US State Higher or Lower is a fast, free daily game that puts the 50 states head to head. Two states appear at a time. All you do is call it: does the next state rank higher or lower than the one before it? Keep calling it right and your chain grows. Miss once and the run is over, so every guess counts.

Each day everyone in the world plays the exact same chain in the same order, on the same stat, so your streak is directly comparable to your friends’. When you finish, one tap copies a spoiler-free emoji grid you can paste into a group chat, the way you would share a Wordle score.

What makes it more than a population quiz is the mix of stats. Some days you are ranking states by population or land area, but other days it is median household income or the elevation of each state’s highest point, where the surprises live: Denali towers at 20,310 feet while Florida’s loftiest ground, Britton Hill, tops out at just 345 feet.

How to play

Look at the two states on screen. The first one shows its value for today’s stat.
Decide whether the second state is higher or lower than the first on that stat, then tap Higher or Lower (or use the up and down arrow keys, or H and L).
Guess right and the second state slides into first place and a new challenger appears, so the chain keeps rolling.
Guess wrong and the run ends. You see the reveal, your streak, and a Share button.
Tap Share result to copy your emoji grid and challenge someone to beat it, then come back tomorrow for a fresh chain.

Game modes

There are two ways to play, and both track your streaks locally on your device with no sign-up:

Daily – one shared chain per day, seeded from the date in UTC so it flips at the same instant everywhere. The stat rotates day to day through population, area, income and highest point. Everyone gets the identical order, which is what makes the shared emoji grid worth posting.
Endless – a fresh random chain any time you want one, with a stat picker: Mixed (a different stat each round), Population, Area, Income or Highest point. This is the one-more-go mode for chasing a personal best.

The geography behind it

The game runs on four well-known figures for each state, all bundled into the game so it loads instantly and works offline once open:

Population – US Census Bureau 2023 state population estimates, from California’s roughly 39 million down to Wyoming’s 584,000.
Total area – square miles of land and water combined, US Census figures. Alaska is in a league of its own at 665,384 square miles; Rhode Island is the smallest at 1,545.
Median household income – US Census Bureau American Community Survey figures. Maryland, New Jersey and Massachusetts sit near the top; Mississippi and West Virginia near the bottom.
Highest point – the elevation of each state’s tallest peak or hill, per the USGS, with the summit’s name shown on the reveal. This is the category that trips people up, because a big state is not always a tall one.

A small outline of each state sits on its card, so you pick up a bit of map shape recognition along the way. State outlines come from the public-domain us-atlas dataset.

Frequently asked questions

Is it the same game for everyone today?

Yes. The daily chain and the day’s stat are seeded from the calendar date in UTC, so every player worldwide gets the exact same sequence of states in the same order. That is what makes comparing streaks and sharing the emoji grid meaningful. It resets at 00:00 UTC.

Where do the numbers come from?

Population, total area and median household income come from the US Census Bureau; each state’s highest point and its elevation come from the USGS. All values are bundled into the game at build time, so there is no tracking and nothing to load from third parties while you play.

How is the highest point measured?

It is the elevation, in feet above sea level, of the highest natural point in each state, as recorded by the USGS. That ranges from Denali in Alaska at 20,310 feet to Britton Hill in Florida at 345 feet. The peak’s name shows up when the card is revealed.

Does it work on my phone?

Yes. It is built mobile-first with large tap targets and works in any modern browser, no app or account required. Your streaks and stats are saved locally on your device.

What happens when I run out of states?

The daily chain runs through all 50 states, so a perfect run is 49 correct calls in a row. In Endless mode a new random chain starts whenever you want, so you can keep chasing a longer streak.