GeoOracle#124

100 pts?

I've carried empires on my waters and now connect a continent.

Once I marked where Rome's power ended, now I'm a thread stitching ten nations together.

GeoOracle: the daily geography guessing game

Use geographical, cultural and historical clues to identify today's mystery location. One place a day, the same for everyone, no account needed.

What GeoOracle is

GeoOracle is a daily geography puzzle. Every day one place on Earth — a city, a landmark or a region — starts talking about itself in first person, and never says its name. Your job is to work out which place it is. Everyone in the world gets the same puzzle on the same day.

You start with 100 points. The first clue is free, four more can be revealed for 10 to 15 points each. You may ask the place up to three questions in your own words, 10 points each, and you have six attempts to name it; a wrong guess costs 5 points. Local names, historical names and small typos all count as correct.

How it works

01Read the clues. The place introduces itself and gives up to five hints, from cryptic to obvious. The first is free, the rest cost points.
02Ask it questions. Up to three, in your own words. It answers in character but never says its name.
03Name the place. Six guesses, and the points you have left are your score. Come back tomorrow for the next one.

Full rules →

How a puzzle is made

Every place starts as an entry in Wikidata: coordinates, country, population, founding date, and the names it goes by in other languages. A short factual summary from Wikipedia is added to that. This fact sheet is the only thing a puzzle may be built from, and it is also all the place knows when it answers your questions — which is why it will tell you it does not remember rather than make something up.

A language model turns the fact sheet into the opening line and the five clues, ordered from poetic to almost giving it away. A second pass checks every clue against the fact sheet and flags any claim it cannot support, and a filter rejects any text containing the name of the place or one of its aliases. A puzzle that fails either check is not published. The next one goes live at 01:00 Central European Time.

More than the daily puzzle

If one puzzle a day is not enough, four practice modes wait behind the bar under the title: countries, capitals and landmarks as endless rounds of the same puzzle, and a flag quiz over all 195 UN member and observer states. Practice keeps its own statistics and leaves your daily streak alone.

Questions and answers

When does the new puzzle appear?: At 01:00 Central European Time — midnight UTC in winter, 23:00 UTC in summer. The result screen counts down to the exact moment.
Do I need an account?: No. GeoOracle has no accounts and no login. Your progress, your streak and your statistics live in your own browser and never leave your device.
How is my score calculated?: You start at 100. Clue 1 is free, clues 2 and 3 cost 10 points each, clues 4 and 5 cost 15 each. Every question costs 10 points, every wrong guess 5. Whatever is left when you name the place is your score.
What counts as the right answer?: The usual name of the place, its local name, historical names, and common misspellings. Naming only the country is not enough when the answer is a city or a landmark.
Why does the place dodge some of my questions?: It only knows what is on its fact sheet, and it must not say or spell out its own name. If the answer is not on the sheet it says so instead of guessing, and a question aimed straight at the name is turned away — that one costs you nothing.
Can I play older puzzles?: The archive holds every finished puzzle with its clues, its answer and the story of the place, but not as a playable round. Only the puzzle of the day can be played, so that everyone is playing the same one.
Which languages does GeoOracle speak?: English and German. The clues are written in English and translated for the German version. You can switch language whenever you like, mid-game included.
What are the other game modes?: Countries, Capitals and Landmarks are the daily puzzle restricted to one category and playable as often as you like, without questions to the place. Flags is a separate quiz: ten flags per round, three attempts each, hints on continent and capital. None of them affects your daily streak.

Recent puzzles

All puzzles in the archive →