💾 Archived View for jsreed5.org › misc › witw-log › 0101-0150-archive.gmi captured on 2024-09-29 at 00:53:10. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Where In The World? • Puzzle #150 • 2022-12-28 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Kazakhstan)
I'd wager that most people who are familiar with the Baikonur Cosmodrome will be familiar with the shape of Kazakhstan. Another feature I quickly hone in on is the western border, on the east coast of the Caspian Sea.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #149 • 2022-12-27 ✅❌❌❌❌↗️ ✅✅✅✅❌↖️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Latvia)
My wife commented that the outline of Latvia resembles a vulture. I can't say she's wrong.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #148 • 2022-12-26 ✅✅❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅❌❌⬆️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Cyprus)
Parts of Cyrpus's northern border resemble South Africa to me, but I knew this country was too squat to be that. I had a suspicion it was Brunei at first; after guessing it, I remembered that Brunei had an exclave. The direction pointed me in the general direction of Africa, so I guessed Burundi next. From there, the most likely answer was Cyprus.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #147 • 2022-12-25 ✅✅✅✅❌⬆️ ✅✅✅✅🤏➡️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: French Guiana)
Another lucky guess, I suppose. The country somewhat resembled Brazil to me, though I knew that guess would be wrong. However, it did put me on track enough to know this was a country on the northern coast of South America. A few short hops later brought me to the correct answer.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #146 • 2022-12-24 ✅✅✅✅❌⬇️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Nigeria)
I've guessed Nigeria on a few answers before, but seeing it now, I realize how far off that guess was. I first suspicion was Spain, given the small hooked area to the southeast that resembled Gibraltar. It was only from that first guess that I was directed to the African coast, and from there, Nigeria was a lucky guess.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #145 • 2022-12-23 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Turkmenistan)
Where In The World? • Puzzle #144 • 2022-12-22 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Canada)
I have a relative who lives in Canada, and as an American, I see maps of Canada next to the United States all the time. Probably its most distinguishable feature to me is the massive Hudson Bay, followed by the fragmented islands of Nunavut.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #143 • 2022-12-21 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: United Kingdom)
I don't actually have much of a gripe with constitutional monarchy.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #142 • 2022-12-20 ❌❌❌❌❌➡️ ✅✅❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅❌❌↗️ ✅✅✅✅❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Malaysia)
I did something I've never done before and modified my final answer on this one, knowing that I logically had only one real answer to what this country was but deliberately choosing a wrong answer because I didn't think it was right. I changed the final choice to reflect what I could logically deduce the only answer was, given all the facts. Is this cheating? Strictly by the book, yes. Do I care? No, because my head was right in the end, so I did technically guess correctly.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #141 • 2022-12-19 ✅✅✅✅❌↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏➡️ ✅✅✅❌❌↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Aruba)
Another tricky Caribbean island, and another lucky guess to get it right. Fortunately, Aruba should be very easy to recognize next time, as its shape strongly resembles the blade of a chef's knife.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #140 • 2022-12-18 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Somalia)
Where In The World? • Puzzle #138 • 2022-12-16 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Morocco)
Despite being on the northwest coast of Africa, there's not much about the coastal border of Morocco that stands out to me. What tipped me off is the long, straight southern edge that borders Western Sahara.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #137 • 2022-12-15 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Nepal)
Where In The World? • Puzzle #136 • 2022-12-14 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: The Gambia)
Finally an easy one! The Gambia is notable for its narrow shape, closely following the shape of its namesake river.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #135 • 2022-12-13 ✅✅❌❌❌↗️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬇️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬆️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Isle of Man)
Fun fact: if I have no idea where a place is at all, I usually put Uruguay as a first guess, simply because I know where that is. Faroe was my second choice, and a short circular arc around northern Europe finally got me to Isle of Man.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #134 • 2022-12-12 ✅✅✅✅❌⬇️ ✅✅✅❌❌↙️ ✅✅❌❌❌↙️ ✅✅✅❌❌↙️ ✅✅✅❌❌➡️ ✅❌❌❌❌↙️
(Answer: Bouvet Island)
I had no hope of getting this answer correct, and to be frank, I became frustrated and lost interest in trying after my first three guesses steadily moved me farther and farther away. My last guess was completely wrong on purpose. What irks me even more is that I think Bouvet Island, a tiny sub-Antarctic island off the southwest coast of Africa, was an answer once before, and I think I even got it right then.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #133 • 2022-12-11 ✅✅✅✅❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬇️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Gabon)
Today's country took some luck. My first guess was Sierra Leone, which was on the right continent but on the wrong section of Africa's coastline. I was quickly able to zoom in on Congo and Cameroon, but neither of those were correct. I couldn't think of another country in that part of Africa offhand, so I simply began scanning the list of countries. It clicked when I came across Gabon on the list.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #132 • 2022-12-10 ✅✅✅✅🤏↗️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Niger)
I don't know why, but I still get Niger confused with Burkino Faso all the time.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #131 • 2022-12-09 ✅✅❌❌❌↗️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅❌↙️ ✅✅✅✅❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅❌↖️
(Answer: Cayman Islands)
I should have known this one, since every time I wire several thousand dollars to an unknown bank account I received in an SMS message filled with broken English, the money somehow always ends up here. Fancy that! In all seriousness, my closest guess was Jamaica, and based on that, I still wouldn't have guessed the Caymans. The fact that it has three islands in the WitW map, and that the largest one is widely separated from the other two, are good clues to look for.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #130 • 2022-12-08 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Iceland)
Anyone who watches strongman competitions will be familiar with Iceland. More directly related to geography, Iceland has a comparatively simple coastline to the south, but the northern side is highly intricate. To my knowledge, that seems to be a common feature of oceanic islands in the upper latitudes: the coast closer to the pole is more complicated, while the coast closer to the equator is more smooth. I wonder why that is.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #129 • 2022-12-07 ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️ ✅✅✅✅🤏➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬇️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬇️
(Answer: Albania)
So close! I don't know my eastern European countries very well, and Albania is nondescript enough that I'll probably have trouble recognizing it next time, too.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #128 • 2022-12-06 ✅✅❌❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↗️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅❌⬇️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Saint Kitts and Nevis)
I feel like this has been an answer before, but I can't remember for sure. Easily the most striking feature is how strongly the country resembles an exclamation mark, with Saint Kitts forming the line mark and Nevis forming the dot. That should make it easy to recognize.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #127 • 2022-12-05 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Hong Kong)
Very small municipalities like Hong Kong can appear jarringly fragmented when scaled up. The map resembled Tierra del Fuego to me, but of course that is not a country. I was only able to recognize it as Hong Kong thanks to Victoria Harbour, between the mainland and Hong Kong Island to the southeast, into which juts a very narrow and straight peninsula that was once the site of Hong Kong Kai Tak airport.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #126 • 2022-12-04 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Botswana)
I actually got this country right for the wrong reason! Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana meet where the Zambezi and Chobe rivers converge and almost form a quad-point, which is only blocked by a shared border between Botswana and Zambia that is a few hundred feet long. I thought I recognized this convergence point in the east of today's country, and I knew it didn't match the shapes of Zambia, Namibia or Zimbabwe, so I guessed Botswana. While this guess was correct, the convergence point is in the north of Botswana, not the east.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #125 • 2022-12-03 ✅✅✅❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: United Arab Emirates)
The scourge continues of me recognizing shapes but being unable to remember which country they correspond to--until I make at least one wrong guess. The UAE has an intricate coastline to the north but very simple borders to the south, which help make it easy to identify.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #124 • 2022-12-02 ✅✅❌❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Eritrea)
Though I've read about Eritrea before, I was unfamiliar with the shape of the country, so this was a brand-new one to me. Geography clues were a big help: the small landmasses to the north looked like islands rather than exclaves, which indicated a northern coastline, and long straight sections of border to the south indicated the presence of other other countries rather than bodies of water. This led me to deduce that the country was somewhere along the north edge of some continent. My first guess was French Guiana--way off, but the distance clue was helpful in guiding me to Africa. The second guess (Somalia) was to get my bearings, and a short jaunt up the eastern African coastline brought me to Eritrea.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #122 • 2022-11-30 ✅✅❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Colombia)
I knew this was a country shape I'd seen before, but I couldn't remember it right away. My first guess of Congo was way off. I used to play a puzzle game called Chip's Challenge on Windows 95, and the shape of Colombia resembles the shape of fireball enemies in the game.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #120 • 2022-11-28 ✅✅✅✅❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬅️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Belgium)
If I ever went to Belgium, I'd get beaten up by the locals for how much I forget what the shape of this country looks like.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #119 • 2022-11-27 ✅✅✅❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↙️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Christmas Island)
At first I thought this might be a small African country. As a reference point, my first guess was Kenya--on the east side of the continent--and immediately I was sent away from Africa entirely. A second reference point of Brunei pointed me in the direction of the Indian Ocean, and from there, my first guess of Christmas Island happened to be correct. The island has an interesting triple-armed shape, with the western arm splitting into two peninsulas: a very distinctive shape for next time.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #118 • 2022-11-26 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Martinique)
Where In The World? • Puzzle #117 • 2022-11-25 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Austria)
Where In The World? • Puzzle #116 • 2022-11-24 ✅❌❌❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Martinique)
Another wild guess that just happened to pay off! My first guess, just to get my bearings, was American Samoa, which was almost antipodal to the real answer. I figured it was in the Caribbean somewhere, and my first guess of Martinique turned out to be correct. Martinique should be easy to recognize next time, with its jagged coastline to the south and east and the narrow La Trinité peninsula jutting out to the northeast.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #115 • 2022-11-23 ✅❌❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅❌↘️ ✅✅✅❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Cook Islands)
While I managed to get this one right, it was a more or less a complete shot in the dark. The only thing that will help me identify it in the future is the tiny group of islands off the east coast of Rarotonga.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #114 • 2022-11-22 ✅✅❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅❌⬇️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬆️ ❌❌❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬆️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️
(Answer: Guadeloupe)
Ouch. These small Caribbean islands are still killers, since there are so many of them and I'm not familiar with most of their shapes. Guadeloupe didn't cross my mind as a possible guess, but I think I might have been confusing it with Guatemala. It should be very easy to recognize in the future, though: the main islands of Grande-Terre and Basse-Terre form a distinct N shape, with Marie-Galante position southeast of the central bight between the larger islands.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #113 • 2022-11-21 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Central African Republic)
Where In The World? • Puzzle #111 • 2022-11-19 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: New Caledonia)
Where In The World? • Puzzle #110 • 2022-11-18 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Afghanistan)
America fought a war in Afghanistan for 20 years, and because of that, many people here are very familiar with the country's shape. Of course, there are others in the US who still think Afghanistan is in the Middle East just because Iraq is. These types of people are genuinely surprised to learn that the narrow Wakhan Corridor in the northeast, the map's most prominent feature to me, shares a border with China.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #109 • 2022-11-17 ✅✅❌❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Mozambique)
One moment of brain fog and one wrong selection of continent, and I was quickly back on track. Mozambique has a very striking "Y" shape, with the right-side arm of the Y much thicker than the left.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #108 • 2022-11-16 ✅✅✅❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬆️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Slovakia)
I'm probably more ignorant about the countries of central and eastern Europe then I'd like to admit. It doesn't help that Slovakia's shape is fairly nondescript to me. It somewhat resembles a mirror image of Austria.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #107 • 2022-11-15 ✅✅❌❌❌↗️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Serbia)
At first I had no idea what this country night be. My initial guess was Uruguay: a complete shot in the dark that turned out to be wildly incorrect. The hint put me in Europe, though. I was considering the Netherlands as my next guess, but after thinking about the shape for a bit, I began to recognize what I thought might be the border of Kosovo. That led me to guess Serbia. For my future reference, Serbia looks a bit like Ukraine turned 90 degrees and without Crimea.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #106 • 2022-11-14 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Turkmenistan)
This is a country that I didn't remember right away, but in retrospect I would have been very upset with myself had I gotten it wrong. Along with North Korea and Eritrea, Turkmenistan is one of the most oppressive countries in the world in terms of individual freedoms, and I find news out of the country to be quite interesting. On an unrelated note, one of my favorite competitive weightlifters, Hojamuhammet Toýçyýew, is Turkmen.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #105 • 2022-11-13 ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↗️ ✅✅✅✅🤏➡️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Niger)
Another country that's been featured on WitW before but I'd since forgotten about. I feel there are lots of countries in Africa that have a a similar shape, but with some borders in a mirrored configuration. Maybe what I need to remember is the protruding section of Niger's southwest border, which gives the country the shape of a fish.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #104 • 2022-11-12 ✅✅✅❌❌➡️ ✅✅❌❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅❌↖️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Maldives)
A few days ago, when the puzzle was Mauritius, and my last guess was Maldives. Just a few days later, Maldives is the answer. A good giveaway for this country is the tight north-south line of islands.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #103 • 2022-11-11 ✅✅✅✅❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Vanuatu)
Thank goodness I make notes in this document about what features to look for! I don't reference my previous "Where in the World" answers when actively working on a puzzle, but because I had written down that Vanuatu's archipelago is Y-shaped, I had a strong feeling that was the answer today. Just to make sure I wasn't mis-remembering, I first answered Tokelau, and when that was wrong, I was certain about the answer.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #102 • 2022-11-10 ✅✅❌❌❌↘️ ✅✅✅❌❌⬇️ ✅✅✅✅❌↘️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️ ✅✅✅✅🤏➡️ ✅✅✅✅❌↙️
(Answer: Mauritius)
A succession of closer and closer guesses, but no banana on this one. To get my bearings, my first guess was Luxembourg, which was surprisingly far away. Bahrain didn't get me much closer, but Djibouti was on the right track. I remembered that Comoros and Réunion were off the east coast of Africa, and Réunion was so close--98% of the way there! I knew there was another island off the coast whose name started with an M, but I couldn't remember which one it was. My last guess was Maldives. Right letter and right ocean, but wrong answer. The small peninsula to the southwest might help next time, but there was no way I could have figured out this country by shape today.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #101 • 2022-11-09 ✅✅✅✅❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬅️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Bulgaria)
Bulgaria has been featured before, and while I couldn't remember this country at first, I knew it looked familiar. I had a vague memory that it was located somewhere in eastern Europe or central Asia, so to get my bearings, I first guessed Turkmenistan. Georgia was my second guess, and then Bulgaria came to mind. The hook-shaped Vidin Province to the northwest, the relatively constant-latitude northern border, and Burgas Bay on the country's Black Sea coast should help to identify it in the future.
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[Last updated: 2024-05-16]