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How to play
- Find it gives you a state name. Click or tap that state on the map.
- Type it highlights a state in blue. Type its name and press Enter. Capital letters do not matter and small spelling slips are accepted, so Conneticut or Massachusets still counts.
- Each state turns green on a first-try answer, yellow if it took two or three tries, and red if it had to be shown.
- Alaska and Hawaii are drawn in the bottom left corner, as on most US maps. They are not in their true positions, and Alaska is drawn much smaller than it really is.
- Rhode Island and Delaware have small circles on them so they are easy to hit, and the zoom buttons make the crowded Northeast much easier on a phone.
When you finish you get your time, your score and a list of the states to work on. Your best result is saved on your device. If you want the capitals as well, the state capitals quiz uses the same map.
How to learn all 50 states
Fifty is a lot to learn by brute force. Breaking the map into small groups that you can picture works far better.
The coasts first
- Pacific: Washington, Oregon and California run down the west coast, top to bottom. Washington is the one that touches Canada.
- Gulf of Mexico: from west to east, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Mississippi and Alabama are the two tall, narrow states side by side, and Mississippi is on the left.
- Atlantic: start at the bottom with Florida, then go up through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
New England, the hard corner
The six New England states are Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Maine is the big one at the top right. Vermont and New Hampshire are a pair of wedges below it that fit together upside down: Vermont is wider at the top and New Hampshire is wider at the bottom. Massachusetts runs across beneath them with its hooked arm, Cape Cod, sticking out into the ocean. Connecticut and tiny Rhode Island sit under Massachusetts, with Rhode Island on the right.
The middle of the country
- North Dakota sits on top of South Dakota, and Nebraska sits under South Dakota. Below Nebraska comes Kansas, then Oklahoma with its long panhandle pointing west.
- Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet at a single point called the Four Corners. Colorado and Wyoming are the two near-rectangles, Wyoming on top.
- Michigan is easy to spot: one part looks like a mitten, and the Upper Peninsula sits above it, between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan.
- Around the Great Lakes, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio all have lake shoreline. Indiana and Illinois are the two tall states next to each other at the south end of Lake Michigan.
Use your mistakes
When you click the wrong state, the game tells you which one you picked. Pay attention to those labels: they show you which neighbours you are mixing up, and that is usually the fastest fix. Common swaps are Vermont and New Hampshire, Iowa and Missouri, and Kentucky and Tennessee. Kentucky is the bumpy one on top, and Tennessee is the long, flat one under it.
Quick facts for the map
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Largest state by area | Alaska |
| Smallest state by area | Rhode Island |
| Last state to join | Hawaii, in 1959 |
| States in New England | Six |
| States that meet at the Four Corners | Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah |
More geography games
Try the same idea north of the border with the Canada provinces and territories quiz, or go further with the Europe map quiz and the world flags quiz. Fancy a word puzzle after all that? Today's Canuckle is a quick five letter puzzle with a Canadian twist.