GeoGuessr is a web-based geographic discovery game designed by Anton Wallén, a Swedish IT consultant, released on 9 May 2013. The game uses a semi-randomised Google Street View location and requires players to guess their location in the world using only the clues visible. The website received hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per day within a week of being released.
The idea for GeoGuessr came from Wallén’s love of visiting far away locations on Google Street View, and the way in which it gave a visitor the sense of actually being there. He decided to add a gaming element to it. The development of the game took a couple of weeks, spread over a period of several months.
For anyone who has been playing the game for some time and wants to improve their scores, see our top tips below to level up your GeoGuessR game!
Learn The Basic Look of Various Languages
If you can pick out various languages for example English, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Thai for example then this will help out a lot to identify the country or at least narrow down the options. With more specific languages it will give you the country and for languages spoken across several countries it will narrow down the options.
Hello, how are you? | こんにちは、元気ですか？(Japanese)
Hello, how are you? | Привет, как ты? (Russian)
Hello, how are you? | สวัสดีสบายดีไหม (Thai)
Flags of the World
Learning as many flags as possible will really help increase your scores. It’s a quick way to identify a country and then start to narrow down the possible location from that point. Even just knowing the colours of country flags can be beneficial in finding clues that will assist.
Road Signs for Place Names and Style
If there are any road signs on the screen then this is your best chance of pinpointing the location. Firstly you may recognise the places names, if not and you know the country it may advise the road name or a place close by that you can use to narrow your guess.
Traffic
If there are cars, which side of the road are they driving on? If it’s the left then options would include South Africa, Botswana, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and Japan. If there aren’t any cars on the road, then check what side the road signs are on and use that information to your advantage.
Taxis
Following on from traffic, learning the popular cars in various countries can be an advantages. Building on this being able to recognise taxis in various countries can really help narrow down the options for a guess. We all know the iconic black cabs of London and yellow taxis of New York but expanding this awareness to other countries will really help improve those cars. Below we have Volkswagen taxis in Tunisia!
International Domains
Knowing the international domains for various countries can really help to locate the country. Website addresses can be found on advertising, shops, posters and buildings. Knowing that .al is Albania, .br is Brazil, .ch is Switzerland and .dk is Denmark can be valuable information when dropped in those countries. Below shows a shop in Belgium as .be is the extension for Belgium.
Record Notes For Future Research
If you start a file or document with the little clues you pick up as you move from map to map, this will be beneficial in the long run. When you find a brand that appears multiple times in a country on posters and advertising, note it down. If you notice that the power lines or pylons are a different shape in a certain country note that down. If you start to notice the differences between licenses plates in different countries, makes notes and before long you will have a good index to learn from in between games when you want to brush up your skills.
Do you have any tips for other readers to increase their GeoGuessR scores?