How to play MapFinder
MapFinder is a map guessing game. It names a place, you find it on a 3D satellite globe, and the closer you land the more you score. A round takes about twenty seconds and you can start without reading any of this. Everything below is here for when you want it.
No sign-up. The first round starts as soon as the globe loads.
A round, start to finish
Every round is the same four beats, whichever mode you are in.
- 1
Read the place
The card names what to find. In capitals mode that is a city, as in "Where in the world is Lisbon?", and your very first round is the capital of your own country, so you start with something you already half know.
- 2
Spin the globe
Drag to rotate the planet, scroll or pinch to zoom. The imagery is real satellite photography, so coastlines, deserts and mountain ranges are all usable clues. Place names stay hidden until you have guessed.
- 3
Drop your pin
Tap or click the spot. You get one guess per round and there is no undo, which is what makes a confident click worth something.
- 4
Watch the reveal
The camera flies out to frame your guess and the real answer together, draws the arc between them, and tells you how far off you were and what it scored.
The controls
Everything happens on the globe itself. There is no menu to learn, and a drag never registers as a guess, so you can spin and zoom as long as you like before you commit.
| What you want | Mouse or trackpad | Touch |
|---|---|---|
| Spin the planet | Drag anywhere | Drag with one finger |
| Zoom in and out | Scroll | Pinch with two fingers |
| Place your guess | Click the spot | Tap the spot |
| Look without guessing | Drag freely. Only a click that has not moved counts. | Same. A drag is never a guess. |
| Steer from the keyboard | Tab to the globe, then arrow keys pan and the plus and minus keys zoom | Not on touch |
The globe stays north up throughout. There is no tilt or rotation to get lost in, so the shape you are looking at is always the shape you would see on a map.
What every distance is worth
MapFinder uses the same curve as GeoGuessr: 5,000 points for a round, falling away exponentially with the distance between your pin and the answer. Anything inside 25 km is rounded up to the full 5,000, because a capital city is itself about that big and the curve should not shave points inside the city limits.
| Points | How far off | What that usually means |
|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | Up to 25 km (15 mi) | The city itself. The globe leaves a gold beacon. |
| 4,000 | 330 km (205 mi) | The right city, or its nearest large neighbour. |
| 3,000 | 760 km (475 mi) | The right country, wrong end of it. |
| 2,500 | 1,030 km (640 mi) | The country next door. |
| 2,000 | 1,370 km (850 mi) | The right corner of the right continent. |
| 1,000 | 2,400 km (1,490 mi) | The right continent, and not much more. |
| 500 | 3,435 km (2,135 mi) | The right hemisphere. |
| 100 | 5,835 km (3,625 mi) | A different continent. |
Because the curve is smooth there is no cliff to fall off, and no reason to hedge. Missing by 100 km costs about 325 points, and a pin anywhere inside the right country almost always banks more than half the round. Committing to your best instinct beats clicking the middle of a continent to spread the damage.
A capitals run is five rounds, which makes 25,000 a perfect run. Distances read in miles if your device is set to the US, the UK, Liberia or Myanmar, and in kilometres everywhere else.
The two modes
Capitals is the five-round run described above: a named capital city, one guess, a score out of 5,000. Rounds get harder as the run goes on, moving from the capitals almost everyone knows to the ones almost nobody does.
Countries is a race instead of a score. The game names a country, you click it on the globe, and it keeps going until you have found the whole world. The clock is the scoreboard, and the countries you have found stay painted on the planet behind you.
Getting better at it
Most of the improvement in a map guessing game is not memorising more places. It is learning to use what the planet is already telling you, and not throwing away points you have already earned.
- Anchor before you zoom. Find the continent, then the country, then the coast. Zooming first is how you end up hunting for a city in the wrong hemisphere with the clock running.
- Zoom in before you commit. Full marks need 25 km. When the whole planet fits your screen, a single pixel is somewhere between 15 and 35 km wide, which is the entire perfect band. Once you know the city, the last two zoom steps are free points.
- Capitals love water. A large share of them sit on a coast, a major river or a lake. If you know the country and not the city, guess the biggest piece of navigable water.
- Read the terrain. Desert, snow line, rainforest and river delta each narrow a latitude band fast, and the satellite imagery shows every one of them.
- Guess the centre when you are lost. A pin in the middle of the right country is usually worth 2,500 to 4,000. A confident pin in the wrong country often is not worth 2,000.
- Watch the reveal. The flight from your guess to the answer is the part that teaches. It shows you the relationship you got wrong, not just the fact you missed.
Questions people ask
Is MapFinder free to play?
Yes. Every round is free, there is no round limit, and there is nothing to buy. You do not need an account and there is nothing to install, because the whole game runs in a browser tab.
Do I need to sign up or install anything?
No. Open the page and the first round starts. Your best scores and times are saved in your own browser, so nothing is tied to an email address.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The globe is built for one thumb: drag to spin, pinch to zoom, tap to guess. Distances show in miles for players in the US, the UK, Liberia and Myanmar, and in kilometres everywhere else.
What do I need to run it?
Any current browser with WebGL, which means Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge on both desktop and mobile. If your device refuses a 3D context the game says so in plain words rather than showing a black screen. You do need to be online, because the satellite tiles stream in as you zoom.
How is this different from GeoGuessr?
GeoGuessr drops you into a street view photo and asks where it was taken. MapFinder names a place, either a capital city or a country, and asks you to find it on a 3D satellite globe. The scoring curve is the same one, but rounds are quicker and nothing sits behind a login or a paywall.
How many capitals are in the game?
There are 198: the 193 UN member states plus Palestine, Kosovo, Taiwan, Vatican City and Bermuda. Countries mode uses a slightly different roster of 195. Nothing repeats until the pool it was drawn from runs out.
Can I use MapFinder in a classroom?
Yes. There is no sound, no chat, no user-generated content and no sign-up, so it projects on a board and shares by link. The only things on screen are satellite imagery and place names.
What counts as a perfect score?
A guess within 25 km (15 miles) of the answer scores the full 5,000 points. Past that the score falls away on a curve, so being close still pays even when you miss.