Maui Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
60 free Maui trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Maui trivia quiz covers the whole of the Valley Isle: the geology of Haleakalā and the West Maui Mountains, the 620 curves of the Road to Hāna, Lahaina's years as capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the humpback whales that winter in the ʻAuʻau Channel, the surf at Peʻahi and Hoʻokipa, and the demigod the island is named for. It also digs into the sugar and pineapple era, the resorts of Kaʻanapali and Wailea, Molokini, the silversword, and the wildfire that reshaped Lahaina in 2023. It is written for people who have been to Maui and want to test what they picked up, and for anyone planning a trip who wants to arrive knowing more than the guidebook. The early questions are easy; the later ones will challenge a lifelong resident. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries, park service material and other primary references before publishing, so you can trust the facts and enjoy the argument.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Where does Maui rank in size among the Hawaiian Islands?
Second-largest
Second-largest: only the Big Island is bigger, and Maui is really two volcanoes whose lava flows overlapped and fused into a single island.
Q 02Which nickname does Maui owe to the low isthmus joining its two volcanoes?
The Valley Isle
The Valley Isle: the "valley" is no river valley but a flat saddle, formed where lava from Haleakalā banked up against the older West Maui volcano.
Q 03What stands beside the national park on Haleakalā's summit?
An observatory
An observatory: its telescopes track satellites for the US military, and its Pan-STARRS survey hunts asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth.
Q 04What does the name Haleakalā mean in Hawaiian?
House of the sun
House of the sun: the vast summit "crater" is no volcanic crater at all, because erosion carved it when two great valleys ate back into the mountain and met.
Q 05In Hawaiian legend, why did the demigod Māui lasso the sun?
Slow it down and lengthen the day
Slow it down and lengthen the day: in one telling his mother Hina could not get her bark cloth dry before dark, so he roped the sun's rays as it rose.
Q 06Who voices the demigod Maui in Disney's Moana?
Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson: he has said the tattooed demigod was inspired by his grandfather Peter Maivia, a Samoan high chief and wrestler, and he returned for Moana 2.
Q 07Which town is the county seat of Maui County?
Wailuku
Wailuku: it has been the county seat since 1905, although neighbouring Kahului grew into the island's biggest town, with the main airport and harbour.
Q 08What does Kahului Airport's three-letter code, OGG, honour?
Aviation pioneer Bertram "Jimmy" Hogg
Aviation pioneer Bertram "Jimmy" Hogg: the Kauaʻi-born Hawaiian Airlines captain was given a history wall at the airport in 2014, because the code had long baffled travellers.
Q 09Which explorer became the first European to see Maui, in November 1778, without ever landing?
James Cook
James Cook: he traded with islanders who paddled out to his ships but found no safe place to land, so no European stepped ashore for another eight years.
Q 10Maui's 1790 Battle of Kepaniwai was fought in which steep-walled gorge?
ʻĪao Valley
ʻĪao Valley: Kamehameha's invaders routed Maui's army there with cannon, yet he sailed home to fight a rival and did not finally win the island until 1795.
Q 11What dammed the stream at Maui's 1790 Battle of Kepaniwai, "the damming of the waters"?
The bodies of the dead
The bodies of the dead: Kamehameha's cannon, salvaged from a captured ship and worked by the sailors John Young and Isaac Davis, drove Maui's army back up the gorge.
Q 12Which king moved the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom from Lahaina to Honolulu in 1845?
Kamehameha III
Kamehameha III: before the move he proclaimed Hawaii's first written constitution in 1840, creating a legislature partly elected by the people.
Q 13Ka Lama Hawaii, printed by students at Lahainaluna Seminary above Lahaina in 1834, was Hawaii's first what?
Newspaper
Q 21What shape is Molokini, the islet off Maui's south coast?
A crescent
A crescent: only the southern rim of a drowned volcanic crater breaks the surface, and its curve shelters the cove inside, while the islet itself is a seabird sanctuary where landing is banned.
Q 22Molokini sits in the ʻAlalākeiki Channel between Maui and which other island?
Kahoʻolawe
Kahoʻolawe: Hawaii's kings once banished convicts to the smallest of the main Hawaiian islands, using it as a penal colony, and nobody lives there today.
Q 23Before Molokini's 1977 protection, which coral was harvested there for jewellery?
Black coral
Black coral: it is named for its dark skeleton, which is made into jewellery, while the living colonies can be white, green or yellow instead.
Newspaper: the school's press also printed its own paper money in 1843, but a student was expelled for counterfeiting it and the notes had to be recalled and reissued with secret marks.
Q 14Lahaina's giant banyan, planted in 1873, grew from a sapling shipped as a gift from which country?
India
India: the 8-foot sapling became a giant that the 2023 wildfire charred, killing about half its branches, yet fresh leaves sprouted within weeks.
Q 15Lahaina's banyan grew its many trunks from what?
Aerial roots
Aerial roots: townspeople hung jars of water beneath the roots they wanted, coaxing them down to the ground, where each thickened into a new trunk.
Q 16What did the whaler John Palmer's crew do to Lahaina when women were kept off ships?
Shelled the town
Shelled the town: the cannonballs landed by a missionary's house, and Maui's governor answered by building a coral-stone fort on the waterfront.
Q 17Which new fuel of the 1860s undercut the whale oil that had made Lahaina a boom town?
Petroleum
Petroleum: once kerosene made from it replaced whale oil in lamps, the whaling fleets dwindled and Lahaina turned from a rowdy port into a quiet plantation town.
Q 18Which hurricane was passing south of Hawaii as fierce winds drove the 2023 Lahaina wildfire?
Dora
Dora: the pressure gap between the distant Category 4 storm and a high to the north helped strengthen the gusts, though forecasters still debate how much it mattered.
Q 19Most of the 59 bridges on Maui's Hāna Highway share which feature?
One lane
One lane: 46 of the 59 are only one lane wide, so drivers must stop and take turns at each crossing, where signs tell them to yield to oncoming traffic.
Q 20Roughly how many curves does a driver negotiate on Maui's winding Road to Hāna?
600
About 600: the usual count is some 620 bends, so although Hāna lies only about 52 miles from Kahului the drive takes well over two hours even without stops.
Q 24Which US military branch used the smallest of Maui County's four main islands as a bombing range until 1990?
The Navy
The Navy: protesters began occupying the island in 1976 and sued to stop the bombing, and four years after the 1990 halt the Navy handed it back to Hawaii.
Q 25Which whales gather each winter to breed in the sheltered ʻAuʻau Channel off Maui?
Humpbacks
Humpbacks: more than half of the North Pacific's humpbacks winter around Hawaii to mate and calve, which led to a national marine sanctuary being created for them.
Q 26Which South Maui resort town sits in Haleakalā's rain shadow, making it one of the island's driest places?
Kīhei
Kīhei: the trade winds drop their rain on Haleakalā's far side, where more than 300 inches can fall in a year, before they reach the town's sunny beaches.
Q 27Which rain-soaked spot on Haleakalā's windward slope averages about 400 inches of rain a year?
Big Bog
Big Bog: once a rain gauge was installed there, its average of about 404 inches overtook Kauaʻi's Mount Waiʻaleʻale, long billed as the wettest spot in Hawaii.
Q 28Maui is Hawaii's third most populous island, behind the Big Island and which other?
Oʻahu
Oʻahu: about 70% of Hawaii's residents live there, around Honolulu, which took the kingdom's capital away from Maui's Lahaina in 1845.
Q 29Hawaii's last plantation of which crop closed on Maui in 2016?
Sugarcane
Sugarcane: the state's last sugar mill fell silent that December, after its owner put the farm's operating loss at about $30 million for a single year.
Q 30Maui's Ulupalakua winery, founded in 1974, began by making wine from which fruit?
Pineapple
Pineapple: it was meant as a stopgap while the first grapevines matured on Haleakalā's slopes, but visitors liked the wine so much that it stayed in the range.