Bermuda Trivia
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49 free Bermuda trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Bermuda trivia for cruise passengers, sailors, insurance executives and anyone who has ever wondered whether the Triangle is real. The quiz starts with the geography: 181 islands and 54 square kilometres in the Sargasso Sea, a thousand kilometres from the nearest land in North Carolina, with a 79-metre high point, no rivers, and a law obliging every house to catch its own rain. Then it runs through the history: Juan de Bermúdez and the Isle of Devils, the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture that saved Jamestown, St George's as the oldest continuously inhabited English town in the New World, one of the world's oldest parliaments, the pearl-diving slaves of 1616, the 1775 gunpowder theft, the Second World War censors at the Hamilton Princess, the assassination of Governor Sharples and the 1995 vote against independence. Later rounds cover the cahow that came back from the dead, pink beaches, the world's smallest drawbridge, the Bermudian dollar, the offshore finance industry, calypso and Gombeys, Bermuda shorts at the Olympics, the Newport-Bermuda race and Flora Duffy's triathlon gold. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Caribbean, islands and British Overseas Territories quizzes.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital of Bermuda?
Hamilton
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.
Q 02Which US state holds the closest land to Bermuda?
North Carolina
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.
Q 03How many islands and islets make up Bermuda?
About 180
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.
Q 04Bermuda is named after an explorer of which nationality?
Spanish
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.
Q 05Early sailors called Bermuda the 'Isle of Devils' because of what?
Raucous bird calls and wild hogs at night
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.
Q 06Which ship's wreck on Bermuda's reef in 1609 led to English settlement?
Sea Venture
The Sea Venture, flagship of a relief fleet bound for Jamestown, was driven onto Bermuda's reef in a 1609 storm; everyone aboard survived.
Q 07Which two ships did the castaways of 1609 build on Bermuda to finish their voyage to Jamestown?
Deliverance and Patience
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.
Q 08Which status did the Town of St George in Bermuda gain in 2000?
UNESCO World Heritage listing
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.
Q 09Which pioneering conservation law did Bermuda's Assembly pass in 1620?
A ban on killing young sea turtles
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.
Q 10Bermuda's flag is unusual among British Overseas Territories for being based on which flag?
The Red Ensign
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.
Q 11Bermuda was long known by a second name honouring which admiral of the wrecked 1609 relief fleet?
Sir George Somers
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.
Q 12The first two enslaved people brought to Bermuda, in the 1610s, were sent to do what?
Dive for pearls
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.
Q 13What did American sympathisers steal from a Bermuda storehouse one night in August 1775?
100 barrels of gunpowder
Q 21Roughly how high is Town Hill, Bermuda's highest point?
80 metres
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.
Q 22Bermuda's islands are made mostly of what rock, sitting on an extinct volcano?
Limestone
Limestone forms the islands: wind blew limy beach sand into dunes that hardened into rock, capping the summit of a long-extinct volcano.
Q 23Bermuda's mild winters are attributed to which ocean current?
The Gulf Stream
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.
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.
Q 14Which cocktail's name is a registered trademark of Gosling's, the Bermuda rum company?
Dark 'n' Stormy
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.
Q 15Which flower did Bermuda grow for export to New York as a mainstay of its economy around 1900?
Easter lily
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.
Q 16Which US law of 1930 killed Bermuda's agricultural exports and pushed it toward tourism?
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
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.
Q 17After Bermuda's railway closed in 1948, what did its route become?
Walking trail
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.
Q 18Which Bermuda hotel housed more than a thousand British mail censors during the Second World War?
The Princess
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.
Q 19Which office did Sir Richard Sharples hold in Bermuda when he was assassinated in 1973?
Governor
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.
Q 20How did Bermudians vote in the 1995 independence referendum?
A large majority against
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.
Q 24The 1609 shipwreck that led to Bermuda's settlement is widely thought to have inspired which Shakespeare play?
The Tempest
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'.
Q 25Bermuda's national bird, the cahow, was rediscovered in 1951 after being presumed extinct for roughly how long?
300 years
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.
Q 26Bermudians are still nicknamed after which vegetable, a prized island export in the 19th century?
Onions
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.
Q 27Which bird, locally called the longtail, is Bermudians' first sign of spring?
White-tailed tropicbird
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.
Q 28Bermuda's Somerset Bridge is reputed to be the world's what?
Smallest drawbridge
Smallest drawbridge: Somerset Bridge's hand-opened plank leaves a gap only just wide enough for a sailboat's mast to slip through.
Q 29A British force that sailed from Bermuda in August 1814 went on to burn which American city?
Washington
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.
Q 30What colour are Bermuda's famous beaches?
Pink
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.