Micronesia Trivia
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46 free Micronesia trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Micronesia is both a country and a region: the Federated States of Micronesia is a nation of 607 islands strung across 2,700 km of the western Pacific, while the wider region of some 2,000 small islands is shared by six sovereign states and several US territories. This quiz covers both. It starts with the four states of Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae, the tiny capital of Palikir, the flag with four white stars, the Compact of Free Association with the United States and the 1986 independence that followed decades as a UN Trust Territory. Then it heads for the things Micronesia is famous for: the giant stone money of Yap, quarried in Palau and still valued even when lying on the sea floor; Nan Madol, the 'Venice of the Pacific' built from basalt on Pohnpei; the Ghost Fleet of Truk Lagoon sunk in Operation Hailstone; the colour-blind islanders of Pingelap; the rainiest mountain on Earth; and the Spanish, German, Japanese and American rulers who came before. Region questions ask which archipelagos make up Micronesia, who coined the name and where Guam and Kiribati fit. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Federated States of Micronesia, the Micronesia region, Nan Madol, Rai stones, Chuuk Lagoon and the flag, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which internet country code, popular with radio stations and podcasts, belongs to Micronesia?
.fm
.fm is the country code of the Federated States of Micronesia, but anyone in the world can register an address, so radio stations and streaming sites such as Last.fm have made it their own.
Q 02What is the capital of the Federated States of Micronesia?
Palikir
Palikir, a purpose-built capital on the island of Pohnpei, replaced the old colonial town of Kolonia as the seat of the national government.
Q 03Challenger Deep, the deepest known point of the ocean, lies in the FSM's waters within which trench?
The Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench's southern end reaches into the FSM's ocean territory, so the deepest known seabed on Earth, almost 11 km down, belongs to a country with only 702 square kilometres of land.
Q 04The FSM's territory forms most of which larger archipelago?
The Carolines
The Carolines: about 500 coral islands scattered north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines, yet shared by just two countries, with the FSM holding all but the western end.
Q 05Roughly how much ocean lies within the FSM's exclusive economic zone?
About 3 million km²
About 3 million km²: the FSM's exclusive economic zone spans nearly 3 million square kilometres of the western Pacific, more than 4,000 times its land area.
Q 06Under which agreement with the United States did the FSM become independent in 1986?
The Compact of Free Association
The Compact of Free Association took effect on 3 November 1986, though the UN Security Council did not formally end its oversight of the islands until December 1990.
Q 07From 1947 the islands of the FSM were administered under which UN arrangement?
Trust Territory of the Pacific
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands: the UN placed it under American administration in 1947, and its districts later went separate ways, four of them joining to form the FSM in 1979.
Q 08Under its 1986 agreement with the FSM, the United States takes full responsibility for which of these?
Defence
Defence is wholly Washington's job, so the FSM keeps no military of its own, though its citizens may enlist in the US armed forces.
Q 09Sakau, the ceremonial drink pounded from pepper-plant roots on Pohnpei, is known across the Pacific by what name?
Kava
Kava is called sakau on Pohnpei, where makers mix the pounded root with the fibrous bark of a hibiscus tree before squeezing out the bitter, mildly psychoactive juice.
Q 10Who elects the president of the FSM?
Congress, from among the at-large senators
Congress, from among the at-large senators, picks both the president and the vice-president; the winners give up their seats, which special elections refill, and there are no formal parties.
Q 11What do the white stars on the FSM flag represent?
The states of the federation
The states of the federation: in an echo of the American flag, each star stands for one member state, and the four are set in a diamond at the centre of the field.
Q 12What is the official language of the FSM?
English
English is the official language, used in government and schools, but most islanders speak one of the indigenous Austronesian languages at home.
Q 13Which state's people make up almost half the FSM population?
Chuuk
Chuuk is the most populous state but also the poorest, and it has pushed to secede from the federation, though its independence referendum has been postponed again and again.
Q 21A rai stone's value depended on its size, craftsmanship and what else?
Its history
Its history: a stone brought by a famous navigator, or one whose transport cost lives, was worth more than a larger but uneventful one.
Q 22Which Nobel-winning economist likened Yap's immovable stone money to the gold in a central bank's vault?
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman argued in 'The Island of Stone Money' (1991) that Yap's system was no odder than gold that changes owners while lying untouched in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Q 23What was Truk Lagoon's role in World War II?
Japan's main Pacific naval base
Q 14Nan Madol was the seat of which dynasty, which united Pohnpei until about 1628?
Saudeleur
Saudeleur rulers governed all Pohnpei from Nan Madol for centuries, but their ever heavier demands for tribute bred the resentment that ended the dynasty around 1628.
Q 15What are the tropical cyclones that threaten the FSM between June and December called?
Typhoons
Typhoons are the same storms as hurricanes, named differently in the north-west Pacific; the FSM sits on the southern edge of the typhoon belt, so severe strikes are only occasional.
Q 16Nan Madol's megalithic walls are built from which volcanic rock?
Basalt
Basalt: megalithic building in the dark volcanic stone began around AD 1180, yet little can be verified about how its builders raised walls of such massive blocks.
Q 17Mau Piailug, a master navigator from Yap's outer islands, guided which Hawaiian canoe to Tahiti in 1976 without instruments?
Hōkūle'a
Hōkūle'a reached Tahiti on stars and swells alone; Mau, fearing his art would die out on Satawal, chose to teach it to Hawaiians and helped spark a revival of Pacific voyaging.
Q 18Yap, the FSM's westernmost state, lies far closer to which US territory than to its own national capital?
Guam
Guam even shares Yap's clock: the state keeps the same time as the US territory, an hour behind its own national capital far to the east.
Q 19Yapese crews quarried most of their giant stone money on which island group before sailing it home?
Palau
Palau lies some 300 miles from Yap; crews carved the calcite discs there and ferried them home across open sea, until an Irish-American trader began shipping them in bulk in the 1870s.
Q 20What happened to a rai stone that sank to the sea floor while being shipped to Yap?
It kept its full value
It kept its full value: everyone agreed the stone must still lie on the sea floor, so its ownership went on changing hands like that of any other rai.
Japan's main Pacific naval base was bombed in 1944 but never invaded: the Allies bypassed and blockaded it, leaving the garrison cut off and short of food until the surrender.
Q 24What was the name of the February 1944 US attack that sank dozens of Japanese ships in Truk Lagoon?
Operation Hailstone
Operation Hailstone: on 17–18 February 1944 US carrier aircraft sank more than 40 ships, mostly merchantmen and auxiliaries, and destroyed some 250 aircraft in the lagoon.
Q 25Whose 1971 television documentary turned Truk Lagoon into a world-famous wreck-diving destination?
Jacques Cousteau
Jacques Cousteau explored the lagoon with his team in 1969; his film of its ghostly, almost intact wrecks drew divers from around the world to what is now called the Ghost Fleet.
Q 26Which colonial power sold most of Micronesia's islands to Germany in 1899?
Spain
Spain had just lost the Philippines in the Spanish–American War and could no longer defend its remaining Pacific islands, so it sold them for 25 million pesetas.
Q 27Who was asked in 1885 to settle a dispute between two European powers over the islands of today's FSM?
Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII was proposed as arbitrator by Bismarck; his ruling confirmed one power's sovereignty while granting the other freedom to trade and the right to a coaling station on Yap.
Q 28Japan governed Micronesia's islands between the world wars under a mandate from which body?
The League of Nations
The League of Nations confirmed in 1920 what Japan had seized from Germany in 1914; by the late 1920s Tokyo was refusing the League's requests to visit, and it went on to build bases across the islands.
Q 29The people of Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro, two remote atolls of Pohnpei State, belong to which cultural group?
Polynesian
Polynesian: the two atolls are 'outliers', thought to have been settled by voyagers who sailed back west out of Polynesia long after it was first peopled.
Q 30The atoll of Pingelap is known for the unusual prevalence of which condition?
Total colour blindness
Total colour blindness became common after a storm around 1775 left only about twenty survivors, one of them a carrier of the gene; Oliver Sacks wrote 'The Island of the Colorblind' about the atoll.