Guess the Country from Its Shape
Fifteen countries drawn as plain silhouettes, with the whole coastline buried under foil.
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Fifteen countries drawn as plain silhouettes, with the whole coastline buried under foil.
Outlines traced from Natural Earth coastline data, which its makers put in the public domain. Each country is cut back to the landmass people actually picture when they hear the name, so France keeps Corsica and loses French Guiana rather than appearing as a map stretched across the Atlantic.
The land is one colour and the sea is another. There are no borders drawn inside the shape, no labels, no rivers and no cities, so there is nothing at all to read. Only the edge carries information.
Among the names you will meet here: Italy, Australia, Japan, Chile and Madagascar.
Scratching a face nearly always lands on something. Scratching a map often lands on open sea, and a swipe that reveals nothing costs you exactly as much as one that reveals everything.
Thin countries punish you twice over. Chile is a ribbon, so most of the card is water, but the moment you find the ribbon the answer is obvious. Round islands do the opposite. You hit land straight away and then spend a long time working out which island you are looking at.
Diagonals beat straight lines here. A corner to corner swipe crosses more of the card than a flat one and is far more likely to catch an edge, and the edge is the only part of the picture that tells you anything.
Your score is 100 minus the percentage of the card you scratched. A wrong name scores nothing at all, however little you used. The full rules, the badge bands and an explanation of why the picture stays blurry are on the main page.