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70 free Cuba trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
56 free Cuba trivia questions with answers. Cuba packs an extraordinary amount into one island: five centuries of Spanish rule, the wars that produced José Martí, the revolution that produced Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, and the thirteen days in 1962 when the world nearly ended over it. This quiz covers all of that plus the everyday Cuba: the Malecón, cigars, rum, mojitos and daiquiris, baseball, ballet, Buena Vista Social Club, the flag and the smallest bird on Earth. Early questions are for anyone who has heard of Havana. The later ones ask about Batista's Sergeants' Revolt, the Guantánamo rent cheque, the peso's ISO code and which US president visited before Obama. Good for a geography round, a history class or a Cuban-themed party. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and shows its citation once you have answered.
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Q 01Old Havana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?
1982
The city was founded in 1519 and became the capital in the 16th century.
Q 02Cuba is the largest country in the Caribbean by area; which two countries have larger populations?
Haiti and the Dominican Republic
Both share the island of Hispaniola, Cuba's neighbour to the east.
Q 03On which date did Christopher Columbus first arrive at Cuba?
27 October 1492
He claimed the island for Spain and named it Isla Juana after a Spanish prince.
Q 04Columbus named Cuba 'Isla Juana' after which person?
John, Prince of Asturias
The prince was the heir of Ferdinand and Isabella; the name did not stick.
Q 05Where was the first Spanish settlement in Cuba founded in 1511?
Baracoa
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded it on the far eastern tip; it remained the capital only briefly.
Q 06Who led the 1868 rebellion that began the Ten Years' War against Spain?
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
The planter freed his own slaves and issued the call to arms known as the Grito de Yara.
Q 07In which year was slavery finally abolished in Cuba?
1886
Abolition was decreed in 1875 but only completed 11 years later, decades after most of the Americas.
Q 08José Martí founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party in 1892 while exiled where?
New York City
Martí spent much of his adult life in exile in the United States before returning to die in battle in 1895.
Q 09At which 1895 battle was José Martí killed?
Dos Ríos
He was killed weeks after landing to join the war he had organised, and is revered as the Apostle of Cuban Independence.
Q 10Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba in an 1898 agreement signed in which city?
Paris
It ended the Spanish-American War, and Cuba passed to US military rule until 1902.
Q 11On what date did Cuba gain formal independence as the Republic of Cuba?
20 May 1902
The date was later chosen for the official adoption of the flag as well.
Q 12The US lease of Guantánamo Bay was set up under a 1901 provision named after which senator?
Platt
The base is the oldest overseas US naval station, and Cuba has refused to cash the annual rent cheques since the revolution.
Q 13Since 1974 the US has paid Cuba an annual sum for Guantánamo Bay equivalent to how much in 1934 dollars?
$4,085
Only one cheque has been cashed since 1959, which Fidel Castro blamed on confusion in the early days of his government.
Q 21In which country was Che Guevara executed in October 1967?
Bolivia
He was 39, captured while trying to spark a new guerrilla war in the Andes.
Q 22The Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 was carried out by a force known by what name?
Brigade 2506
The exiles flew from Nicaragua and were defeated by 19 April, handing John F. Kennedy an early humiliation.
Q 23How long did the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 last?
13 days
It ran from 16 to 28 October, and one American U-2 pilot, Rudolf Anderson, was killed when he was shot down.
Q 14Fulgencio Batista first came to power in September 1933 through what event?
The Sergeants' Revolt
He was elected president in 1940, retired to Florida, then seized power again in a 1952 coup.
Q 15What was the name of the yacht that carried Fidel Castro and about 80 supporters to Cuba in 1956?
Granma
The name now belongs to a province, the Communist Party newspaper and the rebels' first stronghold.
Q 16Castro's 26th of July Movement took its name from the date of a 1953 assault on which target?
The Moncada Barracks
The failed 26 July assault on the Santiago barracks gave the movement its name and Castro his 'History Will Absolve Me' speech.
Q 17From which mountain range did Castro's rebels wage their guerrilla war before breaking out in late 1958?
Sierra Maestra
The range also holds Pico Turquino, the highest point in Cuba.
Q 18Batista fled Cuba on 1 January 1959 after the rebels captured which city?
Santa Clara
Che Guevara led the battle there, derailing an armoured train that has become a monument.
Q 19Che Guevara was born in 1928 in which Argentine city?
Rosario
He trained as a doctor before meeting Fidel Castro in Mexico and joining the 26th of July Movement.
Q 20Who took the 1960 photograph of Che Guevara known as 'Guerrillero Heroico'?
Alberto Korda
It has been called the most famous photograph in the world and appears on countless T-shirts.
Q 24What word did Kennedy use instead of 'blockade' for the naval cordon around Cuba in 1962?
Quarantine
A blockade is legally an act of war, so the wording mattered.
Q 25For Soviet withdrawal from Cuba in 1962, the US secretly agreed to remove Jupiter missiles from which country?
Turkey
The near-miss led directly to the Moscow-Washington hotline.
Q 26The 1980 exodus of around 125,000 Cubans to the US is named after which port?
Mariel
It began after 10,000 people crowded into the Peruvian embassy grounds seeking asylum.
Q 27Fidel Castro was Cuba's prime minister from 1959 until which year, when he became president?
1976
He then held the presidency until 2008 and remained party first secretary until 2011.
Q 28Fidel Castro was born in 1926 in which small eastern Cuban village, the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer?
Birán
He studied law at the University of Havana, where he picked up the anti-imperialist ideas that shaped his life.
Q 29At what age did Fidel Castro die in November 2016?
90
He had handed power to his brother Raúl a decade earlier.
Q 30Who was the last sitting US president to visit Cuba before Barack Obama went in March 2016?
Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge's trip was in 1928; the 88-year gap ended after the December 2014 thaw brokered partly by Pope Francis.