Name the Neighbours is a free geography game about borders. We highlight one country on the world map, and your job is to tap every country that shares a land border with it — then hit Check to see how many you got.

It sounds simple until the map fights back. You might rattle off France’s neighbours without thinking, then freeze on which countries actually border Kazakhstan, or forget that tiny sliver where two nations meet. Every round ends with an honest reveal: the ones you nailed in green, the ones you missed in amber, and any wrong guesses in red.

Play the daily challenge — five countries, the same five for everyone in the world that day — and share your emoji scorecard, or jump into endless mode and see how many countries you can perfectly border before your three lives run out.

Name the Neighbours

How to play

Look at the highlighted country — it’s filled in teal with a pulsing marker so you can find it fast.
Tap every country on the map that shares a land border with it. Each one you pick turns amber. Tap again to deselect.
Press Check answer when you think you’ve found them all.
The map reveals the truth: your correct picks go green, borders you missed turn amber, and any country that isn’t actually a neighbour turns red.
In the daily challenge you play all five countries; in endless mode a perfect answer keeps you going, while a miss costs a life.

Game modes

Daily challenge. Five countries, seeded from the date so every player worldwide gets the exact same five. Play them all, then copy a spoiler-free scorecard (⭐ perfect rounds and a 🟩🟨🟥 grid) to share. Your streak grows every day you play.

Endless mode. Border countries one after another with three lives. Name every neighbour perfectly and you keep rolling; miss even one and you lose a life. The countries get harder — and more heavily bordered — the deeper you go, and you can filter to a single continent. How many can you perfectly border in one run?

The geography behind it

The game covers 147 countries you can be asked to border, drawn on a Natural Earth world map. A country’s neighbours are worked out from the map’s own geometry: two countries are neighbours when their shapes actually share a stretch of boundary. That means the answer is always something you can see and tap on the map in front of you.

To keep it fair and uncontroversial we only count UN-recognised sovereign countries. Tiny microstates such as Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Liechtenstein and Vatican City are left out — they’re nearly impossible to tap on a phone — and disputed or partially-recognised territories aren’t counted as borders. So Germany has nine neighbours, China and Russia have fourteen each, and island nations like Japan or Madagascar are never the country you have to border.

Frequently asked questions

Is it the same challenge for everyone today?

Yes. The daily challenge picks its five countries from today’s date (in UTC), so everyone in the world plays the identical five until the clock rolls over to the next day. That’s what makes your shared scorecard worth comparing.

How are a country’s neighbours decided?

From the map. We compute borders from the Natural Earth world map’s geometry — two countries are neighbours when their outlines share a boundary. Every correct neighbour is therefore a country you can actually see and tap on the map.

Why isn’t Luxembourg (or Monaco) counted for some countries?

We count UN-recognised sovereign states and leave out the smallest microstates — Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Liechtenstein and Vatican City — because they’re too tiny to tap reliably on a phone. Disputed territories aren’t counted as borders either, to keep the game neutral.

Do I need to install anything?

No. Name the Neighbours runs free in your browser on phones, tablets and computers. Nothing to download, no account, no sign-up.

How many countries are in the game?

You can be asked to border any of 147 sovereign countries that have at least one land neighbour. Island nations still appear on the map, but they’re never the target.

Where does the map data come from?

The world map and borders come from Natural Earth (via the open-source world-atlas dataset), which is in the public domain. The whole game runs on your device — there’s no tracking of your guesses.