Fiji
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50 free Fiji trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Fiji trivia quiz covers the 330-island Melanesian nation from Abel Tasman and Captain Bligh, King Cakobau and the 1874 cession, the measles catastrophe and the Indian indenture system, to independence in 1970, four coups and the modern republic. It also visits the things Fiji is famous for: the rugby sevens team that won the country's first Olympic medal, kava ceremonies, Fiji Water, the island where Cast Away was filmed, and the date line that bends around Taveuni. The first questions suit anyone who has heard 'bula'; the last ones test people who know which town was the first capital and how the country got its name from a Tongan mispronunciation. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital city of Fiji?
Suva
Suva. Britain made it the colonial capital in 1882 because the first one, a port wedged between cliffs and sea, had no room left to grow.
Q 02Fiji is an archipelago of roughly how many islands?
330
330. Only about a third of them are inhabited, and roughly seven in ten Fijians live on just one island.
Q 03Which island, lying to the north of the largest, is the second-largest in Fiji?
Vanua Levu
Vanua Levu. Foreign traders first flocked to Fiji for the sandalwood at its Bua Bay in the early 1800s, and stripped the stands they could reach within little more than a decade.
Q 04Which royal handed Fiji its independence in 1970?
Prince Charles
Prince Charles, then 21, stood in for the Queen. Independence fell on the 96th anniversary of the day the chiefs ceded the islands to Britain.
Q 05After the 1987 coups made Fiji a republic, which organisation did it fall out of for ten years?
The Commonwealth
The Commonwealth. Membership ended when the coup leader declared a republic, and Fiji was readmitted in 1997 after adopting a constitution that no longer favoured one community.
Q 06Which commodore seized power in Fiji's 2006 coup and later won elections as prime minister?
Frank Bainimarama
Frank Bainimarama ousted the elected government in December 2006 after it refused to drop a bill offering amnesty to the plotters of an earlier coup, then won the 2014 election with 59% of the vote.
Q 07Which form of rugby is regarded as Fiji's national sport?
Rugby sevens
Rugby sevens. Fiji's men won the Olympic title the first two times the sport was played at the Games, and the islands supply players to top leagues around the world.
Q 08Fiji won its first ever Olympic medal at which Games?
Rio 2016
Rio 2016. Fiji had sent teams to the Olympics for 60 years without a medal, then its men beat Great Britain 43-7 in their final to become champions.
Q 09The traditional Fijian drink yaqona is made from the root of which plant?
Kava
Kava. The root is pounded, mixed with water and shared from a communal bowl; the bitter, non-alcoholic drink is served at important ceremonies and in everyday life alike.
Q 10The name Fiji is usually traced to a foreign pronunciation of which native name for the islands?
Viti
Viti. Fijians call their country Viti; the form 'Fiji' is usually put down to the Tongan pronunciation, 'Fisi', which Captain Cook's crews heard in Tonga and carried home.
Q 11Which Dutch explorer was the first known European to sight Fiji, in 1643?
Abel Tasman
Abel Tasman, sailing for the VOC, the Dutch trading company, in search of the Great Southern Continent, sighted Fiji's northern islands in 1643 after calling at Tasmania and New Zealand.
Q 12In 1789, which famous event left a captain charting Fiji's main islands from an open boat?
The mutiny on the Bounty
The mutiny on the Bounty in April 1789 left William Bligh adrift in an open launch; he passed between Fiji's two main islands, charting them on the way to Timor, and the strait is named Bligh Water.
Q 13Fiji became a British colony in 1874 after which chief made a final offer of cession?
Cakobau
Q 21Fiji Water says its product comes from an artesian aquifer on which island?
Viti Levu
Viti Levu. The water is shipped abroad, mainly to the United States, and what began as a 1996 start-up now ranks among Fiji's biggest export earners.
Q 22Which town on Ovalau was Fiji's first colonial capital and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013?
Levuka
Levuka. Cliffs behind the port left it no room to grow, so the government moved away in 1882, and the 19th-century waterfront it left behind survives largely intact.
Q 23Fiji lies in which cultural region of Oceania?
Melanesia
Melanesia, the arc of islands running from New Guinea to Fiji. Fiji sits on its eastern edge, beside Polynesia, which is why Polynesian influence runs strongest in its easternmost islands.
Cakobau, the Bau chief whom Europeans had made king in 1871, could not keep order, so he and his fellow chiefs offered the islands to Britain without conditions.
Q 14Which disease, brought home from Sydney in 1875, killed tens of thousands of Fijians?
Measles
Measles. Fiji's former king and his sons carried it back from a visit to Sydney, no quarantine was imposed, and chiefs called to a great meeting took it home to every corner of the islands.
Q 15From 1879 to 1916, more than 60,000 indentured labourers were shipped to Fiji's plantations from where?
India
India. Most chose to stay when their contracts ended, and for four decades after the Second World War their descendants outnumbered indigenous Fijians.
Q 16A tabua, Fiji's most prized ceremonial gift, is the polished tooth of which animal?
Sperm whale
Sperm whale. A tabua is handed over with a formal speech at weddings, funerals and other great occasions.
Q 17Fiji's flag places the shield from its coat of arms on a field of what colour?
Light blue
Light blue. In 2015 the government announced a new flag without the Union Jack, then dropped the plan the next year, saying the money was better spent on cyclone recovery.
Q 18Fiji's currency is what?
Fijian dollar
The Fijian dollar replaced the Fijian pound in January 1969 at two dollars to the pound; its 2013 banknote and coin series dropped the Queen's portrait for native plants and animals.
Q 19Which Fijian island, nicknamed the Garden Island, is crossed by the 180° meridian?
Taveuni
Taveuni. A roadside sign lets visitors stand with a foot on each side of the 180° meridian, but the International Date Line itself is bent east so that all of Fiji keeps one calendar day.
Q 20Which 2000 survival film was shot on Fiji's uninhabited Monuriki islet?
Cast Away
Cast Away. Tom Hanks played a FedEx employee stranded on a desert island for four years, and the islet has drawn tourist boats since the film came out.
Q 24What is a Fijian meke?
A storytelling dance
A storytelling dance. Performers act out legends and myths to chanting, clapping and the beat of slit drums, and villages stage one for big occasions such as a chief's visit.
Q 25The 2000 coup led by George Speight toppled Mahendra Chaudhry, who had been Fiji's first what?
Indo-Fijian prime minister
Indo-Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, the first from that community, took office in May 1999 after his Labour Party's election win and was held hostage for 56 days by Speight's gunmen in 2000.
Q 26The lieutenant colonel who carried out the 1987 coups and later became prime minister was who?
Sitiveni Rabuka
Sitiveni Rabuka, the lieutenant colonel behind both 1987 coups, won the 1992 election as prime minister and set up the Reeves Commission whose work produced the 1997 constitution; he returned to office in 2022.
Q 27Fiji's 2013 constitution must be made available in English, iTaukei and which third language?
Hindi
Hindi. A local form of the language grew up among the descendants of plantation workers, and the constitution makes it a compulsory subject in every primary school, alongside iTaukei.
Q 28The Fijian town of Lautoka is dominated by which industry?
Sugar cane
Sugar cane. Lautoka is nicknamed Sugar City: a private railway and lorries haul cane from the small farms around it to a mill that has been crushing since 1903.
Q 29Fiji's national rugby union team is nicknamed what?
The Flying Fijians
The Flying Fijians beat Australia 22-15 at the 2023 World Cup, their first win over the Wallabies since 1954, and it sent them into the quarter-finals at Australia's expense.
Q 30Iliesa Delana became Fiji's first Paralympic champion at London 2012 by clearing the bar in which event?
High jump
High jump. Delana, who lost a leg in a bus accident as a small child, cleared 1.74 m at his first attempt, and that settled it: the runner-up matched the height only at his second.