September 17, 2004

Fun with maps

Posted by Eszter

The people behind this Web site are smart. Attract people with a fun quiz, show them what they don’t know and offer them toys to help improve their knowledge. You can take a little geography quiz on the site. I scored 9 out of 10, but was fairly lucky by having gotten this group of countries : Colombia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Samoa, United Kingdom, and Vietnam. I know I would have done worse depending on the region of the world most represented among my randomized list. Can you guess which one I missed?

Latvia. I placed it on Lithuania’s area. D’oh. In case you’re wondering why I know where Samoa is located, I lived in Hawaii for a while and although the two are about 2,600 miles apart, I think it’s fair to say they’re considered regional neighbors.;)

In light of Kieran’s last post, I should probably take a moment to thank the Academy.. oh no, wait, that would be missing the point of his post.. I would like to thank the Hungarian educational system for my above-US-average knowledge of geography, although beyond shoving a lot of facts down one’s throat I did not find it to be a particularly good system. Then again, it seems like it helps me do well on random online geography quizes so maybe I’m being too critical.

Hat tip: Neat New Stuff.

Posted on September 17, 2004 07:06 AM UTC
Comments

Great link, Eszter. Now I have a way to waste time that will actually make me smarter. I’ve floundered so far, though. I realize this is hardly surprising, but the West African countries (of which for some reason I’ve been given a lot) have me at a loss.

Posted by Steve Carr · September 17, 2004 07:38 AM

It doesn’t seem to work with Opera 7.5 (Windows). Asked to locate Suriname, I found myself clicking back and forth among Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, unable to finalize a choice.

Faced with a host posting a 9 of 10 result, though, I’m relieved to be unable to compete.

Posted by bad Jim · September 17, 2004 07:48 AM

8/10. Nauru, “the world’s smallest independent republic”, and Micronesia…

Posted by Motoko · September 17, 2004 07:50 AM

Bah. Dang ol’ Democratic Republic of the Congo messing up my perfect score. Countries shouldn’t be allowed to name themselves something that sounds just like a neighbor. At least Yemen and the People’s Democratic Republic of Same merged.

Posted by Nick Simmonds · September 17, 2004 10:01 AM

Hmm.. 9 out of 10 for me.

Malaysia, Lesotho, Oman, Guinea, Ecuador, S. Korea, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Denmark and India…

Guinea threw me.. I ended up selecting Burkina Faso and I was pretty lucky with the others that came up [I probably wouldn’t have gotten Lesotho but happened to be looking at a map of that area recently].

Posted by Matt McGrattan · September 17, 2004 10:45 AM

Grrr … Congo vs Congo, Democratic Republic of the. Not that Congo was specified as Congo (Brazzaville) as is common usage. Next up, the 50 US states, with a listing for “Dakota.”

Otherwise confused Seychelles with Comoros, which I think understandable.

Posted by Doug · September 17, 2004 11:06 AM

10/10. First time I’ve ever been totally right about…anything.

If I was in the NBA, right now I’d let out one of those primal screams.

china, denmark, south korea, bahamas, russia, slovakia, tunisia, jamaica, thailand, haiti

Posted by JR · September 17, 2004 11:42 AM

6, 9 and 9. But once it said I’d clicked on Sudan instead of Bosnia. Frankly I resent the implication, and I will not be playing again (sniff).

Posted by Anthony · September 17, 2004 12:38 PM

7 out of 10 — I missed Laos, Slovenia, and Zambia.

Posted by Jeremy Osner · September 17, 2004 01:22 PM

8/10

New Zealand,Cape Verde,Georgia,Taiwan,Bulgaria,Algeria,Finland,Niger,Papua New Guinea,USA

Missed Niger and New Guinea

Posted by bob mcmanus · September 17, 2004 02:39 PM

100%!

Korea, North; Iraq; Mozambique; Monaco; Mali; Fiji; Uganda; Argentina; Kazakhstan; Congo

(Confession: The first time I took it I missed Suriname — who can keep those three countries straight? — and Ghana)

Posted by BenA · September 17, 2004 03:05 PM

Hah, 10 out of 10 for me. (I have a B.S. in Geography, BTW.) I raised the U.S. score from 57.55 to 57.56! Yay team!

Posted by David W. · September 17, 2004 03:08 PM

I suck: 3/10. Got Iceland, Belarus, Laos correct.

Totally failed to identify Eritrea, Mauritania, Equatorial Guinea, Macedonia, Comoros, Sudan, or Lesotho.

Posted by teep · September 17, 2004 04:58 PM

10, 10 and 10. The relative positions of the Pacific nations on the map seem a bit off, though; the quiz would work better if they were shown by their maritime boundaries rather than a dot on the capital. The DRC/Congo thing was also annoying, although I guessed correctly that “Congo” meant Congo-Brazzaville.

Posted by Jonathan Edelstein · September 17, 2004 05:37 PM

I’d guess you missed Kazakhstan; hard to keep those “stans” straight. I got 10/10 but was phenomenally lucky to nail Suriname, Mauritania, and Sierra Leone. Easy enough to get in the ball park with those, but the “last mile” was pure guesswork.

Posted by Ralph Hitchens · September 17, 2004 05:59 PM

9/10

Right: Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cyprus, Turkey, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, Switzerland, Liechtenstein

Wrong: Kiribati

Yeah, I never bothered with S. Pacific geography.

Posted by will · September 17, 2004 08:00 PM

It didn’t seem very random to me.

I got Nauru three times (correct by chance!) and Paraguay and Greece twice.

Pacific islands do tend to make it more difficult - I also got handed Vanuatu and Tuvalu!

United Kingdom’s showing in the “medals table” is dismal…

Posted by Thomas Dent · September 17, 2004 09:32 PM

Eszter,

God this thing is addictive. After several times at 90% I finally got 100% with the following nations:

Phillipines, Krygzstan, Dominican Republic, Oman, Niger, Finland (well, one should be a softball), Brunei, Latvia, Swaziland and Macedonia.

Posted by Randy Paul · September 18, 2004 05:47 PM

6/10. Missed Malawi, Turkmenistan, Vanuatu, Mauritius. Got Ireland, Germany, Cape Verde (easy one - I built a city there once in a game of Civilization II), Swaziland (process of elimination - I knew it was east sub-Saharan and knew almost all the surrounding countries), Myanmar, Angola. Not a single country in the Americas.

Posted by Alan K. Henderson · September 20, 2004 06:54 AM

10/10; 10/10; 9/10; 10/10; 10/10. The only guesses were on Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands; a country like that shouldn’t be represented by a dot, considering that it controls an area about 800 miles square.

I got Eritrea, Libya, Bosnia, and Bangladesh on the 3rd test, and again on the 4th test. Odd.

Posted by Cryptic Ned · September 20, 2004 06:15 PM

During the ten minutes I spent on that site Hungary went from 1st to 15th, while the rest of the leaderboard was almost unchanged.

It must have just been linked on Maxim’s Hungarian website or something.

Posted by Cryptic Ned · September 20, 2004 06:18 PM
Followups

→ Fun with maps.
Excerpt: Check out the Geography Olympics. Via Crooked Timber. I scored a measly 3/10: my central African geography is crap....Read more at perfect.co.uk/nathan

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.