About the map

RouteGuess is a daily geography puzzle about land borders. Every route is checked against a border network built from public map data, so there is always at least one valid shortest route, and often several. Any shortest route counts as perfect.

Where the data comes from

Country shapes and borders come from Natural Earth at 1:50 million scale. US state shapes come from the US Census Bureau's cartographic boundary files. Both are in the public domain. Two places are neighbours when their land borders share a line, not just a single point.

Borders that count

Fixed links you can drive or ride across count as borders:

• Denmark and Sweden, over the Øresund Bridge
• United Kingdom and France, through the Channel Tunnel
• Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, over the King Fahd Causeway
• Malaysia and Singapore, over the Johor–Singapore Causeway

Borders that don't

Exclaves and overseas regions are not used to connect countries:

• Russia does not border Poland or Lithuania (Kaliningrad is an exclave)
• Azerbaijan does not border Turkey (Nakhchivan is an exclave)
• Angola does not border the Republic of the Congo (Cabinda is an exclave)
• France does not border Brazil or Suriname (French Guiana is overseas)

Ferries, flights and sea crossings without a bridge or tunnel never count.

Countries and territories on the map

The map includes UN member states plus Kosovo, Palestine, Taiwan, Vatican City. Somaliland is shown as part of Somalia, Northern Cyprus as part of Cyprus and Western Sahara as part of Morocco. Greenland, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong and Macao can be guessed but are never a start or destination. Including a place is a choice for the game, not a statement about sovereignty.

US states

The USA route uses the 48 contiguous states plus Washington, D.C. Alaska and Hawaii can be guessed but have no land route. States that meet only at a point, like Arizona and Colorado at Four Corners, are not neighbours.

Found a mistake?

Borders are tricky. If a route looks wrong, tell us which puzzle and which border, and we'll check it.