Choose what to ask.
CHOOSE A QUESTION TO OPEN
IN SHORT
Mapfold is a free daily geography game. One hidden country a day, the same one for everyone, rolling over at midnight UTC. Each round you choose one of three questions to put to the world, priced in bits — one bit halves the board — then name a country. A miss costs a guess and folds everything the answer ruled out into shadow. No account, no payment, and the archive and unlimited practice are free too.
Reviewed August 14, 2026Mapfold hides one country a day, the same one for everyone. You choose which question to put to the world, read the fact it turns up, and name a country. A miss rolls everything the fact ruled out into shadow — and the globe turns to bring what is left back into daylight.
Three questions open each round — easy, medium, hard — each priced in bits. One bit halves the board exactly. The hard one usually buys the most, and asks something you may not be able to answer even after reading it. That trade is the game.
Tap it on the globe, or find it in the daylight list. Drag to turn the globe, scroll or pinch to come closer. Half the world is always behind the sphere, so we keep a count of what is still in play back there.
A miss costs one guess and casts the shadow over everything the fact ruled out. Name a country a fact has already ruled out and we stop you and quote the fact back — going ahead anyway costs two guesses, never the day.
Every round deals three questions, and the tiers are not a difficulty ramp — they are three different draws from the same bank, recomputed against whatever is still in daylight. Which is why the hard card is usually the best value and often the one you cannot use.
Read off a map · splits between 0.30 and 0.82 bits
Something you can answer by picturing the world. It folds the least, and you will always know what to do with it.
The equator runs through it.
11 yes · 181 no · 0.32 bitsIt is in Oceania.
13 yes · 179 no · 0.36 bitsA tropic runs through it.
27 yes · 165 no · 0.59 bitsRead off a map · the hardest split available
Still map knowledge, but chosen for how evenly it cuts rather than for how easy it is. This is the workhorse.
It lies east of 20°E.
97 yes · 95 no · 1.00 bitsMore than ten million people live there.
95 yes · 97 no · 1.00 bitsIt covers more than 100,000 km².
107 yes · 85 no · 0.99 bitsYou have to know it · the hardest split available
Income, forest cover, life expectancy. Usually the most information on the table, and the one where reading the answer does not tell you which countries it removes.
More than 30% of it is forest.
100 yes · 92 no · 1.00 bitsIt averages warmer than 22 °C all year.
104 yes · 88 no · 0.99 bitsLife expectancy there is above 75.
85 yes · 107 no · 0.99 bitsA question about the region sounds more useful than one about longitude. What matters is the number on the card: 1.00 bits halves the board whichever way the answer goes, 0.36 removes a quarter of it at best.
"More than 30% of it is forest" is worth a full bit. If you cannot name thirty countries that qualify, you have paid a guess for a sentence. Take the medium.
The fold comes from the card, not from where you tap, so a wrong guess costs a guess and removes exactly one country. There is nothing to be gained by naming a country you know is wrong.
Everything you have been told is still on the left. Two facts together often rule out far more than either did alone, and the board will not point that out for you.
Naming a country an earlier fact already ruled out is not punished — you are stopped and shown the fact. Use it as a free check when you are not sure whether something is still standing.
All 35 of them, grouped by what they ask about, with how the world of 192 answers each one. Nothing here is a spoiler: the bank is the same every day, and which cards get dealt — and which country is hiding — stay on the server.
It lies east of 20°E.
97 yes · 95 no · 1.00 bitsIt runs taller than it is wide.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
66 yes · 126 no · 0.93 bitsIt lies in the northern hemisphere.
154 yes · 38 no · 0.72 bitsIts centre lies north of 45°N.
32 yes · 160 no · 0.65 bitsA tropic runs through it.
27 yes · 165 no · 0.59 bitsIt spans more than 20° of longitude.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
17 yes · 175 no · 0.43 bitsThe equator runs through it.
11 yes · 181 no · 0.32 bitsMore than ten million people live there.
95 yes · 97 no · 1.00 bitsLife expectancy there is above 75.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
85 yes · 107 no · 0.99 bitsMore than 70% of people live in towns and cities.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
73 yes · 119 no · 0.96 bitsMore than 50 people live there per square kilometre.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
133 yes · 59 no · 0.89 bitsIt is denser than 150 people per square kilometre.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
56 yes · 136 no · 0.87 bitsMore than a million people live there.
156 yes · 36 no · 0.70 bitsMore than fifty million people live there.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
31 yes · 161 no · 0.64 bitsMore than 30% of it is forest.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
100 yes · 92 no · 1.00 bitsIts highest point is above 2,000 m.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
118 yes · 74 no · 0.96 bitsMore than 60% of it is forest.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
26 yes · 166 no · 0.57 bitsIts highest point is under 500 m.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
21 yes · 171 no · 0.50 bitsIt averages warmer than 22 °C all year.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
104 yes · 88 no · 0.99 bitsIt averages under 12 °C all year.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
49 yes · 143 no · 0.82 bitsIt covers more than 100,000 km².
107 yes · 85 no · 0.99 bitsIt is bigger than Belgium.
135 yes · 57 no · 0.88 bitsIt covers more than 500,000 km².
51 yes · 141 no · 0.83 bitsGDP per head is above $12,000.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
78 yes · 114 no · 0.97 bitsGDP per head is above $40,000.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
29 yes · 163 no · 0.61 bitsIt uses the euro.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
25 yes · 167 no · 0.56 bitsIt borders five or more countries.YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT
60 yes · 132 no · 0.90 bitsIt borders at least two countries.
138 yes · 54 no · 0.86 bitsIt is landlocked.
43 yes · 149 no · 0.77 bitsIt shares no land border with anyone.
37 yes · 155 no · 0.71 bitsIt is in Africa.
54 yes · 138 no · 0.86 bitsIt is in Asia.
46 yes · 146 no · 0.79 bitsIt is in Europe.
44 yes · 148 no · 0.78 bitsIt is in the Americas.
35 yes · 157 no · 0.69 bitsIt is in Oceania.
13 yes · 179 no · 0.36 bitsA bit is one perfect halving of the board. A question that splits 192 countries into 96 and 96 is worth 1.00 bits; one that splits them 177 / 15 is worth about 0.40. The whole puzzle is 7.6 bits of uncertainty and finding the answer means buying all of them. Putting the price on the card turns a guess into a decision — and at the end we show you what every question you chose was worth against the best one you were offered.
No. The shadow keeps closing until two countries are left in daylight; that is the last turn, and one wrong name loses the day. Everywhere before that a miss simply costs a guess. Naming something already in shadow never ends your day — we stop you first, and if you insist it costs two guesses.
Midnight UTC, which is the same instant everywhere. Games that roll over at midnight in one American time zone hand half the world a puzzle that changes in the middle of their afternoon; a daily puzzle should be the same day for everyone who is playing it.
Because on a sphere a yes/no question is not a line, it is a great circle — and that is genuinely what a question does to the world. A flat map has to fake the cut; a globe just shows it. The globe is drawn in plain SVG rather than WebGL, so it renders on whatever you brought.
Yes. The country is never sent to your browser while a game is running, and neither is the table of facts it would be identified from. Questions are dealt and guesses judged on the server, and the reveal only arrives once the day is over. A test in our build plays a whole day and fails if the answer appears in any response before then.
No. Streaks and results are kept on your device. Nothing is required to play, nothing is charged, and there is no account to make.
Boundaries are Natural Earth at 1:50m. Population, area, income and life expectancy come from the World Bank, temperature from its climate portal, and the remaining geography from a public country dataset. Every clue records which source and which year it was drawn from.