How to play MapDash

MapDash is a daily geography puzzle. Each day a country is hidden. You see one clue (its continent), then have five guesses to identify the country. After each wrong guess, the next clue is revealed.

The clue sequence

Every puzzle reveals the same five categories of clue, in this order:

1. Clue 1 — Continent. Where in the world it is.
2. Clue 2 — Population. A range bucket (e.g. “15 to 35 million”).
3. Clue 3 — Neighbors. The countries it borders. (Island nations get a different clue.)
4. Clue 4 — Capital. The capital city.
5. Clue 5 — Famous-for. A cultural or landmark hint.

Making a guess

1. Type a country name in the input box. Start typing — the autocomplete suggests matches.
2. Tap a suggestion to submit, or press the Guess button.
3. Common aliases are accepted: USA, UK, Holland, Czechia, etc.

Scoring

The earlier you solve, the better:

• 1 guess — solved from continent alone (rare; only countries where the continent is highly unusual).
• 2 guesses — solved with continent + population.
• 3 guesses — solved with continent + population + neighbors.
• 4 guesses — solved with continent + population + neighbors + capital.
• 5 guesses — solved with all clues including the famous-for hint.
• Failed — 5 wrong guesses; the answer is revealed and your streak resets.

Daily reset

A new puzzle releases every day at 00:00 UTC (4:00 PM Pacific the previous day; 7:00 PM Eastern the previous day; midnight London).

Sharing your result

After you finish (win or lose), tap Share on the result screen. MapDash copies a Wordle-style emoji grid to your clipboard — one square per guess (gray for wrong, green for the winning guess). Paste anywhere.

What countries are in the rotation?

MapDash uses ~60 well-known countries from every continent. We deliberately keep the rotation to countries most players will recognize — no obscure micro-states, no defunct countries. Mexico is in. Vatican City is not. The goal is a puzzle you can solve with general knowledge, not specialist trivia.

A worked example

Clue 1: It is in Europe.

Europe has ~45 countries. Too many to guess from. Make a guess that gives you positional information — pick a country you’d be reasonably confident about as a baseline, like France.

Wrong! Clue 2: Its population is in the range 5 to 15 million.

That narrows Europe to maybe 15 candidates (Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, etc.). Now guess a likely one from that set.

The clue sequence is designed to halve the candidate set each step. Two reasonable guesses + careful clue-reading should solve most puzzles in 3-4 guesses.

Ready? Open today’s puzzle →

Want deeper tactics? Read the MapDash strategy guide.