Guess the country by its shape

A black shape on parchment, with no name, no neighbouring borders and no scale. It is the toughest mode in the game — and the one that teaches fastest.

Try a silhouette

DUO to get going, CASH for five points.

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GeoG Silhouette mode: recognising a country from its outline alone, in DUO, CARRÉ or CASH

How it works

A country's outline appears, on its own: no name, no bordering countries, no landmark. All that is left is the contour.

What makes the mode distinctive is that you choose your difficulty on every question:

DUO — two options, 1 point;
CARRÉ — four options, 3 points;
CASH — nothing at all, you type the name, 5 points.

So you can play it safe on the shapes you hesitate over, and go for CASH on the ones you are sure of. That is what keeps the mode playable for a beginner without making it trivial for someone who knows their maps.

One tip that changes everything: the wrong options nearly always come from the same continent. When a shape suggests West Africa, do not stop at ruling out Asia — look at the coastlines, the peninsulas, the attached islands. Those are what separate Guinea from Ghana.

A note on method: the game's silhouettes are cropped to the main territory. France is metropolitan here, without French Guiana or the other distant territories — otherwise almost every outline would become illegible.

All 195 countries by area

Size is the first reflex when reading a silhouette: an outline has no scale, but knowing whether a country is vast or tiny narrows the search immediately. The table also shows whether the country has a coastline — a landlocked country necessarily has a fully closed contour.

#	Country	Area (km²)	Coastline
1	Russia	17,125,190	Yes
2	Canada	15,634,410	Yes
3	United States	9,831,510	Yes
4	China	9,562,910	Yes
5	Brazil	8,510,420	Yes
6	Australia	7,741,220	Yes
7	India	3,287,260	Yes
8	Argentina	2,780,400	Yes
9	Kazakhstan	2,724,902	No
10	Algeria	2,381,740	Yes
11	DR Congo	2,344,860	Yes
12	Saudi Arabia	2,149,690	Yes
13	Mexico	1,957,193.9	Yes
14	Indonesia	1,916,906.77	Yes
15	Sudan	1,878,000	Yes
16	Libya	1,759,540	Yes
17	Iran	1,745,150	Yes
18	Mongolia	1,564,115.75	No
19	Peru	1,285,215.6	Yes
20	Chad	1,284,000	No
21	Niger	1,267,000	No
22	Angola	1,246,700	Yes
23	Mali	1,240,190	No
24	South Africa	1,219,090	Yes
25	Colombia	1,140,619.1	Yes
26	Ethiopia	1,136,239.7	No
27	Bolivia	1,098,580	No
28	Mauritania	1,030,700	Yes
29	Egypt	1,001,450	Yes
30	Tanzania	947,300	Yes
31	Nigeria	923,770	Yes
32	Venezuela	912,050	Yes
33	Namibia	824,290	Yes
34	Mozambique	799,380	Yes
35	Pakistan	796,100	Yes
36	Turkey	785,350	Yes
37	Chile	757,244.88	Yes
38	Zambia	752,610	No
39	Myanmar	676,590	Yes
40	Afghanistan	652,870	No
41	South Sudan	646,883	No
42	Somalia	637,660	Yes
43	Norway	624,500	Yes
44	Central African Republic	622,980	No
45	France	606,410	Yes
46	Ukraine	603,550	Yes
47	Kenya	591,969	Yes
48	Madagascar	587,295	Yes
49	Botswana	581,730	No
50	Sweden	528,660	Yes
51	Yemen	527,970	Yes
52	Thailand	513,115.021	Yes
53	Spain	505,975.98	Yes
54	Turkmenistan	491,209	No
55	Cameroon	475,440	Yes
56	Papua New Guinea	462,840	Yes
57	Uzbekistan	448,920	No
58	Morocco	446,550	Yes
59	Iraq	435,050	Yes
60	Paraguay	406,752	No
61	Zimbabwe	390,760	No
62	Japan	377,969.27	Yes
63	Germany	357,680	Yes
64	Republic of the Congo	342,000	Yes
65	Finland	338,480	Yes
66	Vietnam	331,338.31	Yes
67	Malaysia	330,411	Yes
68	Ivory Coast	322,460	Yes
69	Poland	313,930	Yes
70	Oman	309,500	Yes
71	Italy	302,070	Yes
72	Philippines	300,000	Yes
73	Burkina Faso	274,200	No
74	New Zealand	267,710	Yes
75	Gabon	267,670	Yes
76	Ecuador	256,370	Yes
77	Guinea	245,860	Yes
78	United Kingdom	243,610	Yes
79	Uganda	241,550	No
80	Ghana	238,539	Yes
81	Romania	238,400	Yes
82	Laos	236,800	No
83	Guyana	214,970	Yes
84	Belarus	207,629	No
85	Kyrgyzstan	199,950	No
86	Senegal	196,710	Yes
87	Syria	185,180	Yes
88	Cambodia	181,040	Yes
89	Uruguay	176,220	Yes
90	Suriname	163,820	Yes
91	Tunisia	163,610	Yes
92	Bangladesh	147,570	Yes
93	Nepal	147,180	No
94	Dominican Republic	146,839.46	Yes
95	Tajikistan	141,379	No
96	Greece	131,960	Yes
97	Nicaragua	130,370	Yes
98	Eritrea	121,765.8	Yes
99	North Korea	120,540	Yes
100	Malawi	118,480	No
101	Benin	114,760	Yes
102	Honduras	112,490	Yes
103	Liberia	111,370	Yes
104	Bulgaria	110,996.758	Yes
105	Cuba	109,880	Yes
106	Guatemala	108,890	Yes
107	Iceland	103,000	Yes
108	South Korea	100,450	Yes
109	United Arab Emirates	98,647.9	Yes
110	Hungary	93,030	No
111	Portugal	92,230	Yes
112	Jordan	89,318	Yes
113	Croatia	88,070	Yes
114	Azerbaijan	86,600	No
115	Serbia	84,990	No
116	Austria	83,879	No
117	Czechia	78,871.43	No
118	Panama	75,320	Yes
119	Sierra Leone	72,300	Yes
120	Ireland	70,280	Yes
121	Georgia	69,700	Yes
122	Sri Lanka	65,610	Yes
123	Lithuania	65,290	Yes
124	Latvia	64,590	Yes
125	Togo	56,790	Yes
126	Bosnia and Herzegovina	51,210	Yes
127	Costa Rica	51,100	Yes
128	Slovakia	49,030	No
129	Estonia	45,340	Yes
130	Denmark	42,920	Yes
131	Netherlands	41,540	Yes
132	Switzerland	41,290.7	No
133	Bhutan	38,390	No
134	Guinea-Bissau	36,130	Yes
135	Moldova	33,850	No
136	Belgium	30,689	Yes
137	Lesotho	30,360	No
138	Armenia	29,740	No
139	Solomon Islands	28,900	Yes
140	Albania	28,750	Yes
141	Equatorial Guinea	28,050	Yes
142	Burundi	27,830	No
143	Haiti	27,750	Yes
144	Rwanda	26,338	No
145	North Macedonia	25,710	No
146	Djibouti	23,200	Yes
147	Belize	22,966	Yes
148	Israel	22,070	Yes
149	El Salvador	21,040	Yes
150	Slovenia	20,480	Yes
151	Fiji	18,270	Yes
152	Kuwait	17,820	Yes
153	Eswatini	17,360	No
154	Timor-Leste	14,870	Yes
155	Montenegro	13,888	Yes
156	Bahamas	13,880	Yes
157	Vanuatu	12,190	Yes
158	Qatar	11,490	Yes
159	Gambia	11,300	Yes
160	Jamaica	10,990	Yes
161	Lebanon	10,450	Yes
162	Cyprus	9,250	Yes
163	Palestine	6,025	Yes
164	Brunei	5,770	Yes
165	Trinidad and Tobago	5,130	Yes
166	Cape Verde	4,030	Yes
167	Samoa	2,840	Yes
168	Luxembourg	2,590	No
169	Mauritius	2,010	Yes
170	Comoros	1,861	Yes
171	São Tomé and Príncipe	960	Yes
172	Kiribati	810	Yes
173	Bahrain	800	Yes
174	Dominica	750	Yes
175	Tonga	750	Yes
176	Singapore	728	Yes
177	Micronesia	700	Yes
178	Saint Lucia	620	Yes
179	Andorra	470	No
180	Palau	460	Yes
181	Seychelles	460	Yes
182	Antigua and Barbuda	440	Yes
183	Barbados	430	Yes
184	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	390	Yes
185	Grenada	340	Yes
186	Malta	320	Yes
187	Maldives	300	Yes
188	Saint Kitts and Nevis	260	Yes
189	Marshall Islands	180	Yes
190	Liechtenstein	160	No
191	Monaco	74.9	Yes
192	San Marino	60	No
193	Tuvalu	30	Yes
194	Nauru	20	Yes
195	Vatican City	0.49	No

Frequently asked

How do you recognise a country from its shape?

By looking first at coastlines, peninsulas and attached islands: they are the most distinctive features. Compactness helps too — a landlocked country has no coastline, so a continuous and often more regular contour.

What do DUO, CARRÉ and CASH mean?

They are the three difficulty levels you pick on each question: DUO gives two options (1 point), CARRÉ four (3 points), CASH none at all and asks you to type the name (5 points).

Why does France not include French Guiana?

Silhouettes are cropped to the main territory. Without that, a country with distant territories would produce an illegible outline at screen scale. Borders mode uses the same convention.

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