About World Recall
World Recall asks how many of the world's 195 countries you can name from memory in five minutes. There are no prompts: you just type, each correct name is accepted instantly, and the board fills up region by region.
How to play
- Press Start to begin a five-minute round.
- The target list is 195 countries: the 193 UN member states plus the Holy See and Palestine.
- Type a country name. As soon as it matches, it is accepted and the box clears, so there is no need to press Enter. Case, spaces, accents and punctuation are ignored.
- Some common alternative names are accepted, including USA, UK, Britain, England, Holland, Burma, Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, Swaziland, Cape Verde, East Timor, Macedonia, UAE, DRC, Vatican and Korea (for South Korea).
- Naming a country you already have does nothing. Your score is the number of different countries named.
- The round ends when time runs out, when you name all 195, or when you press I give up. Missed countries are then shown in red.
Controls
- Type on any keyboard; the input box is focused when the round starts.
- Press I give up to end early and see the full list.
- Progress is shown in five region panels, each with a count such as 12/54.
Tips and strategy
- Go region by region and, within a region, move across the map from one neighbour to the next. Walking a mental map is more reliable than random recall.
- Watch the region counters. If Oceania shows 6/14, you know exactly how many Pacific nations are still missing.
- Use the official short names in the list: Czechia, Eswatini, Myanmar, Cabo Verde, Timor-Leste and Turkiye all work, as do most of the aliases above.
- Do the two Congos carefully: Congo is the Republic of the Congo, and DR Congo (or DRC) is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Small states are the usual gaps: the Caribbean islands, the Gulf states, Europe's microstates and the Pacific island nations.
Background
The number of countries in the world depends on who is counting. This game uses the United Nations as its reference: 193 member states, of which South Sudan is the newest, joining in 2011, plus two non-member observer states, the Holy See and Palestine. In the game's grouping Africa has the most countries with 54, followed by Asia with 48, Europe with 44, the Americas with 35 and Oceania with 14. Places such as Taiwan, Kosovo, Greenland and Puerto Rico are not on the list, so typing them will not add to your count.
Questions
- Does the timer pause?
- No. The five-minute clock runs until time is up, you name all 195, or you press I give up.
- Why was my answer not accepted?
- It must match a name on the game's list or one of its built-in aliases. Former or informal names that are not aliases, and territories that are not countries, are not counted.
- Where is my best score saved?
- Your highest count is stored in your browser on this device.