Globelet — Geography Game
An interactive, map-based geography quiz covering all 198 countries
(the 193 UN members plus Vatican City, Palestine, Kosovo, Taiwan and the Cook Islands).
How it plays
- Pick what to study – any mix of:
- Location – click the country on the world map
- Capital
- Flag
- Country shape
- Population (rounded to 2 significant figures)
- System of government
- Official language
- Currency
- Pick a part of the world – the whole world, or any mix of 11 regions: Africa,
Central America & Caribbean, Central Asia, East Asia, Europe, Middle East / West Asia,
North America, Oceania, South America, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
The map frames the chosen regions and dims the rest.
Or pick Custom to search for and tick exactly the countries you want (handy for a
specific map test); the list is remembered in your browser.
- Pick how many countries – 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 150 or All (only counts that fit
the chosen regions are offered).
- For each country the selected questions are asked in this order:
shape → location → capital → flag → population → government → language → currency.
Shape always comes first because the country's name stays hidden until it's answered.
The world map stays on screen the whole time: you can zoom (scroll / pinch / buttons)
and drag it, tiny countries appear as dots, and after every answer the map flies to
the country. At the end you get a score breakdown per topic, a list of everything
you missed, and a one-click "Retry missed countries" round.
Keyboard: 1–4 choose an answer, Enter continues.
Running it
It is a static site with no build step needed. Just open index.html in a
browser, or serve the folder:
npm run serve # http://localhost:8080
Data
| What | Source |
|---|
| Borders & shapes | Natural Earth via world-atlas (1:50m; Tuvalu from 1:10m) |
| Names, capitals, regions, currencies | world-countries (with a few corrections) |
| Flags | flag-icons |
| Population, government & official languages | scripts/country-facts.mjs (hand-maintained, ≈2025 estimates) |
Generated files (data/, flags/, vendor/) are committed. To regenerate them
after editing scripts/country-facts.mjs:
npm install
npm run build:data
Owner dashboard
/owner (e.g. https://globelet.net/owner) shows quiz activity: quizzes started and
finished, scores, topic popularity and accuracy, regions, devices, the hardest and
most-quizzed countries, and a log of recent quizzes.
- The game sends anonymous events to
api/track.js (topics, region, score, which
countries were right or wrong; nothing personal). Plays on localhost aren't sent.
api/stats.js serves the numbers and needs the OWNER_PASSWORD environment variable
(set in Vercel → Project → Settings → Environment Variables).- Data lives in a Neon Postgres database connected through the Vercel Marketplace
(
DATABASE_URL); tables are created automatically on first use.
- The dashboard has a "Count my games" switch so your own plays can be left out.
