How to learn all the countries of the world on a map

Most people can place around 40 countries on a blank map. Getting to all of them is less about talent than about order: learn the map in chunks that make sense, and revisit them before they fade.

How many countries are there?

The usual answer is 195: the 193 member states of the United Nations plus two observer states, the Vatican City (Holy See) and Palestine. Some lists add Kosovo or Taiwan, which are recognised by some countries but are not UN members. Whatever list you use, pick one and stick to it.

Roughly how they split by continent:

| Region | Countries | |---|---| | Africa | 54 | | Asia | about 48 | | Europe | about 44 | | North America (incl. Central America and the Caribbean) | 23 | | Oceania | 14 | | South America | 12 |

Counts for Asia and Europe vary because Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and the Caucasus straddle both.

Start with the anchors

Begin with the 20 or so countries you already half know: the big ones and the ones in the news. Then learn everything else relative to them. "Paraguay is the landlocked one between Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia" is far easier to remember than Paraguay as a shape in empty space.

A region-by-region order that works

1. South America (12). Small, clean and a quick win. Only two countries, Bolivia and Paraguay, are landlocked.
2. Oceania (14). Australia and New Zealand, then the Pacific island nations grouped as Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.
3. Europe (about 44). Do it in rows: the Nordic countries, the British Isles, Western Europe, Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltics and Eastern Europe.
4. North and Central America (23). The seven Central American countries in order from Mexico southward: Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama. Then the Caribbean.
5. Asia (about 48). Split into the Middle East, Central Asia (the five "-stans" plus Afghanistan and Pakistan), South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia.
6. Africa (54). Leave it until you have the habit. Work in five blocks: North, West, Central, East and Southern Africa. West Africa, with 16 countries along the coast and the Sahel, is the hardest single block.

Use neighbours, shapes and stories

• Neighbours: say each country's neighbours out loud. China and Russia have the most, 14 land neighbours each.
• Shapes: Italy is a boot, Chile is a ribbon about 4,300 km long, The Gambia is a thin strip along a river almost entirely surrounded by Senegal.
• Stories: things that come from a place hold it in memory. Once you know that jollof rice is a West African staple and that feijoada is Brazil's best-known stew, the map gets food attached to it. This is the idea behind Globby's stickers: you learn where Angkor Wat is because you dragged it there yourself.

Ten minutes a day, with recall

Short daily sessions beat long ones. Each day:

1. Two minutes reviewing yesterday's region from memory.
2. Five minutes on the new region.
3. Three minutes on a mixed quiz of everything so far.

At one region a week, with Africa split across two, you will have the whole map in about two months, and because you kept reviewing, you will still have it after that.