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60 free Bahamas trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Bahamas trivia quiz covers the whole archipelago, not just the cruise-ship strip in Nassau. It starts with the basics any visitor picks up: which island the capital sits on, roughly how many islands there are, the year of independence and what the flag's colours mean. From there it goes into the story of the place, from the Lucayans who met Columbus and the Puritan settlers of Eleuthera to the pirates' republic that Woodes Rogers shut down in 1718, the Loyalists, the Civil War blockade runners, the Duke of Windsor's unhappy governorship and Lynden Pindling's road to independence. There are questions on the natural side too: Andros and its blue holes, Dean's Blue Hole, the swimming pigs of Big Major Cay, Hurricane Dorian and the salt flats of Inagua. Sport and culture get their turn with Junkanoo, Sidney Poitier, Thunderball, Fyre Festival, the Bahamas Bowl and the country's remarkable run of Olympic 400-metre gold medals. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and other reference pages, and each explanation adds a detail worth keeping. Play it before a trip, at a Bahamas-themed party or just to find out how much you really know about the islands.
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Q 01Nassau, the capital and largest city of the Bahamas, sits on which island?
New Providence
Nassau sits on New Providence, an island of only about 80 square miles whose sheltered harbour made it the colony's centre from the late 1600s onward.
Q 02Roughly how many islands make up the Bahamas?
700
The Bahamas counts roughly 700 islands plus some 2,400 smaller cays, scattered over about 100,000 square miles of ocean between Florida and Cuba.
Q 03Roughly how many of the Bahamas' islands are actually inhabited?
30
Only about 30 of the Bahamas' islands are inhabited; the chain spans some 500 miles of ocean yet has just 3,860 square miles of land, less than Connecticut.
Q 04In which year did the Bahamas become an independent nation?
1973
The Bahamas became independent from Britain in 1973 as a Commonwealth realm, keeping the British monarch as head of state, represented locally by a governor-general.
Q 05On what date does the Bahamas celebrate Independence Day?
July 10
Independence Day is July 10: at midnight on that date the Union Jack was lowered at Clifford Park in Nassau and the Bahamian flag raised for the first time.
Q 06What did the Lucayans call the island Columbus named San Salvador in 1492?
Guanahaní
The Lucayans called it Guanahaní; which modern island that was is debated, and Watlings Island was renamed San Salvador in 1925 on the strength of the traditional identification.
Q 07Which rodent is the Bahamas' only native land mammal?
The hutia
The hutia, a cat-sized rodent, is the Bahamas' only native land mammal; Geocapromys ingrahami survived only on East Plana Cay before being moved to other cays.
Q 08Tourist guides often trace the name 'Bahamas' to Spanish words meaning what?
Shallow sea
'Shallow sea' is the usual gloss: guides derive 'Bahamas' from the Spanish 'baja mar', though scholars dispute the claim and some prefer a Lucayan origin for the name.
Q 09The Eleutheran Adventurers, the Bahamas' first permanent English settlers, arrived from where?
Bermuda
The Eleutheran Adventurers sailed from Bermuda in 1648, Puritans led by William Sayle who wanted to worship as they chose; the colony's first Africans came with them from Bermuda.
Q 10The Puritan settlers named their new island Eleuthera, which comes from the Greek word for what?
Free
Eleuthera comes from the Greek eleutheria, 'Free', chosen by Puritan settlers who had left their old colony in 1648 to escape religious control.
Q 11Which former privateer arrived at Nassau in 1718 as governor and ended the pirates' republic?
Woodes Rogers
Woodes Rogers reached Nassau in July 1718 carrying a royal pardon for pirates who submitted; his first term ruined him financially, yet he was sent back for a second term in 1728 and died in office.
Q 12Which marooned sailor, the model for Robinson Crusoe, did the Bahamas' future governor rescue in 1709?
Alexander Selkirk
Alexander Selkirk was taken off Juan Fernández Island in February 1709 by a privateering expedition that went on to circle the globe and double its investors' money; its commander later governed the Bahamas.
Q 13Which pirate took the 1718 pardon at Nassau and was then commissioned to hunt his former comrades?
Q 21What was the nickname of the white merchant elite behind the United Bahamian Party?
The Bay Street Boys
'The Bay Street Boys' took their name from Nassau's main commercial street; the white merchant clique ran the colony until the Progressive Liberal Party's 1967 election win brought majority rule.
Q 22The Bahamian currency is held at a fixed one-to-one exchange rate with which foreign currency?
The US dollar
The US dollar circulates alongside the Bahamian dollar, which is pegged to it at par; shops accept either, and change often comes back as a mix of the two.
Q 23Which of these taxes does the Bahamian government NOT levy?
Income tax
Benjamin Hornigold
Benjamin Hornigold took the 1718 pardon and was sent out by the new governor to hunt his old comrades; most of the pirates he brought back were hanged in Nassau on 12 December 1718, though Charles Vane eluded him.
Q 14Nassau was renamed in 1695 to honour King William III. What had the settlement been called before that?
Charles Town
The original town, named for Charles II, had been burned to the ground by the Spanish in 1684; Governor Nicholas Trott rebuilt it and picked a name from William's House of Nassau.
Q 15What was the official motto of the colonial Bahamas until independence?
Piracy expelled, commerce restored
'Piracy expelled, commerce restored' translates the Latin 'Expulsis piratis restituta commercia', adopted after the 1718 clean-up of Nassau; the national coat of arms replaced it with 'Forward, Upward, Onward, Together'.
Q 16Who were the 7,300 people Britain resettled in the Bahamas after the American Revolution?
Loyalists and their slaves
They were Loyalists and their slaves, evacuated mainly from New York, Florida and the Carolinas; about 2,000 came from New York alone, and the newcomers set up cotton plantations and quickly became a political force in Nassau.
Q 17During the American Civil War the Bahamas briefly boomed. What was the source of the money?
Blockade running for the Confederacy
Nassau was a natural depot: fast ships slipped cotton out of Southern ports and ran guns and luxuries back in past the Union blockade.
Q 18Which former British king was appointed Governor of the Bahamas in August 1940?
Edward VIII
Edward VIII, by then the Duke of Windsor, governed from 1940 to 1945; he disliked the post and called the islands 'a third-class British colony', though he was praised locally for anti-poverty efforts.
Q 19Who served as the first prime minister of an independent Bahamas, holding office from 1973 to 1992?
Lynden Pindling
Lynden Pindling, the 'Father of the Nation', led the Bahamas to majority rule in 1967 and then to independence; Nassau's international airport was renamed for him in 2006.
Q 20Who was appointed the first governor-general of the Bahamas shortly after independence?
Sir Milo Butler
Sir Milo Butler, a veteran campaigner against the white merchant establishment, became the first Bahamian-born governor-general weeks after independence and served as the monarch's representative until his death in 1979.
The treasury lives on tariffs, VAT, licence fees and property and stamp duties instead, which is a big part of why the country became an offshore finance hub.
Q 24What colour is the triangle at the hoist of the Bahamian flag?
Black
The hoist triangle is Black, standing for the vigour and force of a united people; the gold stripe represents the sun and the land's resources, the aquamarine stripes the surrounding sea.
Q 25Which two animals support the shield on the Bahamian coat of arms?
A marlin and a flamingo
'A marlin and a flamingo' support the shield: the blue marlin is the Bahamas' national fish and the flamingo its national bird, standing for the sea and the land of the islands.
Q 26Which ship is depicted on the shield of the Bahamian coat of arms?
The Santa María
The Santa María, Columbus's flagship, sails across the shield on wavy blue-and-silver waves beneath a rising golden sun, recalling his 1492 landfall in the islands.
Q 27What is the national flower of the Bahamas?
Yellow elder
Yellow elder (Tecoma stans), a shrub with trumpet-shaped yellow flowers that bloom most of the year, was chosen partly because no other country had already claimed it as a national flower.
Q 28Which extremely dense hardwood, once prized for ship bearings, is the national tree of the Bahamas?
Lignum vitae
Lignum vitae is so dense it sinks in water, and its self-lubricating wood was turned into bearings for ship propeller shafts; the Bahamas adopted it as its national tree.
Q 29What is the highest point in the Bahamas, rising only 64 metres on Cat Island?
Mount Alvernia
Mount Alvernia, also called Como Hill, is topped by a small stone hermitage built by hand by the architect-monk Father Jerome, born John Hawes; most Bahamian ridges rise no more than 45 metres.
Q 30Which Bahamian island has more land area than all the country's other islands combined?
Andros
Andros, really three main islands and hundreds of cays, covers about 2,300 square miles, more than half the country's land area, and holds the world's densest concentration of blue holes.