This is the classic map quiz. The name of a country appears above the map and you tap that country. A right answer turns it green; a wrong one paints your tap red, lights up the real country and joins the two with a dashed line, with the distance between them in kilometres. That distance is the most useful part of a miss: being 300 km off in the Balkans is a near thing, being 4,000 km off means it is time to look at that corner of the map again.
The map can be dragged and zoomed like any online map. Countries outside the region you chose stay pale and ignore taps, and so does the sea, so a slip of the finger never counts as an answer.
How it works
- One country per question; a round has 10 questions unless you pick 20 or 30.
- Tap means press and release without moving. Dragging or pinching never answers.
- Very small states are drawn as dots. A tap right on a dot takes the dot, otherwise the country under your finger counts.
- The hint draws a ring around the area where the country lies and zooms there. The ring is shifted at random, so the centre is not the answer. A hinted question earns half the points.
Tips from the window seat
- Before you tap, find a neighbour you know. Locating Slovenia is easy once your eye is on Italy and Austria.
- On a phone, zoom in first for small countries; at the world view Belgium or Slovenia are only a few pixels wide.
- Read the distance after every miss. Over a few rounds the misses shrink from thousands of kilometres to hundreds, which is a more honest measure of progress than the score.
- Start with the Easy level of a single continent. Easy asks about the best-known and largest countries of the set; Hard leaves out the easiest quarter.
Questions travellers ask
Why can I not tap some places on the map?
Countries outside the chosen region are dimmed and switched off, and territories that are disputed or not independent are drawn in neutral grey without a name. They never appear in questions.
What is the dashed line after a wrong answer?
It joins your tap to the country you were asked about. The number next to it is the straight-line distance between the two in kilometres.
Does the hint give the answer away?
No. It circles a wider area that contains the country, and the circle is placed off-centre on purpose. It costs half the points of that question.
Can I play with the keyboard?
Yes. Focus the map and use the arrow keys to move from country to country, then press Enter. Plus and minus zoom, and H asks for a hint.