Travel from country to country: answer a question about each one to take it, then walk on to its neighbours.
How to play World Explorer
- You get a random country to start from, and the rest of the world waits to be discovered.
- You take a country by answering one question about it: its population, area, population density or capital.
- A right answer reveals the country on the map and lights up its neighbours in gold. You choose where to go.
- You can move and zoom the map, and the world has no end: from Russia you can reach the USA across the Pacific. "Show me" brings you back to the country you are in.
- A mistake costs one of your 3 lives for the day and you stay where you are. Lives return at midnight, and the ones you earn in other quizzes wait in reserve (up to 5).
- There is no step limit. Difficulty grows with the length of the route: from 5 countries the number ranges are narrower, and from 15 narrower still.
- A neighbour is a country across a land border or a short sea crossing. Five islands have no such neighbour, so they are not in the game: Madagascar, Iceland, New Zealand, Fiji and Vanuatu.
- You can stop at any moment and come back whenever you like: your progress saves itself in this browser, and a question you have not answered waits for you.
- Progress earns stamps in your passport: for countries on a continent, a new continent, sea crossings and a whole continent. The country and continent counters open the passport.
- Want to start over? Under “Your expeditions” you set off from another place, and your route so far stays, so you can go back to it. Lives are shared by all your expeditions, and your stamps stay in your passport.
Lives return every day at midnight.
World Explorer: frequently asked questions
How do I earn an extra life?
Finish any other quiz on this site, except the daily challenge, with at least 6 right answers, and the result screen adds one life to your reserve. Each type of quiz gives at most one life a day, 2 a day in all. When the reserve already holds 5 lives, no more are added. At the end of the day the “Earn a life in a quiz” button draws one of these quizzes for you: “Population density”, “Size illusion”, “Country population”. It leaves out any that already gave a life today.
Where is my progress saved?
Your discovered countries, your route and your lives save themselves in this browser, on this device: there is nothing to click. There is no account and no server, so on another device you start a separate expedition. Clearing site data erases the progress, and some browsers, Safari for one, may remove a site's data after a week without a visit.
How does a shared route link work?
The “Show off your result” button draws a picture of your route and makes a link with your starting country and how many countries you discovered. Whoever opens the link is offered that country as a start and can set off from it or draw their own. Their discovered countries, route and lives are their own, so they cannot see your progress or change it. If they already have an expedition, the link does not overwrite it: they can start a new expedition from there and go back to the old one at any time. Their stamps stay.