50 Fun Facts About Caribbean

Which is the largest country in the Caribbean by area?

Cuba covers about 110,000 square kilometres, more than twice the area of any other Caribbean country; its capital and largest city is Havana.

What is the capital city of Jamaica?

Kingston became the capital in 1872, taking over from Spanish Town; it was founded in 1692 as a refuge after an earthquake destroyed Port Royal across the harbour.

The island of Hispaniola is shared by Haiti and which other country?

The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island. Hispaniola and Saint Martin are the only two Caribbean islands split between two sovereign states.

Which music genre originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s?

Reggae grew out of ska and rocksteady in Jamaica around 1968, slowing the tempo and pushing the bass forward; Bob Marley and the Wailers carried it worldwide in the 1970s.

Rum is distilled from the juice or molasses of which plant?

Sugarcane was first domesticated in New Guinea and Island Southeast Asia; most rum is made from its molasses, while French-Caribbean rhum agricole ferments fresh cane juice.

Where did Christopher Columbus first make landfall in the Americas in October 1492?

The islanders called it Guanahani; Columbus named it San Salvador. Its exact identity among the Bahamian islands is still debated.

Which country was the first in the Americas to abolish slavery and the only one founded by a slave revolt?

Haiti declared independence on January 1, 1804, thirteen years after the 1791 uprising began, becoming the second republic in the Americas after the United States.

The steelpan is the national instrument of which country?

Trinidad and Tobago declared the steelpan its national instrument in 1992; the instrument was developed in Port of Spain's poorer districts in the 1930s and 1940s from discarded oil drums.

Which Caribbean country's flag shows a split-open nutmeg fruit?

Grenada adopted the flag at independence on February 7, 1974; the nutmeg in the hoist reflects the 'Island of Spice' nickname earned by its nutmeg and mace exports.

Which island became a republic on 30 November 2021, replacing the monarchy with a ceremonial president?

The then Prince Charles attended the swearing-in in Bridgetown. The same day the country made Rihanna a National Hero.

The deepest point of the Caribbean Sea, about 7,686 metres down, lies in which undersea feature?

The Cayman Trough runs between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica along the boundary of the North American and Caribbean plates; the deepest trench in the region lies outside the Caribbean Sea, in the Atlantic.

Trinidad is home to the world's largest natural deposit of which substance?

Asphalt from Pitch Lake, near La Brea in southwest Trinidad, has been dug commercially since the 19th century; Sir Walter Raleigh used it to caulk his ships in 1595.

Which island group's capital is Nassau, on New Providence?

The Bahamas, a chain of about 700 islands of which around 30 are inhabited, became independent from Britain on 10 July 1973; Nassau holds most of the population.

The West Indies cricket team won the first two Cricket World Cups, in 1975 and which other year?

1979 brought a second title, Viv Richards making 138 in the final against England at Lord's; a third straight final followed in 1983, lost to India.

Pico Duarte, the Caribbean's highest peak, rises in which mountain range?

Cordillera Central, Hispaniola's mountainous spine, carries Pico Duarte to about 3,098 metres, the highest summit in the Caribbean islands.

Blue Mountain Peak, the highest point in Jamaica, stands at roughly what elevation?

2,256 m is the summit height, the highest point in Jamaica; the range gives its name to the Blue Mountain coffee grown on its slopes between about 900 and 1,700 metres.

The 1902 eruption of Mont Pelée destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre on which French island?

Martinique lost its commercial centre when the eruption of 8 May 1902 killed nearly 30,000 people in Saint-Pierre in minutes; in 2023 Mont Pelée and the Pitons du Carbet became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Soufrière Hills volcano destroyed Plymouth, the capital of which British territory?

Montserrat lost Plymouth to pyroclastic flows in 1997 after the volcano awoke in 1995; two-thirds of the population left, and the island is nicknamed 'The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean' for its Irish heritage.

Boiling Lake, the world's second-largest hot spring, is on which island?

Dominica, the 'Nature Island', holds nine volcanic centres and the Morne Trois Pitons park that surrounds Boiling Lake; the Sisserou parrot on its flag lives nowhere else.

Which is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere by both area and population?

Saint Kitts and Nevis covers 261 square kilometres, with about 48,000 people; the capital, Basseterre, sits on Saint Kitts, the larger of the two islands, which are separated by a 3 km strait.

Saint Lucia was nicknamed the 'Helen of the West' because it changed hands so often between Britain and whom?

France and Britain swapped the island 14 times, so the nickname likens it to Helen of Troy, the woman fought over; it finally stayed British from the 1814 Treaty of Paris until independence.

Which Saint Lucian poet won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Derek Walcott, born in Castries in 1930, won for work including the epic Omeros (1990), which reworks Homeric characters among Saint Lucian fishermen; V. S. Naipaul won in 2001.

Nelson's Dockyard, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016, is on which island?

Antigua's English Harbour shelters the Georgian naval yard, named for Horatio Nelson, who was stationed there from 1784 to 1787 enforcing the Navigation Acts against American traders.

What is the national dish of Jamaica?

Ackee and saltfish pairs the boiled yellow arils of the ackee fruit with salted cod; unripe ackee is poisonous, so only fruit that has opened naturally is cooked.

Curaçao's famous liqueur is flavoured with the dried peel of which local citrus fruit?

Laraha is a bitter orange descended from Valencia oranges the Spanish planted in the 16th century; the fruit turned inedible in the island's dry climate, but its sun-dried peel is aromatic.

Willemstad is the capital of which Dutch Caribbean island?

Curaçao was seized by the Dutch West India Company in 1634, and Willemstad grew around Fort Amsterdam on the Schottegat inlet; its pastel waterfront became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

Saint Martin has been split between French and Dutch control since a treaty signed in which year?

1648 saw the Treaty of Concordia signed on a hilltop, dividing the island into a larger French north and a smaller but more populous Dutch south, the two sides sharing an open border ever since.

Philipsburg is the capital of which constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands?

Its Princess Juliana International Airport is famous for jets skimming Maho Beach on final approach.

Aruba became a separate constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in which year?

1986 brought Aruba's status aparte, separating it from the Netherlands Antilles on 1 January; the island lies about 29 kilometres off Venezuela's Paraguaná peninsula.

The US lease on its Guantánamo Bay naval base dates from an agreement of which year?

1903 was the year of the lease agreement under which the United States pays rent for the bay; the cheques, $4,085 a year since 1974, have gone uncashed by Havana apart from one in 1959.

The failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba took place in which month and year?

April 1961 saw about 1,400 CIA-trained exiles of Brigade 2506 land at Playa Girón on the 17th; they surrendered within three days, and the captives were later ransomed for medicine and food.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 lasted how many days?

13 days passed between Kennedy seeing the U-2 photographs on 16 October and Khrushchev's 28 October announcement that the missiles would be withdrawn; in Russia it is the Caribbean Crisis.

The Bacardi rum company was founded in 1862 in which Cuban city?

Santiago de Cuba was where Facundo Bacardí Massó, a wine merchant born in Sitges, Catalonia, bought a small distillery on 4 February 1862; the company left the island after the 1960 nationalisations.

Havana was officially declared the island's capital by royal decree in which year?

1607 is when Philip III's decree made Havana the official capital; governors had already resided there since the 1550s, drawn by the harbour where the treasure fleets gathered for the Atlantic crossing.

Which 1968 Toots and the Maytals single is credited with naming the genre it belongs to?

Do the Reggay, released in 1968, was the first popular record to use the word, which had been Jamaican street slang; Toots Hibbert led the Maytals for nearly six decades until his death in 2020.

Bob Marley was born in which small Jamaican village?

Nine Mile, in Saint Ann parish, is where Marley was born on 6 February 1945 and buried in 1981; he formed the future Wailers with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer in 1963.

Usain Bolt's 100 m world record of 9.58 seconds was set in which year?

2009's World Championships in Berlin saw the 9.58 on 16 August, cutting 0.11 seconds from his own 9.69, the biggest single improvement since electronic timing began.

The Trinidad Carnival street parade is held on the Monday and Tuesday before which day?

Ash Wednesday ends the revelry; the pre-dawn J'ouvert celebration opens Carnival Monday, and steelbands, calypso and soca all grew up around the festival.

Calypso music has its roots in kaiso, a tradition brought to Trinidad's plantations from which region?

West Africa supplied the kaiso tradition of satirical song carried by enslaved people to the plantations; calypso in its modern form took shape in Port of Spain by the early 20th century.

Which instrument drives merengue típico, the traditional form of the dance's music?

Accordion, tambora drum and metal güira scraper make up the classic merengue típico trio; German-made accordions replaced the original stringed instruments in the late 19th century.

Jamaican jerk seasoning is built on Scotch bonnet peppers and which spice?

Allspice, the dried berry of the pimento tree native to Jamaica, goes into the marinade, and the meat is smoked over pimento wood, a practice tracing back to the Taíno barbacoa from which 'barbecue' derives.

El Yunque National Forest is a landmark of which Caribbean territory?

Puerto Rico's El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest in the US National Forest System; its namesake peak reaches 3,494 feet in the Sierra de Luquillo.

Which archipelago in the Sargasso Sea is NOT Caribbean, though an associate member of CARICOM?

Bermuda, some 1,000 km east of the Carolinas, lies far north of the Caribbean Sea but joined CARICOM as an associate member in 2003.

George Town, capital of the British territory south of Cuba, sits on which of its three islands?

Grand Cayman, the largest of the three at about 197 square kilometres, holds George Town and most of the territory's people; the islands levy no income tax, which built their offshore finance industry.

Cockburn Town, capital of the Turks and Caicos Islands, is on which island?

Grand Turk has hosted the capital, Cockburn Town, since 1766; Providenciales is the tourist hub, and John Glenn was brought to Grand Turk for debriefing after splashing down nearby in Friendship 7.

The capital of the British Virgin Islands, Road Town, is on which island?

Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands at about 20 km long and 5 km wide, holds Road Town and most of the territory's population; its name is Spanish for 'turtle dove'.

The capital of Anguilla shares its name with what geographic feature?

The Valley sits in the island's low interior; the highest point, Crocus Hill, rises just 240 feet, and in 1969 Britain sent paratroopers after Anguillans rejected being governed from Basseterre.

The two official languages of Haiti are French and what?

Haitian Creole, spoken by virtually the whole population, gained official status alongside French in the 1987 constitution; in Creole the country's name is written Ayiti.

Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom on 6 August of which year?

1962 also saw the West Indies Federation dissolve, after Jamaicans voted to leave it in a 1961 referendum; Alexander Bustamante became the first prime minister on independence day, 6 August.

Gros Piton, the taller of Saint Lucia's twin volcanic peaks, rises to roughly what height?

Petit Piton is 743 m. 'Piton' simply means mountain peak in French; the pair are joined by the Piton Mitan ridge.