Map quiz

How to play

In Point mode we name a place (“Where is Ohio?”) and you tap it on the map. Get it right and it turns green. Get it wrong and we show you where it was, which one you tapped, which way it lies and a hint drawn from the data: its region of the world, its capital or its size.

In Type mode a place lights up on the map and you type its name. Accents and capital letters don’t matter, and well-known alternatives count (Holland for the Netherlands, Burma for Myanmar). A single typo is fine too, unless what you typed is closer to another answer in the quiz, like Gambia and Zambia. You can play it entirely from the keyboard: type, press Enter, then Enter again to move on.

In Time trial you point to as many as you can before time runs out: 6 seconds per question, one minute for 10. If you miss, the map flashes the right one and moves on.

Each game has 10, 20 or all the questions. At the end you see your score, your time, your longest streak and the ones you missed on a small map, and you can practice just those.

What you can play

The 50 US states and their capitals, with Alaska and Hawaii in their insets.

The 44 countries of Europe and their capitals, the 194 countries of the world and their capitals, or one continent at a time: Africa (54), North and Central America (23), South America (12), Asia (47) and Oceania (14).

In the capitals quizzes you can tap the capital’s dot or the state or country it’s in.

What counts as a country

The 193 members of the United Nations plus Vatican City: 194 in all. Kosovo, Taiwan, Palestine, Western Sahara and territories such as Greenland or Puerto Rico are shown in gray on the map, but they aren’t asked.

Countries of Europe has the 44 the UN places in Europe, including Russia and Vatican City. Turkey, Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan count as Asia, as in the rest of the quiz.

Tiny countries (Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino, Malta and the islands of the Caribbean and the Pacific) have a circle you can tap. They’re in every mode: at sea, tapping near the circle is enough, and where several sit close together, zoom in with the buttons or with two fingers.

A few countries have more than one capital. We show Pretoria for South Africa, Dodoma for Tanzania and Astana for Kazakhstan, and when typing, Cape Town or Bloemfontein, Dar es Salaam and Nur-Sultan count too. For Bolivia, both Sucre and La Paz are accepted.

Challenge your class

Pick the quiz in the New game panel and copy the link under Challenge your class. Everyone who opens it gets the same questions in the same order, with no sign-up and no personal data. At the end, each student sees their score and time and can share it with the same link.

Your best score for each quiz is saved only in your browser: neither we nor anyone else can see it.

Classroom ideas

Put the quiz on the interactive whiteboard with the full-screen button and play as a group: one student points and the rest say whether it’s right before tapping.

Start with 10 questions in Point mode and switch to Type once they can place them: that way they practice spelling too. Practice the misses asks only the ones that got away.

To practice on paper, there are printable worksheets with a blank map, questions and an answer key.