How to Be Remarkably Mid at GeoGuessr

Our theme for the month of March is “How to.”

If you love gamifying geography, then Sporcle’s Countries of the World is a great game. However, there’s only so many times you can forget Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Kosovo before it gets stale (frustrating). 

Staring at the orange site and really having no context for what these countries look like also begins to get old.

If you get to this point, you may want to play a Google Maps–based game that uses Street View to place you in a random location and has you guess where in the world you are. That game is GeoGuessr.

Of course, most of you haven’t been to the majority of these countries, but improving at the game doesn’t require you to physically go to every location. In fact, there are some huge tells through Street View that actually make the game easier than real life.

The professionals call these identifying markers “metas,” and they can get very specific. But let’s not figure out bollards meta, tree meta, or even car meta (for the most part). We’re not even going to try to learn how to distinguish Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa. You will still make embarrassing guesses every single day on those.

We’re simply trying to get decent at this game.

Step 1: Figure out driving sides

Only about 30% of countries are left-side driving countries. If you can memorize a few regions, it can move you up from being terrible at the game to being just half bad.

Of course, there are the obvious countries, like the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, but even those can get confused for each other (looking at the sun might help a little, but we’ll get to that).

However, if you feel like you’re in an African country, knowing that Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal are right-side driving countries, while Uganda, Kenya, Botswana, South Africa, Eswatini, and Lesotho are left-side driving countries can help you make a slightly closer guess. 

In Asia, knowing Thailand is a left-side driving country but Laos and Cambodia are right-side driving countries could help you make a much better guess if you recognize they have similar scripts.

Similarly, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia all drive on the left, while the Philippines drives on the right. Japan and Hong Kong are left-side driving countries, while South Korea and Taiwan are right-side driving countries. 

Step 2: Learn a few website domain country codes

Some website domains are self-explanatory. No one will see a .uk domain and guess anything but the United Kingdom (but if you did guess Ukraine, the domain is .ua). 

However others are not as obvious. For instance, .za seems like it could be Zambia, but it is in fact South Africa. 

If you are an English speaker, the .de domain might feel more obvious to go Denmark, until you remember Germans call their country Deutschland and Danish people call their country Danmark (.dk is the proper domain for Denmark) .

A few other helpful domains to know are: .ch (Switzerland, not Chile, which is .cl), .kh (Cambodia, not Kazakhstan, which is .kz), and .li (Liechtenstein, not Lithuania which .lt).

Beware of .tv domains, however. Just because it belongs to Tuvalu does not mean you’re remotely close to it.

Step 3: Okay, I lied, you should actually memorize a little car meta

I said I was staying away from car meta, but there are a few really easy ones to remember that don’t require you to count how many rungs are on the antenna of the car.

First, Mongolia coverage often has a car with camping gear on the roof. It is the only country that looks like this, and while it doesn’t fully help you narrow down where in the country you are, it does give you a starting point.

Secondly, Kenya often has coverage captured by a truck with a snorkel on the right side. The only other country with a snorkel is Mongolia. This should be an easy to spot difference, however, because of the camping gear.

Lastly, Nigeria has a police car that is always following along the coverage car. If you see this, you are in Nigeria.

Step 4: Look at the sun

If you’re a dummy like me who sometimes mistakes Argentina for Canada, it might be helpful to align your compass north. 

If you look north and the sun is facing you, you are in the southern hemisphere. If you look north and the sun is behind you, you are in the northern hemisphere. 

This still won’t save you all the time. After all, I guessed Peru twice when the location was actually Mexico, but it can save you in the extreme cases, like if you’re in southern Chile or Argentina and you want to make sure you’re not in Canada or a Nordic country.

Step 5: Look at license plates; if you see yellow, congrats

While the actual plates are blurred in GeoGuessr, colors seep through. Yellow is one of the easiest colors to spot, and there are only a handful of countries (and specific regions) that use yellow plates.

Most prominently, Colombia and Israel nearly predominantly use yellow plates. 

In Europe, the Netherlands uses front and back yellow license plates, while the United Kingdom only uses back yellow plates, with the front being white. Luxembourg is the only other country in Europe with yellow plates.

Israel and Oman have yellow license plates in the middle east, but as long as you can distinguish Hebrew and Arabic you should be good (Yemen also uses yellow plates on buses and taxis, but not personal cars).

Several African countries have yellow plates, but knowing the Kenya snorkel and which country drives on which side should help narrow it down a little bit. 

Although not yellow, another bright license plate that is easy to spot is Norway’s green plates. It is the only Nordic country with this color plate, which will be found on utility vehicles. 

Step 6: Know the difference between “alto” and “pare”

It’s taken nearly three years, but I’m finally getting to a point where I don’t confuse Central America and South America (most of the time…). One easy first step to doing this is finding stop signs. 

In Central America, “alto” is written on stop signs. In South America, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, “pare” is the default stop sign. This doesn’t help with narrowing down countries once you figure out the region, but it does at least get you a little closer.

Since we’re talking about stop signs, here are a few other hints:

• “Dur” is used in Türkiye. It is the only European country that predominantly uses something other than “stop” (Ukraine and Ireland have alternate variations, but primarily use “stop”)
• Canada has about a million different variations, including “arrêt.” If you see this one, you are in Quebec
• Malaysia uses “berhenti” but Indonesia uses “stop”

Step 7: Remember that not every country has coverage

This should save you at least a little bit of time. The majority of China does not have coverage. There are only a handful of locations that are almost all in big cities and not connected to the actual road.

If you see anything that is only Chinese script, you’re either in Taiwan or Hong Kong.

Additionally, the majority of Africa is not covered, with only 10 countries being included in the game. Essentially, don’t expect to be dropped in the middle of Africa. 

Step 8: Conclusion

If you think you can memorize all of these, you should at least be half-decent at GeoGuessr. I’ve been playing for around three years now, and I’m still fairly mediocre at the game. According to this, at the time of writing, I’m roughly a top-10,000 player.

I’ve learned more beyond this in the years since, but oftentimes, it’s just about getting dropped in similar areas enough to recognize the difference between Finland and Canada.