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49 free Trinidad and Tobago trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Trinidad and Tobago sits just 11 km off Venezuela at the bottom of the Caribbean, and this quiz covers the twin-island republic from Columbus to Carnival: the Banwari Man, Raleigh's raid on San José, the Spanish cédula that filled Trinidad with French planters, Abercromby's bloodless conquest of 1797, the Fatel Razack and the Indian indentured workers, Tobago changing hands 31 times, oil, Eric Williams and independence in 1962, the 1990 coup attempt and the first female prime minister. Easy questions ask for the capital, the neighbour across the channel, the national instrument and the country's most famous dance; the harder ones want the meaning of 'Chinidad', the highest peak, the world's largest asphalt lake, the two national birds, the year of Carnival's national instrument declaration and the street food invented in 1936. There is also Brian Lara's 400, Hasely Crawford's gold, Dwight Yorke's World Cup, Naipaul and Walcott, Nicki Minaj, Angostura bitters and Miss Universe. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its people and its history, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
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Q 01What is the capital of Trinidad and Tobago?
Port of Spain
Port of Spain, on the Gulf of Paria in north-west Trinidad, has been the seat of government since 1757, when the Spanish moved it from San José de Oruña.
Q 02Trinidad lies about 11 km off the coast of which South American country?
Venezuela
The islands sit on the South American continental shelf, so their wildlife, from howler monkeys to anacondas, is more Venezuelan than Caribbean.
Q 03In which year did Trinidad and Tobago gain independence from Britain?
1962
Trinidad and Tobago became independent from Britain on 31 August 1962, three months after the West Indies Federation it had belonged to was dissolved.
Q 04Which instrument, invented in Trinidad in the 1930s and 40s, is its national instrument?
The steelpan
The steelpan evolved from Carnival's tamboo-bamboo bands as players hammered discarded oil drums into tuned instruments; in 2023 the UN General Assembly declared 11 August World Steelpan Day.
Q 05Which dance, in which performers bend backwards under a bar, originated at wakes in Trinidad?
The limbo
Julia Edwards, the 'First Lady of Limbo', popularised it in the 1950s through films. Calypso, soca and chutney music were born on the islands too.
Q 06Which explorer sighted Trinidad in 1498 and named it for the Holy Trinity?
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus sighted Trinidad on 31 July 1498 during his third voyage, then sailed into the Gulf of Paria and along the coast of the mainland beyond.
Q 07What is the capital of Tobago?
Scarborough
Scarborough, on Rockly Bay on Tobago's southern coast, is the island's capital and main port, overlooked by Fort King George, built by the British in the 1770s.
Q 08In 1797 which British general took Trinidad from Spanish governor José María Chacón without a fight?
Ralph Abercromby
Ralph Abercromby arrived off Trinidad in February 1797 with a fleet under Admiral Henry Harvey; the outgunned Spanish squadron was burned at Chaguaramas and Chacón capitulated on 18 February.
Q 09Which Baltic duchy planted a colony on Tobago in the 17th century?
Courland
Courland, a duchy in what is now Latvia, sent colonists to Tobago in 1654 under Duke Jacob Kettler; they built Fort Jacob beside the bay known as Great Courland Bay.
Q 10Trinidad and Tobago were governed as separate colonies until they were united in which year?
1889
In 1889 Britain joined Tobago, bankrupt after the collapse of its sugar economy, to Trinidad as a single colony; in 1899 Tobago was reduced to a ward of the united colony.
Q 11The first ship of Indian indentured labourers, the Fatel Razack, arrived in Trinidad in which year?
1845
The Fatel Razack anchored in the Gulf of Paria on 30 May 1845 with about 225 Indian labourers; roughly 147,000 more followed before indentureship ended in 1917, and 30 May is Indian Arrival Day.
Q 12In the 2011 census, which was Trinidad and Tobago's largest ethnic group, at about 35%?
Indo-Trinidadians
Indo-Trinidadians, descendants of indentured labourers from India, were 35.4% of the population in the 2011 census, with Afro-Trinidadians a close second at 34.2% and 22.8% identifying as mixed.
Q 13Who led the country to independence and served as its first prime minister until his death in 1981?
Eric Williams
Q 21Who designed Trinidad and Tobago's red, white and black national flag?
Carlisle Chang
Carlisle Chang, a Trinidadian painter and designer, drew the flag adopted at independence; its black band edged in white stands for the people's dedication and the sea that unites the islands.
Q 22Doubles, the country's most popular street food, consists of curried chickpeas served in what?
Two fried flatbreads called bara
Two fried flatbreads called bara, made from a turmeric-tinted dough, sandwich the curried channa; the dish is credited to Emamool Deen and his wife, who sold it in Princes Town in the 1930s.
Q 23Angostura bitters, made in Trinidad, are famous for what feature of their bottle?
Eric Williams, an Oxford-trained historian whose 1944 book 'Capitalism and Slavery' argued that slavery's profits financed Britain's industrial revolution, founded the People's National Movement in 1956 and is called the 'Father of the Nation'.
Q 14Which group stormed Parliament in 1990 and held the government hostage for six days?
Jamaat al Muslimeen
Jamaat al Muslimeen, led by Yasin Abu Bakr, seized the Red House and the TTT television station on 27 July 1990; its 114 insurgents surrendered on 1 August and were later freed under a disputed amnesty.
Q 15Who became the country's first female prime minister in 2010?
Kamla Persad-Bissessar
Kamla Persad-Bissessar led the People's Partnership coalition to victory in May 2010 and served as prime minister until 2015; she had earlier been attorney general and minister of education.
Q 16Unlike most Caribbean nations, Trinidad and Tobago's economy is based mainly on what?
Oil and gas
Petroleum was found in 1857 but only mattered after sugar and cocoa collapsed. Tourism dominates only on Tobago.
Q 17Pitch Lake at La Brea in south-west Trinidad is the world's largest natural deposit of what?
Asphalt
Asphalt, roughly 10 million tonnes of it, fills the 100-acre Pitch Lake to a depth of about 75 metres; the lake slowly replenishes itself as bitumen seeps up from below and has been mined commercially since the 19th century.
Q 18What is the highest peak in Trinidad and Tobago?
El Cerro del Aripo
El Cerro del Aripo rises 940 metres in the Northern Range of Trinidad, four metres higher than El Tucuche, and its slopes shelter the Aripo Caves, a nesting site for oilbirds.
Q 19The scarlet ibis and which Tobago bird are the country's two national birds?
The cocrico
The cocrico, the rufous-vented chachalaca found on Tobago, shares the coat of arms with the scarlet ibis of Trinidad; each bird represents one island of the nation.
Q 20Which wetland on Trinidad's west coast is famous for its evening roost of scarlet ibis?
Caroni Swamp
Caroni Swamp, a mangrove wetland south of the capital on the Gulf of Paria, draws boat tours each evening as flocks of scarlet ibis fly in to roost on its islands.
An oversized label
An oversized label that overshoots the small bottle became the brand's trademark; legend says the Siegert brothers ordered bottles and labels in mismatched sizes and kept the result. The bitters contain no angostura bark.
Q 24Which Trinidadian batsman made a Test score of 400 not out against England in 2004?
Brian Lara
Brian Lara made 400 not out for West Indies against England at St John's, Antigua, in April 2004, reclaiming the Test record he had first set with 375 on the same ground in 1994.
Q 25Hasely Crawford won the country's first Olympic gold at the Montreal Games in which event?
Men's 100 metres
Hasely Crawford won the men's 100 metres in 10.06 seconds at the Montreal Games, the first Olympic gold for Trinidad and Tobago; Keshorn Walcott added javelin gold at London 2012.
Q 26In which year did Trinidad and Tobago make their first FIFA World Cup finals appearance?
2006
At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Trinidad and Tobago, captained by Dwight Yorke, drew 0-0 with Sweden before losing 2-0 to England and 2-0 to Paraguay.
Q 27Tobago-born Dwight Yorke won the 1999 Treble with which English club?
Manchester United
Manchester United signed Dwight Yorke from Aston Villa in August 1998 for £12.6 million; he struck up a prolific partnership with Andy Cole as the club won the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in 1999.
Q 28Which Trinidad-born author of 'A House for Mr Biswas' won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001?
V. S. Naipaul
V. S. Naipaul, born in Chaguanas in 1932, won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature; 'A House for Mr Biswas' (1961) was modelled on the life of his father Seepersad.
Q 29Rapper Nicki Minaj was born in which district of the capital?
Saint James
Saint James, a district on the western side of the capital, is where Onika Maraj was born in December 1982; she moved to Queens, New York, as a young child.
Q 30In 1977 Janelle Commissiong of Trinidad and Tobago became the first what?
Black Miss Universe
Janelle Commissiong, crowned in Santo Domingo in 1977, was the first Black Miss Universe; Wendy Fitzwilliam brought Trinidad and Tobago a second crown in 1998.