49 Fun Facts About Watermelon

Botanically, the watermelon fruit is a type of berry with a hard rind. What is that kind of fruit called?

The same term covers cucumbers, pumpkins and squash, all in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae.

Watermelon fruit is roughly what percentage water?

About 6% is sugars, with almost no fat or protein; early farmers stored the fruit as a water source for dry seasons.

The modern watermelon was first domesticated in which country?

Kordofan melons from Sudan are its closest relatives and share the loss of the bitterness gene; it may have been cultivated in the Nile Valley by 2340 BC.

Wild watermelon seeds about 5,000 years old were found at Uan Muhuggiag, in which country?

A 2022 study traced 6,000-year-old seeds from the Libyan desert to the egusi seeds of Nigeria.

A 4,000-year-old tomb image of an apparent watermelon was found in which civilisation?

The image is in an Egyptian tomb, and watermelon seeds were also found in Tutankhamun's tomb. Those early melons were not sweet; dessert watermelons spread across the Mediterranean in Roman times.

Early watermelons differed from today's in taste and colour. What were they like?

They were also hard to open; sweetness and a softer rind came from centuries of selective breeding.

Which people introduced the watermelon to the Iberian Peninsula?

The Moors brought the watermelon to Iberia; cultivation is recorded in Córdoba in 961 and Seville in 1158, and it appeared in European herbals by 1600.

Spanish settlers were growing watermelons in which future US state as early as 1576?

It reached Massachusetts by 1629, and Native Americans were growing it in the Mississippi valley around the same time.

Which explorer is credited with introducing watermelons to Hawaii and other Pacific islands?

Captain James Cook's voyages of the late 1770s carried watermelons to Hawaii and other Pacific islands; the fruit's high water content made it valuable on long voyages.

Which country produced about 64% of the world's watermelons in 2023?

China grew about 64% of the roughly 105 million tonnes of watermelon produced worldwide in 2023, far ahead of every other country.

Which US state made the watermelon its official state vegetable in 2007?

Oklahoma declared the watermelon its official state vegetable in 2007, reasoning that it belongs to the cucumber and gourd family; Rush Springs hosts the state's annual watermelon festival.

Seedless watermelons were first developed in 1939 by scientists from which country?

Japanese geneticist Hitoshi Kihara's team bred the first triploid seedless watermelons in 1939; they lacked disease resistance at first, but by 2014 seedless types made up about 85% of US watermelon sales.

Because seedless watermelons have sterile pollen, growers must plant what alongside them?

Seedless triploids set fruit only with pollen from a seeded diploid, so growers interplant rows of a seeded pollinizer variety among the seedless plants and rely on bees to carry the pollen.

Roughly how many watermelon cultivars exist?

More than 1,200 watermelon cultivars are grown worldwide, with flesh that can be red, pink, orange, yellow or white and fruit ranging from under 2 kg to well over 100 kg.

The 'Densuke' watermelon, with its round fruit and near-black rind, is grown where?

Densuke watermelons are grown only around Tōma on Hokkaido, Japan's northern island; the first fruit of each season is auctioned for hundreds of thousands of yen and given as a luxury gift.

Cube-shaped watermelons, grown inside boxes, were invented in 1978 in Japan by whom?

Graphic designer Tomoyuki Ono grew the first cube watermelons in 1978 and showed them at a gallery in Ginza, Tokyo; grown inside boxes, they sell as ornamental gifts for high prices.

Why are Japanese cube watermelons generally inedible?

To hold the cube shape the melons must be harvested before they ripen, so they serve as decoration; in 2001 they sold for about 10,000 yen, two to three times the price of ordinary melons.

Hope, Arkansas, birthplace of Bill Clinton, is also famous for what watermelon-related feat?

Lloyd Bright set the town's last record with a 268.8-pound melon in 2005; the town slogan is 'A Slice of the Good Life'.

The Watermelon Thump, with its famous seed-spitting contest, is held each June in which Texas town?

The festival takes place over the last full weekend of June.

Which Georgia city calls itself the 'watermelon capital of the world'?

Cordele, the seat of Crisp County in south Georgia, bills itself as the Watermelon Capital of the World and holds the Watermelon Days festival every summer.

The red pigment in watermelon flesh, also responsible for the colour of tomatoes, is which carotenoid?

Lycopene, named after Lycopersicon, a former genus name for the tomato, gives watermelon flesh its red colour and is also found in pink grapefruit and red guava.

Which amino acid was first isolated from watermelon in 1914?

Citrulline takes its name from Citrullus, the watermelon genus; Japanese researchers Koga and Ōtake isolated it from watermelon in 1914, and the body also makes it while producing nitric oxide.

The gourd family Cucurbitaceae, which includes watermelon, has roughly how many species?

Cucurbitaceae holds about 965 species in 101 genera, including cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, zucchini and the calabash gourd.

Which naturalist first formally described the watermelon, as Cucurbita citrullus?

Carl Linnaeus described the watermelon as Cucurbita citrullus in Species Plantarum in 1753; German botanist Heinrich Schrader moved it to the genus Citrullus in 1836.

The wild tsamma melon was a vital water source for travellers in which desert?

The tsamma melon grows wild in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, where San people and travellers relied on it for water; David Livingstone described its abundance there in the 1850s.

What is the bitter wild watermelon relative treated as a pest in Western Australia known as locally?

The bitter wild watermelon Citrullus amarus is called the pig melon in Western Australia, where it spreads as a paddock weed; the species has naturalised in semi-arid regions on several continents.

'Watermelon snow', the pink-tinged snow seen in the Sierra Nevada and polar regions, is caused by what?

Chlamydomonas nivalis carries the red carotenoid astaxanthin alongside its chlorophyll and thrives in freezing water.

Harry Styles' first US number one, 'Watermelon Sugar', takes its title from a 1968 novel by whom?

The title comes from Richard Brautigan's 1968 novel In Watermelon Sugar; the song, from Styles's album Fine Line, topped the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2020.

'Watermelon Sugar' won which award at the 2021 Grammys?

At the 63rd Grammy Awards in March 2021, Watermelon Sugar won Best Pop Solo Performance, Harry Styles's first Grammy; it had topped the Billboard Hot 100 the previous summer.

The jazz standard 'Watermelon Man' was written in 1962 by which pianist for his debut album Takin' Off?

Mongo Santamaría's cover reached number 10 on the Hot 100 in 1963 and paid Hancock's bills for years; he re-cut it as funk on Head Hunters in 1973.

Comedian Gallagher's signature routine smashed watermelons with a giant mallet he called what?

Gallagher's Sledge-O-Matic, a parody of TV-advertised kitchen gadgets, pulverised watermelons in a routine he performed from the late 1970s; front-row audiences learned to bring plastic sheeting. He died in 2022.

In the 1970 satire Watermelon Man, a bigoted white insurance salesman wakes up one morning to find what?

Godfrey Cambridge played the lead in both guises; Van Peebles went on to make Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

For African Americans after emancipation, watermelons were originally a symbol of what?

Freed people grew and sold watermelons as a sign of liberation and self-reliance; the stereotype arose in the late 1860s as a backlash against that independence, with the first published caricature in 1869.

Egusi, the protein-rich seeds ground into a staple West African soup, come from what kind of plants?

A 2022 study linked ancient Libyan watermelon seeds to Nigeria's egusi, suggesting the fruit's early history ran through West Africa too.

Watermelon seeds are black when mature. What colour are they when immature?

The flesh can be red, pink, orange, yellow, green or white; the rind is edible once cooked and is often pickled.

A watermelon plant bears separate male and female flowers on one plant. What is that called?

Male flowers dominate early in the season; the female ones, which become fruit, appear later.

What is the condition called when a watermelon develops a large, often symmetrical hole inside?

Hollow heart, a large cavity in the flesh, is thought to result from poor pollination during fruit set; the fruit remains perfectly safe to eat.

The watermelon emoji became a symbol of resistance for which Ukrainian region famous for the fruit?

Kherson, whose watermelons are famous across Ukraine, was occupied by Russia in 2022; Ukrainians posted the watermelon emoji as a sign of solidarity and resistance until the city was liberated that November.

What colour does a watermelon's ground-contact 'field spot' turn when the fruit is ripe?

The field spot, where the melon rested on the soil, turns from white to creamy yellow as the fruit ripens; a hollow thump and a dried tendril by the stem are the other classic signs.

In Vietnam, a red-fleshed watermelon is a traditional altar offering and gift for which holiday?

Vietnamese families place watermelons on the ancestral altar and give them as gifts at Tết, the Lunar New Year, because red flesh signals luck for the year ahead; legend credits the fruit to the prince Mai An Tiêm.

'Green on the outside, red on the inside' makes the watermelon a symbol of which political outlook?

'Watermelon' is a jibe for eco-socialism, the pairing of green environmental politics with red socialist economics; some eco-socialists have adopted the label with pride.

Old thick-rinded cultivars like 'Tom Watson' and 'Black Diamond' are prized for making what?

Their thick rinds suit watermelon rind pickles, a Southern US preserve; thick rinds fell out of commercial favour, so seed for these varieties circulates mostly among home gardeners and specialty seed houses.

Charles Andrus bred his disease-resistant 'gray melon' of 1954 at a USDA lab in which city?

Andrus worked at the USDA Vegetable Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina; his 'Charleston Gray' had an oblong shape and hard rind that stacked and shipped well, and it shrugged off anthracnose and fusarium wilt.

Which heirloom watermelon variety, introduced in 1926, has a speckled dark-green rind and spotted leaves?

Moon and Stars, introduced in 1926, has a dark rind dotted with small yellow 'stars' and one larger 'moon'; even the foliage is spotted, and the 9-to-23-kg melons hide brown seeds in pink or red flesh.

How many beehives per acre does the USDA recommend for pollinating seeded watermelon plantings?

The USDA recommends at least one beehive per acre for seeded varieties; seedless hybrids need about three, because their pollen is sterile and every fruit depends on bees carrying viable pollen from pollinizer rows.

By which century were watermelons being cultivated in India?

Watermelons were cultivated in India by the 7th century; the fruit reached China by the 10th century and did not show up in European herbals until around 1600.

The white-fleshed 'Cream of Saskatchewan' was brought to Canada by immigrants from where?

Russian immigrants carried 'Cream of Saskatchewan' seed to the Canadian prairies; its small round fruit and 80-to-85-day season let it ripen in cool climates where most varieties struggle.

On which date does the United States mark National Watermelon Day?

National Watermelon Day falls on August 3 in the United States, at the height of the summer harvest, when the fruit is at its cheapest and sweetest in US markets.

Citrullus mucosospermus, the watermelon's closest wild relative, is native to which region?

Until 2015 a tendril-less South African species held that title, thanks to a misidentified 18th-century specimen.