Frequently Asked Questions
How is my answer graded?
By where you tapped, and how quickly. A tap inside the place's outline is correct; a quick correct answer counts for more. A near-miss counts as close. Anything else is a miss.
Why does a place come back when it does?
The app uses spaced repetition, an evidence-based learning strategy to help you learn things efficiently and for the long haul. Each place comes back around the time you would be likely to start forgetting it. A place you find easily comes back less and less often, and a place you miss comes back sooner. That way, a few minutes a day goes a long way.
For more details, see Why a Place Comes Back.
What are field notes?
Field notes are mnemonics: little memory tricks for finding places, like "Big gorillas eat hamburgers, not cold pizza" for the countries of Central America, north to south. Some come with the app, and you can rewrite them, hide them, or write your own for any place.
They show up when a place gives you trouble: after a miss or a close answer, and when you review your mistakes. To read or edit them any time, tap a place on Today's globe. To make letters bold, wrap them in &&, like &&this&&.
Where is my progress stored?
Only on this device. There is no account, and nothing is sent anywhere.
So if you're serious about this, we recommend backing up your data somewhat regularly, with Export Progress & Data in Settings. If you clear your browser's cookies or cache, or lose your device, you'll lose all of your progress and history. Import Progress & Data brings a backup back, on this device or a new one.
The Privacy Policy says more about what stays on your device, and what the app does and does not collect.
Why should I add this app to my home screen?
From your home screen, it opens like any other app and works offline. To add it on an iPhone, tap Share in Safari, then Add to Home Screen; most other browsers offer Install or Add to Home Screen in their menu.
It also keeps your progress safer: Safari can clear the data of a website you haven't opened in about a week, and an app on your home screen is spared that.
One catch: the home-screen app keeps its own progress, separate from the browser's. Pick one and stick with it, or move your progress across with Export Progress & Data and Import Progress & Data in Settings.
What is a Deck, and what are Anchors?
Each Deck is a set of places, like the UN's countries of the world or Australia's states and territories. Choose which Deck you want to learn next from Decks, at the top left of Today.
The larger Decks begin with a chapter of Anchors: a selection of the biggest and most recognizable places in the Deck. They're useful for getting your bearings before you start filling in the gaps between them.
How were the chapters within each Deck chosen?
We make each Deck by dividing the places into reasonably recognizable regions, in chunks of relatively similar size, for the sake of memorization. No grouping will be perfect: some countries (or states, provinces, and so on) could belong in more than one region, and some regions could themselves be merged or split.
We took some editorial liberties, but we chose the path that should make it easiest for you to learn, and hardest for anyone to get too upset about.
How do you decide what counts as a country?
The main Deck for the countries of the world holds exactly the member states of the United Nations. Following the UN's list as best we can is not a political statement; it's simply the most widely shared answer to a question with no perfect one. Places outside that list, such as Kosovo and Taiwan, are not in this deck.
Where does the map data come from?
Every outline comes from Natural Earth, a free, public-domain map of the world, at its most detailed scale. That is why even the smallest countries are here, and why some of them take real zooming to find.