How to play Duck Atlas
Every day there’s one country to find, shown only as its outline, with no map around it. Type a country, pick it from the list and press Enter. You have six guesses.
Each wrong guess tells you three things:
- Distance: how far your guess is from the answer, in kilometres, measured between the middles of the two countries.
- Arrow: which way to go from your guess to get to the answer.
- Percent: how close you were. 100% is the answer; 0% is the other side of the world.
After three misses you also get the answer’s region, like “Western Africa” or “South America”.
Tips
- Start with a big country in the middle of a continent. The arrow and distance narrow things down fast.
- Coastlines give a lot away: a long thin shape, a big bay or a lot of islands.
- The outline isn’t to scale. A tiny country fills the box just like a huge one.
Questions
Which countries come up? About 170 countries bigger than 5,000 km². Smaller ones (Malta, Singapore, the Vatican) and territories (Puerto Rico, Greenland) still count as guesses, but are never the answer.
Why is part of a country missing? Far-off islands and territories are left out so the shape stays recognisable: the United States is shown without Alaska and Hawaii, France without its overseas regions.
Can I play more? Yes: Practice round gives you a random country as often as you like, without touching your streak.
Where do the maps come from? Natural Earth, a free public-domain map set. Borders follow its usual view; they aren’t a statement about any dispute.
Where are my stats kept? In this browser, on this device.