Bigger or smaller

Each question puts two country cards side by side and asks either which one has more people or which one is larger. After you choose, both figures appear under the cards together with the year of the data. Population figures are for 2025 and areas for 2023, both from the World Development Indicators of the World Bank.

Difficulty here depends on how close the two numbers are. On Easy one country is at least four times bigger than the other. On Medium the gap is between 1.6 and 4 times, and on Hard less than 1.6 times, which is where intuition gets tested: a country that looks large on the map can have fewer people than a smaller neighbour, and the shape of the map itself makes some areas look bigger than they are.

How it works

• Variants: population, area, or both in turn (the default).
• Tap a card, or press 1 for the left and 2 for the right one.
• There is no hint in this mode: there would be only one option left.
• The figures and their year are shown after every answer.

Tips from the window seat

• Do not trust the map for area questions. Any flat map stretches or squeezes some regions; the cards compare the real surface figures.
• For population, think of the largest cities you know in each country. It is a rough guide, but it beats guessing from size.
• Hard rounds are mostly near-ties. Note the figures after each answer; after a few rounds you will have a sense of which countries sit around 10, 50 or 100 million people.
• Mix population and area in the same round. Switching the question every time keeps you from answering on autopilot.

Questions travellers ask