one before?

Corporate income tax arrived in 2025 at 15%, but only for multinationals with revenue of €750 million or more; as of 2025 Bermuda still levies no personal income tax.

Which industry dominates Bermuda's international business sector?

Insurance, and reinsurance above all, leads an international business sector that has overtaken tourism as the mainstay of Bermuda's economy.

Bermuda's Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, built in the 1840s, is a rare early example of a lighthouse made of what?

Cast iron was used because structural steel was not yet available; the tower first shone on 1 May 1846, and visitors still climb its 185 steps.

Bermuda's two-day Cup Match holiday each summer centres on a game of which sport?

Cricket between the Somerset and St George's clubs has been its centrepiece since the first Cup Match in 1902; the contest grew out of picnics that friendly societies held to celebrate emancipation from slavery.

Which slave narrative, published in London in 1831, was dictated by a Bermudian born into slavery?

The History of Mary Prince, the first account of a Black woman's enslavement published in Britain, sold out three printings in its first year, at the height of the abolition campaign.

Who won Bermuda's first Olympic gold medal, in the 2020 triathlon?

Flora Duffy was one of only two athletes Bermuda sent to Tokyo in 2021, and her triathlon win made it the smallest country then to have won Summer Olympic gold; its one earlier medal was a 1976 boxing bronze.

Bermuda lies in which sea, the only one in the world with no coastline?

The Sargasso Sea is bounded by ocean currents instead of land, and takes its name from the floating sargassum seaweed that gathers inside the ring.

Bermuda shorts count as proper business attire on the island when worn with a blazer, tie and which other item?

Knee-length socks, known as Bermuda hose, complete the outfit, and the island's athletes even parade in the shorts at Olympic opening ceremonies, the Winter Games included.

The Bermuda Triangle is roughly bounded by Bermuda, Puerto Rico and which US state?

The triangle's usual third corner is Miami, Florida; official bodies such as the US Coast Guard have found nothing unusual about the area.

The century-old Newport-Bermuda Yacht Race starts in which US state?

Rhode Island's Newport hosts the start of the 635-nautical-mile race, though the first one in 1906 set off from New York Bay, when critics thought amateurs in small yachts would never make it.

Which sailing competition did Bermuda host on its Great Sound in 2017?

The America's Cup, the oldest international contest still running in any sport, was raced off Bermuda in June 2017, when Emirates Team New Zealand's pedalling 'cyclors' beat Oracle Team USA 7–1.

Most of Bermuda's parishes are named after which group?

Investors gave eight of the nine parishes their names: the land was shared out among shareholders such as the Earls of Devonshire and Pembroke, with St George's kept as public land.

Roughly how many people live in Bermuda?

About 64,000 people share just 54 square kilometres, so traffic is rationed: only residents may own cars, and visitors cannot hire ordinary ones.

John Lennon named which 1980 album after a flower he spotted in a garden in Bermuda?

Double Fantasy was the name of a freesia in Bermuda's Botanical Gardens; Lennon had sailed to the island that summer and begun writing songs again after five years away from music.

A 1940 deal gave the United States bases in Bermuda and beyond, while Britain received 50 ageing warships of which type?

Destroyers, 50 of them, were traded for 99-year base leases in the Caribbean, although the leases in Bermuda and Newfoundland were gifts, granted 'freely and without consideration'.

Which British prime minister hosted President Eisenhower and France's premier at the 1953 Bermuda summit?

Winston Churchill met Eisenhower and French premier Joseph Laniel at Bermuda's Mid Ocean Club in December 1953, pressing to discuss how the West should deal with the Soviet Union.

Which masked folk dancers give Bermuda's national football team its 'Warriors' nickname?

Gombeys are masked troupes whose drumming and dancing draw crowds through the streets on holidays; the 'Gombey Warriors' reached their first major tournament, the CONCACAF Gold Cup, in 2019.

From the late 1600s, Bermudian crews spent months each year in the Turks Islands gathering what to sell?

Salt became a staple cargo after the company that ran Bermuda lost its charter in 1684: no longer made to farm tobacco, islanders took to the sea and sailed back to the Turks Islands' pans each raking season.