Guess the Country by Shape

A country outline appears with no borders, labels or colours. Name it in six guesses — each wrong guess tells you how far away you are and which direction to head.

How to play

1. Look at the silhouette. It is drawn to a consistent size, so a large country and a small one fill the same frame.
2. Type a country name and press Guess, or Enter. Names and common alternatives both work — “USA”, “United States” and “America” all resolve to the same country. Picking from the suggestion list fills the box; it does not use a guess until you confirm.
3. A wrong guess reports the approximate distance to the answer, a compass direction and a proximity percentage.
4. Use those clues to narrow down. You have six guesses in the daily puzzle.

An entry that is not a country, or one you have already guessed, does not use up an attempt.

How the clues work

Every wrong guess gives you three things. Distance is the great-circle distance between the two countries’ representative points. Direction is the compass bearing you would travel from your guess to reach the answer, shown as an arrow and written out in words. Proximity restates that distance as a percentage, where 100% is the answer itself.

Distance methodology

Distances use the haversine formula on a sphere of radius 6,371 km, measured between one representative interior point per country rather than between borders. Two neighbouring countries therefore never show a distance of zero, and the figure shown is an approximate gameplay clue rather than a border-to-border measurement or a travel distance. Distances can be displayed in kilometres or miles.

Direction methodology

Direction is the initial bearing along the great-circle route from your guess to the answer, rounded to the nearest of eight compass points. Because the Earth is curved, this initial bearing may differ from the constant heading you would follow on a flat map, particularly over long distances and near the poles.

Daily and practice

The daily puzzle is the same country for everyone and resets at midnight UTC. Your progress is saved on this device, so you can close the tab and come back to the same board. Practice mode is unlimited, starts a new country immediately, and never affects your daily streak or statistics.

Strategy tips

• Open with a country in the middle of a large landmass. A first guess in central Africa or central Asia divides the world more usefully than an island.
• Read the coastline before the outline as a whole: an inland country has no coast, which rules out most of the map immediately.
• Trust the direction more than the distance early on. Two guesses pointing the same way bracket the answer quickly.
• Distinctive silhouettes — Italy, Chile, Norway, Japan — are worth learning first, because they appear often and are unmistakable once seen.

Questions

Is the country shape game free?

Yes. There is no account, no sign-up and no payment. Your streak and statistics are stored in this browser only.

How many countries are included?

167 countries can appear as a daily answer. A few dependent territories and uninhabited areas are drawn on the map but never chosen as the answer.

Why does my answer say the country already exists?

Each country can only be guessed once per round. Guessing it again is rejected without costing an attempt.

Does sharing my result reveal the answer?

No. A shared result contains only the puzzle number, your score and a bar per guess showing how close it was. It never names a country.

Keep playing

Data and sources

Country outlines are derived from Natural Earth public-domain vector data, simplified at build time for fast loading. Distant overseas territories are omitted from a country’s silhouette so the shape shown is the landmass most people would recognise. See about Wheelyy for how the site handles data.