How igeography works

Which countries are included

Every world quiz uses the same 199 countries: the 193 member states of the United Nations, the two UN observer states (the Holy See and Palestine), and four more that govern themselves: Kosovo, Taiwan, the Cook Islands and Niue.

Including a country in a quiz is not a statement about its recognition.

Borders

Borders come from the Natural Earth map data, in the layer drawn from Ukraine's point of view. Crimea and every other temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine are shown as part of Ukraine on every map, in every quiz and in every data file. An automated test checks ten cities, from Simferopol and Sevastopol to Donetsk and Kherson, on every map before the site is published.

Kosovo is taken from Natural Earth's default layer, because the Ukraine point-of-view layer does not show it.

Continents

Six countries are counted in both Europe and Asia and appear in both quizzes: Russia, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, which have territory on both continents, and Armenia and Cyprus, which lie in Asia but are usually counted as European too. Kazakhstan and Egypt also reach into a second continent but appear in one quiz each, Asia and Africa. North America includes Central America and the Caribbean.

Countries too small to tap on a phone get a round marker on their largest island or territory.

Typed answers

Typed answers are compared after folding capital letters, accents, apostrophes and a leading article, so "cote divoire" finds Côte d’Ivoire. Each language has a reviewed list of common names for every country. The English name of each country is accepted on every language version too, unless it clashes with another country.

An abbreviation that is also the start of another answer, such as UK on the way to Ukraine, only counts when you press Enter.

Capitals and country shapes

Where a country has more than one capital, such as South Africa (Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein), or a capital and a separate seat of government, such as Bolivia (Sucre and La Paz), each of them is accepted when you type. Israel and Palestine are not part of the capitals quiz, because the capital of each is disputed.

Guess the Country leaves out countries too small or too scattered to recognise by their outline.

Data versions and challenge links

Every data release has a version. A challenge link stores it, so a friend gets exactly your questions. If the data changed since the link was made, the quiz tells you and starts a fresh round instead of a different one.