Every country you need a hint for, or take unusually long over, is added here — and the button on the game adds or removes the one you're on. Practice them in rounds of their own — never on the high score boards — and each one leaves the list once you've typed it three times in a row without a hint or a long pause.
Click on the text box with the orange border; the timer starts as soon as you begin typing!
Click 'Reset' or press 'Shift-Return' to restart the game.
Click the menu under the letters. Its label says which kind you have picked:
Difficulty -- from Beginner 🔵 up to Legendary 👑, which is all of them.
Region -- one part of the world at a time. Europe, Africa and Asia have an All | Easy | Hard switch on their row: practice the easier half, the harder half, or the lot.
Extra -- Territories & More (places that are not one of the 197 countries), and Random 10, 20 or 30: a fresh draw every round.
Click the icon -- or press 'Tab' -- to show the next letter in grey. You still type it yourself, and it costs you a time penalty of course.
A country lights up on the map -- type its name as fast as you can without mistakes.
Small countries get a ring around them so you can spot them.
From the ten best-known countries up to all 197 -- the 193 UN members plus Vatican City, Palestine, Kosovo and Taiwan -- or one continent at a time.
The box in the top left corner shows the country's flag and its capital. It moves into the corner once you start typing.
The Aa button at the top right changes what it shows -- both, nothing, just the flag or just the words -- and the game remembers your choice.
Become a true geography master - no letter hints, and the map shows only the country, with nothing around it.
Still learning? Turn on 'Learn' and the answer is shown in grey for you to type over -- the whole of it at level 1, the first 2 letters and one more every second at level 2, the first letter and one more every 2 seconds at level 3. Learn mode scores aren't saved.
Logged in, every country you needed a hint for -- or were slow on -- goes on your practice list, just under the game. The button at the top left adds the one you're on (or takes it off).
Play a round of just your list whenever you like -- it doesn't count on the score boards -- and each country comes off once you get it three times in a row without help.
Keep your hands on the keyboard - "Shift-Return" restarts the game, "Tab" gives a hint.
The map fills the game and turns to each country in turn and names its neighbours -- or, in a region, shows the whole region at once -- and marks the tiny ones so you can find them.
Seven difficulties, every region (in an Easy and a Hard half, too) and Random 10, 20 or 30 -- start small and work up to all of them.
Your time, your speed, how many you've done and your best time, as you play. The speed counts only the time you spend typing answers -- not the time spent finding the place on the map.
Compete against yourself and other players with a high score board for every mode! Big Brain rounds get a brain beside them.
Common alternative spellings are accepted, and nothing needs an accent key.
Finish harder and harder difficulties at a good pace to earn Globetrotter, and play Big Brain rounds for the Big Brain badge. Every geography game counts towards Decathlete. See them on your profile's Achievements page.