Our country shapes quiz asks you to recognise countries from their outlines alone. In 10 timed rounds you name a country from its silhouette, or pick the right outline for a named country. Play World or one region, on Explorer to learn the shapes or on Expert, where neighbours and similar outlines sit side by side. Shapes are shown in map gold and are not to scale, so small and large countries are equally easy to see. A fact card follows every answer, and your best scores are saved in this browser.
Every game has 10 rounds with two kinds of question, shuffled together. Half the rounds show a country's outline in gold and ask which country it is. The other half name a country and ask you to find its outline among four. No country comes up twice in one game.
Each question has a 15-second timer that starts only once the outline is on screen. Answer with a tap, a click or the keys 1 to 4. After every answer a fact card shows the flag, outline, capital, official languages and region, and the clock waits while you read.
Outlines show a country's main territory. Far-flung islands and overseas territories are left off so the shape stays recognisable, which means you see the contiguous United States, metropolitan France with Corsica, and mainland Chile. Countries that are very small or made mostly of scattered islands, such as Monaco, Malta or the Maldives, aren't in this quiz, because a fair outline isn't possible at this size.
A right answer earns 500 points, plus a speed bonus of up to 500 more. Answer within one second for the full bonus; it then falls steadily to zero at 15 seconds. A wrong answer, or running out of time, scores nothing. Ten rounds make a perfect game of 10,000.
Your answer streak counts right answers in a row and resets on a miss, and your best score for each region and difficulty is kept in this browser.
Every outline is scaled to fill the same frame, which is why each one is marked "Not to scale". If shapes kept their real sizes, Russia would fill the screen and Belgium would be a speck, and you could guess many answers from size alone. Scaling them all the same makes you look at the shape itself: its coastline, its corners and its proportions.
On Explorer, the wrong answers are random countries from your region, so the outlines usually look quite different. On Expert, the wrong answers start with neighbours. Neighbours share a border, so parts of their outlines match, and without size to help, Senegal, Guinea and Mali can look surprisingly alike. After neighbours come countries with similar proportions, such as long, thin outlines like Chile, Norway and Vietnam.
Look for one strong feature: a long coastline, a sharp point, a hook or a missing bite. Italy's boot and Chile's ribbon are easy, but most shapes have something just as distinctive once you look for it. Notice which edges are straight; straight lines are usually borders drawn on a map, and curved, jagged edges are coasts or rivers.
Learn neighbours as a group, so you know how they fit together. If you know where Uruguay sits against Argentina and Brazil, you'll recognise the gap it leaves in both. Playing one region on Explorer before trying Expert is the best way to build a mental map.
- Why are the shapes not shown to scale?
- Every outline is scaled to fill the same frame so that you recognise the shape itself, not just its size.
- Why are some small countries missing?
- Countries under about 1,000 square kilometres or made mostly of scattered islands are left out, because their outlines can't be recognised fairly.
- Are overseas territories shown?
- No. Outlines show the main territory only, such as the contiguous United States or metropolitan France with Corsica.
- Why does Oceania have no shapes game?
- Only five countries in Oceania have outlines large enough to play, which isn't enough for 10 rounds. Try World or Mixed instead.
- Where do the outlines come from?
- They're drawn from Natural Earth, a public-domain map dataset, and simplified for quick loading.