Country Naming

[polarea]

Here's a fun little quiz I found via kottke for people here. I missed 67 countries, but I found the time pressure kind of neat. I was working my way west to east across the world and found myself still typing in long African country names with only two minutes left, and not having started Asia or Oceania, so definitely more time would have helped. A tip for slow typers (or anyone who knows enough countries to have time pressure in 10 minutes) - stick to one word countries. I also tripped myself up by typing in "Bahamas" instead of "The Bahamas" several times, and misspelling Libya "Lybia" or "Libia" at least three or four times in an attempt to get that country at the top of Africa that I knew should be in there.

http://andys.org.uk/countryquiz/

[jupiter9]

Here's a fun little quiz I found via kottke for people here. I missed 67 countries, but I found the time pressure kind of neat. I was working my way west to east across the world and found myself still typing in long African country names with only two minutes left, and not having started Asia or Oceania, so definitely more time would have helped. A tip for slow typers (or anyone who knows enough countries to have time pressure in 10 minutes) - stick to one word countries. I also tripped myself up by typing in "Bahamas" instead of "The Bahamas" several times, and misspelling Libya "Lybia" or "Libia" at least three or four times in an attempt to get that country at the top of Africa that I knew should be in there.

http://andys.org.uk/countryquiz/

Wow, thanks. You did much better than I. I had 119 left, meaning I only came up with 73.

There's a fun similar quiz here, where you are shown the country's name and have to select the country:

http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/

They question you one continent at a time. It also quizzes you on states -- US, Canada, China, India, even Russia.

[rkd]

That was neat. I ended up with 69 left, due in part to my repeated mispellings.

[polarea]

There's a fun similar quiz here, where you are shown the country's name and have to select the country:

http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/

They question you one continent at a time. It also quizzes you on states -- US, Canada, China, India, even Russia.

If you like that type of stuff, try this one from mental floss:

http://www.mentalfloss.com/geographyzone/

I still stink at the capitals one, because I think knowing the name of the capital of a country is way down on my list of interesting/relevant things to know about a country (much rather know population/languages/religions/major cities). But I've gotten reasonably good at the countries challenge except for bits of the carribean and the islands of oceania.

[econgator]

That was neat. I ended up with 69 left, due in part to my repeated mispellings.

Did that include your misspelling of 'mispellings'?

Sorry, Raj, couldn't resist ......

[shelberry]

I got 72 the first time. Tried again and got 72 again, but missed different countries than I had the first time. Next time I got 69, but still missed countries I'd had before. So, I decided to give it one more shot. I got only 85, with a minute left and my mind blank.

Then I figured out that I'd wasted 40 minutes with that...and decided that was enough. :0)

[adehp]

I missed 61 the first try, and just got worse from there. Has anyone else noticed that they are missing an entire portion of the world? I got almost all of Europe, Africa, and Asia, but I completely missed everything from Mexico to Panama, including all islands in the Caribbean. On another try, I got most of those, but missed the entire area in between Chad/Kenya and South Africa. On yet another try, I missed Australia, Japan, China, Russia, India, and Vietnam... but got Andorra, Monaco, Eritrea, Luxembourg, Malta and Belize... That was my last try, and I just gave up after seeing what I missed.

[ArtVark]

This one was in my wheelhouse -- I'd memorized the list sometime back. I still missed 19 on the first try --
I could not get either Congos -- forgot the Maldives, could not spell Kyrgyzstan, I punted on almost every place with an 'and' in the name, forgot about Austria when I went through Europe, and missed a few West African Countries and a couple of Pacific Islands.

[bwouns]

I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out exactly how to phrase "Bosnia and Herzegovina" and "The Democratic Republic of Congo" but I did pretty well, missing five. Antigua and Barbuda, Malawi, Moldova, Qatar and for some reason I completely skipped over Turkey (subconscious anger over the Armenian genocide perhaps?)

[porpoise spit]

So I missed 37, including, um, the United States. Oops.

[ArtVark]

While checking out some country stuff, I came across the following factoid which I
will make into a trivia question:

What country is listed in the CIA-factbook as "The Oriental Republic of _________________"
where the blank is the name we commonly use to refer to this country?

[econgator]

What country is listed in the CIA-factbook as "The Oriental Republic of _________________"
where the blank is the name we commonly use to refer to this country?

An interesting question, although 'Oriental' in this case has nothing to do with the citizen of this country being from 'The Orient'.

[ArtVark]

What country is listed in the CIA-factbook as "The Oriental Republic of _________________"
where the blank is the name we commonly use to refer to this country?

An interesting question, although 'Oriental' in this case has nothing to do with the citizen of this country being from 'The Orient'.

That's precisely why I think that it is a good trivia question.