This quiz shows the world map without borders. The land is one continuous shape, with coastlines only. A red dot marks one capital city. You name that city.
The country is not the answer. The city is. You must know where the capital sits inside its country, and many capitals are far from the place a player expects.
How to play
Each run has 20 rounds. One red dot appears per round.
You get one guess per dot. The first capital name you type in full is your answer, right or wrong.
The answer bar matches as you type. You do not need to press Enter.
One exception: a name that starts another capital's name does not commit while you type. Press Enter to submit it.
Press the skip button if you do not know the city. The round counts as wrong and the answer appears.
A correct answer turns the dot green. A wrong answer shows the capital and its country, then the next dot appears.
One point per correct dot. The maximum score is 20 points. The timer counts up from zero.
What counts in this quiz
The pool holds about 160 capital cities, one for each country in the quiz. Each run draws 20 of them.
The dot sits on the city, not on the middle of the country.
The accepted spellings match the World Capitals quiz. Common alternative forms count, for example "Nuku'alofa", "Washington D.C." and "Ulan Bator".
Countries with more than one capital use the same city as the World Capitals quiz: Pretoria for South Africa, La Paz for Bolivia, Yamoussoukro for Côte d'Ivoire, Gitega for Burundi, Dodoma for Tanzania and Porto-Novo for Benin.
Africa and the Caribbean hold many countries in a small part of the map. The randomizer draws them a little less often, so one run covers more of the world. It never removes them.
What's not included — and why
Micronations and very small island states are excluded, for example Vatican City, Monaco, Singapore, Malta and the Maldives. At this map scale their dot sits on what looks like open ocean.
A few larger island states go out for the same reason, because the map does not draw the island the capital stands on: Cape Verde, Samoa, Vanuatu, the Bahamas and Equatorial Guinea.
Territories and dependencies are excluded. Only the capitals of sovereign countries appear, matching the World Capitals quiz.
Good to know
A capital is often not the largest city of its country. Canberra, Ottawa, Brasilia, Abuja and Naypyidaw were all built or chosen to hold the government, and each one is smaller than the country's biggest city.
Some capitals sit almost on a border. Kinshasa and Brazzaville face each other across the Congo River, so one dot can look like two answers.
The hardest dots are the purpose-built inland capitals. A dot on Naypyidaw or Yamoussoukro has no coastline nearby to orient by.