Tips for placing better pins
Last updated: 15 October 2026
You do not need to know where everything is to score well. You need a handful of reference points and a method for narrowing down what you do not know. These are the habits that help most.
1. Learn latitudes, not just countries
Most people carry a decent east–west picture of the world but a poor north–south one. Anchor it with comparisons you will remember:
- London (about 51.5°N) is further north than the whole of the contiguous United States, whose border with Canada runs along 49°N.
- Rome and Chicago sit at almost exactly the same latitude, about 42°N.
- Cape Town and Sydney are both near 34°S.
- Cairo and New Delhi are both close to 30°N.
- Vienna (48°N) lies roughly level with Vancouver (49°N) and Quebec City (47°N).
Once you know the latitude of a place, half the globe is eliminated before you touch it.
2. Know where the lines run
The equator crosses Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia and Indonesia. The prime meridian passes through Greenwich in London, then France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana. Longitude is the harder half of the problem, so these two lines are worth memorising.
3. Use water
Coastlines are the most recognisable thing on a globe. If a place is a port, it is on a coast; if it is described as being on a river, follow the river. Ancient cities in particular cluster around the Mediterranean, the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates and the Indus. For ancient questions, start by asking which sea or river before asking which country.
4. Think about climate and landscape
Deserts, rainforest, tundra and monsoon belts all sit in predictable bands. A question about a wine region points to temperate latitudes, a question about a volcano points to a plate boundary, and one about a theme park points to a large city. Use the category you are playing as a clue in itself.
5. Find the modern city on top of the old one
History questions often use ancient names. See our guide to ancient places and their modern names for a method — most Roman towns became modern cities that kept a trace of the old name.
6. When to zoom
Start wide, decide the country or region, then zoom enough to avoid the wrong side of a border or the wrong island. Zooming all the way to street level rarely improves your score once you are within about 60 km, because that already counts as exact, and it costs you the wide-view bonus.
7. Learn from every result
The result panel shows the real location and a fact about the place. Take two seconds to look at where it is relative to the pin you dropped. After a week of daily runs you will have a surprisingly good internal map. Practice mode lets you train one category at a time.