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Where In The World? • Puzzle #75 • 2022-10-14 ✅❌❌❌❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Nepal)
It may sound strange, but Nepal's shape to me is reminiscent of a package delivered by an unscrupulous postal carrier that arrives thoroughly damaged. Another country that has a long, slightly-tilted shape is Cuba; this was my first guess, and I was actually caught a little off-guard by how wrong that guess was.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #74 • 2022-10-13 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Saudi Arabia)
Saudi Arabia is shaped broadly similar to the Arabian peninsula, as the country takes up most of it. Ash Sharqiyah Province even has a small section that juts out to the east, mimicking the location of Oman on the larger peninsula.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #73 • 2022-10-12 ✅✅✅✅🤏↙️ ✅✅✅✅❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↗️ ✅✅✅✅❌➡️ ✅✅✅❌❌⬅️
(Answer: Tokelau)
Another toughie. The atolls of Tokelau are so small and so spread out that they only appear as a few dots outside the high-resolution image. Oddly, that might come in handy for recognizing it next time: the fact that the Unicode rendering features only six tiny dots forming an arc.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #72 • 2022-10-11 ✅✅✅✅🤏↗️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↗️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏➡️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️
(Answer: Turks and Caicos Islands)
Back to tiny unguessable islands in the Caribbean! This time, though, I frankly have never even heard of Turks and Caicos islands--even if I had recognized the shape, I wouldn't have known the name. To make matters worse, only one out of the eight main islands is shown on WITW, which means the majority of the land area of the country is actually omitted from the map. That's a bit unfair in my opinion.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #71 • 2022-10-10 ✅✅❌❌❌↗️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬅️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Belgium)
It's a little embarrassing that I didn't get this one sooner. My first guess was Uruguay, on a completely different continent.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #70 • 2022-10-09 ✅✅✅✅❌↘️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬇️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↙️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️ ✅✅✅❌❌⬅️
(Answer: Equatorial Guinea)
I managed to find both countries that have a land border with Equatorial Guinea (Cameroon and Gabon), but not the country itself. I find most African nations difficult to recognize, but in my defense, I think Western education is largely to blame. Rarely do we learn much about the individual nations of the continent, except the ancient Egyptians and apartheid in South Africa. Most people's mental image of Africa is a nebulous blob of exotic animals and white colonialists comprising the entire continent.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #69 • 2022-10-08 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Australia)
Australia is arguably one of the most recognizable countries in the world. In case you don't know it, a few noticeable features are the "horn" of Cape York Peninsula to the north-northeast, a Great Australian Bight on the south of the mainland, and the island of Tasmania on the east end of the bight.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #68 • 2022-10-07 ✅❌❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅❌↖️ ✅✅✅❌❌↘️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬆️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Rwanda)
Rwanda's outline resembles an island, which duped me. Vanuatu was my first guess, which is almost on the opposite side of the world, and I didn't expect to be that far off. A short ping-pong between Africa and Europe led me to Burundi, which of course borders Rwanda.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #67 • 2022-10-06 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: New Caledonia)
This was one case where having a high-resolution picture really helped. It showed that the coast of the main island has many minute details, which indicates that the island is relatively large--at least larger than some of the tiny islands of previous days. The long and narrow shape is unusual, though; I couldn't think of any Caribbean or Polynesian nations that had such a shape. The closest I could think of was New Caledonia, which I actually thought would be wrong.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #66 • 2022-10-05 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Mexico)
Mexico has a number of instantly-recognizable features, from the Baja California peninsula in the west, to the Yucatan peninsula in the southeast, to the general horn-of-plenty shape of the country as a whole. One of my favorite movies is the Wes Anderson film "The Grand Budapest Hotel", in which a character happens to have a birthmark on her face in the shape of Mexico.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #65 • 2022-10-04 ✅✅✅❌❌⬆️ ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Liechtenstein)
I've actually visited Liechtenstein once, so this is one I should have remembered. I knew the shape of the country was familiar, but I just couldn't quite recall it. The relatively simple border to the west indicated to me that it was a small, landlocked nation--my first guess was Rwanda.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #64 • 2022-10-03 ❌❌❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅❌➡️ ✅✅✅✅❌⬇️ ✅✅❌❌❌↖️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬇️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬇️
(Answer: Grenada)
Another day, another small Caribbean island nation I have no hope of being able to identify. My ignorance is frustrating sometimes. The small hook at the southwest corner of the island should help with recognizing it next time.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #63 • 2022-10-02 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Croatia)
I was really happy to see this one. From a recognition standpoint, Croatia's most obvious feature is its intricate Adriatic coastline, with hundreds of islands and peninsulas scattered throughout.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #62 • 2022-10-01 ✅❌❌❌❌➡️ ✅✅❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅❌❌❌⬅️ ✅✅✅✅🤏⬆️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↘️ ✅✅✅✅🤏↗️
(Answer: Barbados)
These tiny Caribbean islands are killers! I had a vague familiarity with the outline of Barbados from reading histories of pirates, but there was no way I'd be able to put a name to it.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #61 • 2022-09-30 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Sri Lanka)
Sri Lanka has a very distinctive teardrop shape. Another clue is the chain of islands at the northern tip of the teardrop, where there was once a land bridge between the island and the Indian subcontinent.
Where In The World? • Puzzle #60 • 2022-09-29 ✅✅✅✅✅🎉
(Answer: Brazil)
Larger countries, especially countries with large coastlines, are easier to recognize. Brazil makes up most of the "hump" of South America, making it even simpler.
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[Last updated: 2022-11-11]