Hispaniola
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50 free Hispaniola trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Hispaniola is the Caribbean island that two countries call home: Haiti in the west and the Dominican Republic in the east. Christopher Columbus landed here on his first voyage, and what followed, from the first European towns in the Americas to a revolution of the enslaved that created a new nation, shaped the whole hemisphere. This quiz covers the island from every side. Expect questions on its mountains, lakes and neighbouring islands, the Taíno people who named so much of it, the Spanish and French colonies, the pirates who haunted its coasts, and the leaders who fought for independence. There is plenty of culture too: music and dance, religion, language, food, sport and the famous people with roots here. It suits geography and history fans, students of the Caribbean, travellers planning a trip, and anyone with family ties to either country. Most questions can be reasoned out, a few are for experts, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hispaniola is the second-largest island in the Caribbean, but which neighbouring island is the only one bigger?
Cuba
Cuba covers about 104,000 square kilometres to Hispaniola's 76,000. Hispaniola has far more people, though: it is the most populous island in the West Indies.
Q 02Columbus's flagship Santa María ran aground off Hispaniola in 1492 on which holiday, later the name of his fort?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day gave the fort its name: La Navidad was built from the timbers of the wreck. When Columbus sailed back the following November, he found it burned to the ground.
Q 03Which capital, founded by Bartholomew Columbus, is the oldest continuously inhabited European city in the Americas?
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo has been lived in without a break since 1496. It is also the site of the first cathedral, university, castle, monastery and fortress in the New World.
Q 04In which Robert Louis Stevenson adventure novel do the heroes sail from Bristol aboard a schooner named the Hispaniola?
Treasure Island
Treasure Island first ran as a magazine serial in 1881 with the subtitle The Mutiny of the Hispaniola. The schooner is chartered by Squire Trelawney and commanded by Captain Smollett.
Q 05Which horror-film monster comes from Haitian folklore, in which a sorcerer called a bokor keeps it as a slave?
Zombie
Zombie lore reached cinemas in White Zombie (1932), starring Bela Lugosi. The flesh-eating version came much later, largely from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead in 1968.
Q 06Failure to retake Saint-Domingue from rebel armies led Napoleon to sell which vast North American territory in 1803?
Louisiana
Louisiana changed hands for $15 million, nearly doubling the size of the young republic that bought it. The sale covered some 2.1 million square kilometres west of the Mississippi.
Q 07The coat of arms on the Dominican Republic's flag makes it the only national flag in the world to show what?
A Bible
A Bible lies open on the shield, with a cross and the motto Dios, Patria, Libertad. The flag itself goes back to La Trinitaria, the revolutionary society founded in 1838.
Q 08Which sport rules the Dominican Republic, the biggest foreign supplier of players to its top North American league?
Baseball
Baseball is the most popular sport there by a wide margin, and Ozzie Virgil became the first Dominican major leaguer in 1956. The national team won the World Baseball Classic in 2013.
Q 09Which kind of natural disaster struck close to Haiti's capital in January 2010, badly damaging even the National Palace?
Earthquake
Earthquake damage was extreme because the magnitude 7.0 shock was shallow and centred only about 25 km from Port-au-Prince. The government put the death toll above 200,000, a figure still disputed.
Q 10Which fast dance style, played on accordion, tambora drum and güira, is the Dominican Republic's national dance?
Merengue
Merengue joined UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in 2016. It began as rural music in the northern Cibao valley, around the city of Santiago.
Q 11Which formerly enslaved general led the Haitian Revolution but died in a French mountain prison in 1803?
Toussaint Louverture
Toussaint Louverture was deported and jailed at the Fort de Joux, where he died months before independence was won. His 1801 constitution had named him governor-general for life.
Q 12Which mountain in the Cordillera Central, a little over 3,000 metres tall, is the highest peak in the Caribbean?
Pico Duarte
Pico Duarte is only a few metres taller than its twin summit, La Pelona, which stands about a kilometre and a half away. It gives Hispaniola the 16th-highest high point of any island in the world.
Q 13Which salt lake on Hispaniola, home to American crocodiles, lies more than 40 metres below sea level?
Q 21Which mountaintop fortress in northern Haiti, armed with 365 cannons, was built to stop the French from returning?
Citadelle Laferrière
Citadelle Laferrière took up to 20,000 workers to raise on a 900-metre peak, and the invasion it was meant to repel never came. UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1982.
Q 22Which revolutionary general made himself king of northern Haiti in 1811 and built the Sans-Souci Palace?
Henri Christophe
Henri Christophe reigned as Henry I, though he was probably born on Grenada rather than in Haiti. Ill and facing a coup, he shot himself, reputedly with a silver bullet.
Q 23Which general declared Haiti independent on 1 January 1804 and was proclaimed its first emperor later that year?
Enriquillo
Lake Enriquillo is the lowest point of any island country, at 46 metres below sea level. It is named after a Taíno chief who rebelled against the Spaniards and hid in the mountains to its south.
Q 14Which English weather word did the Taíno people of Hispaniola pass on, along with canoe, hammock and barbecue?
Hurricane
Hurricane comes from the Taíno juracán, which reached English through Spanish. Savanna and maize were borrowed from the same islanders.
Q 15Which island off northern Haiti was a 1600s pirate haven whose raiders called themselves the Brethren of the Coast?
Tortuga
Tortuga drew mostly French and English adventurers, and Henry Morgan recruited crews there. Columbus named it in 1492 because its outline reminded him of a turtle's shell.
Q 16Which dictator ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961 and renamed the capital after himself?
Rafael Trujillo
Rafael Trujillo, nicknamed El Jefe, kept the capital as Ciudad Trujillo from 1936 until after his assassination. Statues of him were mass-produced and put up across the country.
Q 17Which Haitian religion blends West African spirit beliefs with Roman Catholicism and honours spirits known as lwa?
Vodou
Vodou takes its name from a Fon word for a spirit or deity, used in the old West African kingdom of Dahomey. Many followers also consider themselves Roman Catholics.
Q 18Which French-based language, spoken by nearly everyone in Haiti, became official alongside French in 1987?
Creole
Creole, or Kreyòl, takes most of its vocabulary from French, while its grammar blends West African languages such as Fon with regional French dialects. The 1987 constitution calls it the one language all Haitians share.
Q 19Which sky-blue gemstone, a variety of pectolite, is found only in the Dominican Republic's Barahona region?
Larimar
Larimar was named in 1974 by Miguel Méndez, who joined his daughter Larissa's name to mar, the Spanish word for sea. Copper in the mineral produces the blue colour.
Q 20Which sea mammals breed in Samaná Bay, drawing tourist boats to the eastern Dominican Republic every season?
Humpback whales
Humpback whales use Samaná Bay as one of their significant Caribbean breeding sites. The bay's protected islands are also nesting grounds for pelicans and frigatebirds.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines made the declaration at Gonaïves and renamed the country Ayiti, after its Taíno name. He ruled as Jacques I for two years before he was assassinated.
Q 24Which plantation crop, grown alongside coffee, made Saint-Domingue the richest French colony in the West Indies?
Sugar
Sugar from the colony met about 40 percent of Europe's demand by the 1780s. It was grown on hundreds of large plantations worked by enslaved Africans, who rose in revolt in 1791.
Q 25Which disease killed much of the French army sent to retake Saint-Domingue, including its commander Leclerc?
Yellow fever
Yellow fever swept through the expedition once the rainy season began in 1802. Leclerc, who was Napoleon's brother-in-law, died of it that November.
Q 26Which country's Marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924?
United States
United States Marines landed at Port-au-Prince in July 1915 on the orders of President Woodrow Wilson. They seized the Dominican capital the following May.
Q 27The 1937 massacre of Haitians along the Dominican border is named after which herb, used as a spoken test?
Parsley
Parsley is perejil in Spanish, and troops reportedly made suspects say the word. Anyone who could not pronounce it the Dominican way was taken for a Haitian and killed.
Q 28Which beach resort town in the easternmost Dominican Republic was developed from the late 1960s by Frank Rainieri?
Punta Cana
Punta Cana got its name in 1970, when Rainieri dropped the older names Yauya and Punta Borrachos. He and his partners had bought a 58-million-square-metre lot at the country's eastern end.
Q 29Which guitar-led Dominican music, first called amargue, had its first official release in 1962?
Bachata
Bachata was at first treated as a kind of bolero, and its old name, amargue, means bitterness. UNESCO has since declared it part of humanity's intangible cultural heritage.
Q 30Hispaniola is the second-largest island of which Caribbean group, which also includes Jamaica?
Greater Antilles
Greater Antilles islands account for nearly 90% of the land in the West Indies. The group is made up of four major islands and many smaller ones.