Being able to pinpoint your exact position on the world map, based solely on your immediate surroundings, might seem nearly impossible to do, but hundreds of GeoGuessr players are able to do it with relative ease. If you are new to the geography game, you may need some beginner tips and tricks to improve your game.
Being able to match their skill level is a tall order, but these beginner strategies will be an important first step in your quest for the elusive perfect score. To get a perfect score in a GeoGuessr tour, you basically need to find the exact location on Earth where your camera is installed.
The first step is to figure out which country you are in, which is what this guide will mainly focus on. Limiting things to town and street in a country shouldn't be a problem as long as you master the basics of country guessing.
The “Country Streak” game mode is a great way to practice this. With almost 100 countries having Google StreetView coverage, it can seem quite daunting to limit your estimate to just one, but these tips should help.
GeoGuessr Strategies for Beginners
Use your compass
On the left side of your screen, you can find your compass. This is the first thing you should always look at when trying to understand your country.
The red arrow will always point north, so by centering the sun on your screen, you should be able to tell if you're in the northern or southern hemisphere. If the sun is south of you, you must be north of the equator, and vice versa.
In this image you can see that we are looking moderately southwest looking at the sun. This means that we are in the northern hemisphere.
You can also take into account the distance south of the sun and its position in the sky. If the sun is close to the horizon but is still far enough south, that means you are significantly north of the equator, for example.
In the photo above, the sun is barely in the south and the sun has risen decently. Being so barely south means we can determine that we are only moderately north of the equator (which is true; the image is in northern Thailand).
driving lane
This one is more trivial, but not very practical if you don't know which countries drive which way. Generally speaking, most countries drive on the right side of the road. All countries in North America and South America (which GeoGuessr includes) drive on the right, as well as all countries in Europe except the UK, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus.
In Africa, all countries in the southern half drive on the left (Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini), while the northern half drives on the right (Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Tunisia).
Most countries in Southeast Asia and Oceania drive on the left. Only Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines do not.
In Asia, Japan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka drive on the left, while the others drive on the right.
All of this may seem overwhelming at first, but you will learn these countries very quickly as you play. To determine which side of the road you are on, first look for other vehicles, as they are driving on the same side as you. If there are no other cars, look in which direction the traffic signs point. If there isn't either, Google the shadow of the car and try to figure out which direction you're facing.
StreetView coverage
You may have noticed that a significant number of left-hand driving countries have not been mentioned. This is because not all countries have Google StreetView coverage and therefore are not really relevant to you when learning GeoGuessr.
Knowing which countries you can't be in certainly helps determine where you are. In Africa, for example, only 1/6 of countries have StreetView coverage. Here is a map showing all the countries you can expect to see:
There are many regions in Africa and Asia that are not covered. When making a guess, be sure to guess a country that is in the game. It should also be noted that not all countries are equally present. Larger countries tend to have more pinned locations in the location bank than smaller countries, so if you're stuck between two countries, it's usually safer to guess which country you expect to have more points in terrestrial.
For example, if you know you're in Europe and drive on the left, but you don't have much more to do than that, you'd be much safer guessing the UK or Ireland than Cyprus or Malta, just because of the prevalence of location.
Languages
This is another strategy that seems innocuous, but how to use it without knowing all the languages? It's really very simple.
Different countries use different alphabets, so seeing just one sign is enough to restrict your country to places that use that alphabet. For most languages that use the English alphabet, you can simply read and identify the language, even if you don't know it.
Italian, French, German, etc. are all easily identified without needing to know how to speak the language, but others can be difficult to tell apart. Here are some tips for distinguishing specific similar languages. You will come to learn more for yourself by playing:
- ç and ã appear in Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal) but not in Spanish.
- Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian have many distinctive letters: Finnish has many double letters (aa or ii for example), ø is only in Denmark and Norway.
- Danish and Norwegian are difficult to tell apart. Look for æ, which is much more common in Danish, but exists in both.
- õ is unique to Estonian, Latvian has a lot of ļ, Ä · and Å ??, as well as accents of horizontal lines on vowels, Ä ?? is unique to Lithuanian and Polish contains an incredible amount of z.
- Slovenian, Slovak and Czech are all littered with vowel accents. ä, ľ, ĺ, Å ?? and ô are unique to Slovak, while ů, Ä ?? and Å?? are unique to Czech. Slovenian has a lot of j's.
- ODD?? and D ?? appear in Ukrainian, but not in Russian. Ð??, Ñ??, Ñ?? and Ð appear in Russian, but not in Ukrainian.
If you're having trouble determining what language you're seeing, you can use the GeoGuessr map and zoom in to a country you think you're in. You can look at the city names here and cross-reference them with the characters you see, to help determine if your country is a good guess.
License plates
License plates can sometimes be a lifesaver, as many countries have unique plates. Most European countries will have a badge on the side of their license plate. In most cases, it appears as a blue vertical stripe (pictured below), although some countries have slight differences.
The insignia of Ukraine is yellow below, blue above. Portugal has a blue badge on the left and a yellow badge on the right. France, Italy and Albania all have blue badges on each side.
Albania also has an odd red badge, while Kyrgyzstan always has red badges. Russia, Switzerland, Iceland, Croatia and North Macedonia are the only European countries to have white plates without badges. The UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Cyprus all have yellow number plates, although the UK and Cyrpus only have rear yellow plates.
Outside of Europe, plates aren't usually as useful, although there are still some that are unique:
- Argentina has a black dot in the middle of its plate.
- Bhutan has red plates while the Philippines has green plates.
- Indonesian plates are yellow with three black stripes and Malaysian plates are yellow with two black stripes.
- Laos and Israel have yellow plates, as does Sri Lanka – but only at the rear.
GeoGuessr Dead Gifts
Of course, be sure to learn the flags of your country. If you see one in your area, you can assume you are in that country. Clicking on a country in the GeoGuessr map in "Country Streak" mode will display the country's flag, so you can check the flag is correct before guessing.
Website domains are another great thing to research. If you see an advertisement that includes a website, domains such as “.ca”, “.de”, “.nz”, etc. are all very clear indicators of your country (Canada, Germany, and New Zealand, respectively). ).
It's a bit of a meta strat, but some countries will have unique Google car roofs. Senegal, Ghana, Kenya, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan all have visible roof bars if you look straight down. Ghana, in particular, will have a piece of black tape around one of the four bars. For this reason, Ghana is the easiest country to identify.
There's a lot more to learn about the world before you can truly hunt for a perfect GeoGuessr score: trees, architectural styles, road lines, landmarks, road signs, and topography can all be useful in determining not just the country, but the region. of the country you are in, after which you can start searching for your exact location.
Hopefully, these GeoGuessr beginner tips should be enough to at least get you started on your quest for GeoGuessr perfection.
