How to Play Globetrot
Globetrot is a geography quiz game with two classic rounds. In a Map round a country is named under the map, such as “Find Switzerland”, and you tap or click it. Get it right and it turns green. Get it wrong and the country you tapped flashes red with its name, so every mistake teaches you a neighbor; after two misses the right country flashes and you tap it to go on. In a Flags round you see a flag and pick its country from four choices, all from the same part of the world, so you learn to tell similar flags apart.
Drag to move the map, pinch or use the mouse wheel to zoom, and use the +, − and Fit buttons. Very small countries, such as Vatican City, Monaco, Singapore or Tuvalu, get a round tap circle so you can hit them on a phone, and a tap on a crowd of circles zooms in on them. Before a map round starts you can press Show names to study to see every country of that region labeled, then hide the names and test yourself.
Six Tours, 20 Legs, Every Country in the World
The quiz covers all 194 countries: the 193 member states of the United Nations plus Vatican City. They are grouped into six tours, one per inhabited continent, and each tour is split into legs of six to 13 countries:
- Europe (45 countries): Western Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Balkans.
- Africa (54 countries): North Africa and the Sahel, West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and the Horn, and Southern Africa.
- Asia (46 countries): East and South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia, Iran and the Caucasus.
- North America (23 countries): North America and the Greater Antilles, Central America, and the Lesser Antilles.
- South America (12 countries).
- Oceania (14 countries): Australia and Melanesia, and Micronesia and Polynesia.
Every leg has a Map round and a Flags round, and every tour ends with a Grand Tour: a map round of the whole continent. That makes 46 rounds. All six tours are open from the start, so a class studying Africa can go straight there. Clear a leg’s map round to open its flags round and the next leg; clear every round of a tour to open its Grand Tour, and clear that to stamp the tour’s seal in your passport. Finish all six tours to become a World Traveler.
Your Passport
Every country you find on the map is stamped into your passport in its own outline, inked in the color of its continent. Name its flag and the flag is pinned to the stamp. The Stamps tab shows each tour as a page of stamps, so you can see at a glance which countries you know and which are still blank, and the passport cover fills with a seal for each tour you finish. There are 25 awards to collect along the way.
How Globetrot Helps You Learn the World Map
Globetrot uses spaced practice, the same method as our times tables game Mathlap: recalling something again after a gap, on another day, makes it stick far better than repeating it many times in one sitting. Each country has two facts to learn, where it is on the map and what its flag looks like, and each fact sits in one of six boxes. A quick right answer on the first try (within eight seconds for a map question, six for a flag) moves a new fact up. From the third box on, a fact only moves up when you answer it quickly on a later day, so a fact counts as mastered only once you have known it on two different days. Mastered facts come back for a quick check after a few days, then a week, then two weeks.
When you miss a country it comes back two or three questions later in the same round, up to twice, so you get it right before the round ends. Leg rounds also slip in up to three countries from earlier legs that are due for review, and the daily round is built from the facts that are due first. A gold star on a stamp means mastered.
Daily Round and Practice
The Daily round is a fresh set of 12 questions each day, mixing map and flag questions from the countries you have met and the ones due for review. Your best score for the day is kept and a streak counts the days in a row you have played it. Practice missed is a round of up to 12 of the countries and flags you have missed most often.
Tips for Learning Countries and Flags
- Study first, then test. Turn on the names before a map round, look for shapes and neighbors, then hide them.
- Learn by neighbors. Lesotho sits inside South Africa, Gambia is almost surrounded by Senegal, and Bhutan lies between India and China. A wrong tap names the country you hit, which is a free lesson in who borders whom.
- Look for flag families. Many West African flags share red, yellow and green; the Nordic flags share a cross; Indonesia and Monaco are both red over white. The four choices come from the same region on purpose.
- Little and often. A few rounds and the daily round each day beat one long session, because mastery only moves on later days.
- Zoom on tiny states. The Caribbean and the Pacific are full of island countries: zoom in, or tap their circles.
Geography Quiz Games, Then and Now
Map quizzes have a long history, from wooden jigsaw maps of the world to classroom atlas tests. On the web, Seterra made “click the country” map quizzes a school staple, Sporcle and JetPunk turned “name every country” into a challenge, and daily puzzles such as Globle and Worldle made guessing a country a morning habit. Globetrot keeps the familiar map quiz and flag quiz and adds a light career on top: a passport to fill, tours to finish, and countries you miss that come back until you know them. It is free in the browser, with no sign-up and no chat, and your progress stays on your own device.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I play Globetrot?
Pick a tour (a continent) and start its first round. In a Map round a country is named under the map and you tap or click it; in a Flags round you see a flag and choose its country from four names. Clear a leg’s map round to open its flags round and the next leg, clear every round of a tour to open its Grand Tour, and clear the Grand Tour to stamp that continent’s seal in your passport.
Which countries are in the quiz?
All 194 countries: the 193 member states of the United Nations plus Vatican City, under their common English short names. Europe has 45, Africa 54, Asia 46, North America 23, South America 12 and Oceania 14. Russia is in the Europe tour, Turkey in Asia, and Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean in North America. Borders follow the internationally recognized lines. Four areas whose status is unresolved under United Nations resolutions are drawn hatched and are never asked about: Crimea, the Golan Heights, Western Sahara and Kashmir. Self-declared breakaway regions with no UN seat, such as Northern Cyprus and Somaliland, count as part of the country the UN recognizes. Dependent territories such as Greenland or Puerto Rico, and places outside the 194 such as Kosovo, Taiwan and Palestine, are drawn but not asked. Tapping any of these areas never counts as a mistake.
Why 194 countries and not 195?
There is no single official count, and lists differ by one or two. Globetrot uses a rule anyone can check: the 193 member states of the United Nations, plus the Holy See (Vatican City), a UN observer state that almost every country recognizes. That makes 194. Palestine, the other UN observer state, is recognized by many countries but not by all, so it is drawn on the map but not asked about. Lists that say 195 usually take these 194 and add Palestine or Kosovo. Taiwan and Kosovo govern themselves and are recognized by some UN members, but neither is a UN member, so each is drawn as its own area and never asked; regions with little or no recognition, such as Northern Cyprus and Somaliland, count as part of the UN member that includes them. The flags are the current national flags, including Syria's flag of 2025; for Afghanistan the quiz shows the black, red and green tricolor that its United Nations seat still uses.
What happens when I tap the wrong country?
The country you tapped flashes red and its name is shown, so you learn where it is, and you can try again. A tap just beside the right country is not a miss: the map zooms in so you can tap it (once the map is zoomed all the way in, a tap on a neighbor is a miss). After two misses the right country flashes and you tap it to move on. The country you missed comes back two or three questions later in the same round, marked with a small arrow, and it is asked more often on later days until you know it. In a Flags round a wrong choice shows the right answer and names the country on the map.
How do I clear a round and win a medal?
A round is cleared when at least half of its countries are right on the first try, which earns bronze. 75% or more is silver and 90% or more is gold. Countries that come back after a miss do not count against you, and you can replay any round to improve its medal and its best score.
How can I tap tiny countries like Vatican City, Monaco or Tuvalu on a phone?
Any country of the round whose largest island is too small to tap at the current zoom gets a round tap circle at its center, and the same circles stay on the map for the whole round. A tap on the country you are asked for, or on its circle, is right. A tap on another country, or on another country’s circle, is never right: if the country you are asked for is right beside it, or several circles crowd together, the map zooms in and nothing is counted; otherwise it is a miss. A tap in the sea just off a coast or just outside a circle counts for the closest country. A quick second tap in the same spot is ignored, so a double-tap never costs two tries. Central America and the Lesser Antilles are legs of their own, so their maps start close up. On a phone, a Grand Tour, daily or Practice round shows one region of the continent at a time, and each question opens on the region that holds its country. You can also pinch or press the + button to zoom in. On a keyboard, the arrow keys move the map, + and − zoom, and Enter shows a crosshair and picks the country under it.
What does mastered mean, and why does it take more than one day?
Each country has two facts, its place on the map and its flag, and each fact sits in one of six boxes. A quick right answer on the first try (within eight seconds on the map, six for a flag) moves a new fact up, but from the third box on it only moves up on a later day. So a fact is mastered once you have answered it quickly on two different days. That is spaced practice, and it is what makes the map stay in your head. Mastered facts get a gold star in your passport and come back for review after a few days, then a week, then two weeks.
What are the daily round and the Practice round?
The daily round is a fresh set of 12 map and flag questions each day, built first from your own facts that are due for review. Your best score for the day is kept and a streak counts the days in a row you play it. Practice missed is a round of up to 12 of the countries and flags you have missed most often. Neither one changes your medals.
How is the leaderboard score worked out?
Your score is your passport points: the best score of every round you have cleared, added together. A first-try answer is worth 100 points plus up to 50 for speed, a second try 40, and a country that came back after a miss and is now right 25. Clearing a round adds 100, 200 or 300 for bronze, silver or gold. Your total is offered to the leaderboard on the passport screen, never over a result: after your first cleared round, after you finish a tour, and whenever it has grown by 2,000 points since the last time.
Is my progress saved, and does it work on a Chromebook or tablet?
Your passport is saved in your browser after every round and every setting change, and Continue on the start screen picks up where you left off. A round in progress is not saved, but rounds are short. The map is drawn in 2D so it runs well on school Chromebooks and tablets, the buttons are large for touch screens, and a keyboard works too: 1 to 4 for flag answers and P to pause.
Is Globetrot good for geography lessons at school?
Yes. There is no sign-up, no chat and nothing to download, every tour is open from the start so a class can go straight to the continent it is studying, and the Show names option lets students study a region before they are tested on it. The passport’s Stamps tab shows which countries and flags a player knows and which are mastered.
