You know that I’m a fan of online geography games going way back. I’ve enjoyed the games like GeoGuessr as my go-to game to refine cultural landscape analysis and map navigation skills. Globle, Countryle, and Worldle have all riffed off of the popularity of Wordle, and there is now a new one of these, TRAVLE. Below is a brief introduction to all of these online geography/mapping games.
TRAVLE recap: Travle names two random countries, and you have to draw the most direct land route between the countries with the goal of minimizing the number of states, not essentially the miles.
COUNTRYLE recap: This is the one that relies most on geographic information since the hints are focus on real data. You guess any country, and the hints will tell you if the actual mystery country has a larger or smaller population, a warmer or colder climate…so that is the guesses aren’t just based on luck or hunches, but some evaluation.
WORLDLE recap: Worldle (not misspelled, but the two L’s are a mouthful). This one shows an outline of the a given country and will tell you the distance away from the actual country to help inform further guesses. The better you know the world map, the less “guessing” there is, but still fun.
GLOBLE recap: The game is quite simple but don’t let that fool you into thinking that it will be easy. Like the old game where one player searches for an item in the room, with the other players calling out “hot” or “cold,” until the player finds the object, this website shows a globe, and it will color your choice based on how accurate your guess is with a red color ramp (white=ice cold, deep burgundy=red hot). Each day, they have a new mystery country for you to guess, but the globe that it displays does not show international borders. This fun new guessing game requires a strong mental map as well as getting a little bit of luck…something to get the students’ brains fired at the start of class, especially for the competitive types.
GEOGUESSR recap: This is the granddaddy of them all. When I was a child I used to wonder if woke up somewhere far from home, would I be able to know where I was just by looking at the places around me (I was a geo-geek from way back when). GeoGuessr is the closest thing to finding yourself lost in the world and needing to figure out where you are without being wisked away. GeoGuessr will display 5 locations in GoogleMaps “StreetView” and you have to guess where the images are located. You can pan and zoom in the StreetView to explore the landscape and find more context clues as to where that location is. It is a fantastic exploration exercise.
SETERRA recap: This is my favorite app to recommend to brush up on basics for a map quiz. If you need students to learn where in the world things are without having to take up class time with map quizzes and the like, this app is great. It has basic “countries and capitals” quizzes for world regions, but it also has some more difficult quizzes for the those that need/want a challenge (Seterra is owned by GeoGuessr).
CITY LIGHTS AT NIGHT: The 14 questions from an article in The Guardian shows the outline, grid pattern, and (possibly) the coastline with rivers that flow through the city. This isn’t just about knowing a city, but also identifying regional and urban patterns.
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 