Globle tips and strategies

Guessing countries at random works, but it is slow. These ten habits are what separates a 15-guess round from a 5-guess round.

Open with a big, central country

Large countries in the middle of a continent cover a lot of ground, so their colour tells you more. Good openers are Kazakhstan, Chad, Brazil or Russia. If Russia comes back pale, you can rule out most of Europe and northern Asia in a single guess.

Use your second guess to pick a continent

If your opener is pale, guess a country on the opposite side of the world. Two guesses on different continents are usually enough to know which half of the globe to search.

Learn what each colour means in kilometres

Pale yellow is several thousand kilometres away, orange is under about 1,500 km and red is under 500 km. Deep red means the borders are less than 10 km apart: the hidden country is a direct neighbour of that guess.

Triangulate between two warm guesses

When two guesses are both orange, the answer is often somewhere between them. Guess a country that sits in the gap and compare the colours again.

Sort your guesses by distance

The guess list can be sorted by distance. Keep your closest guess at the top and plan the next move around it instead of around your most recent guess.

Check the neighbours of a red country

A deep red guess shares a border, or almost does, with the answer. Open its country page here to see its land neighbours and the nearest countries by border distance.

Remember the islands and microstates

Small island nations hide well. If every guess around an ocean is warm but nothing on land fits, think of island countries: Cabo Verde, Mauritius, Maldives, Malta or the Pacific states such as Tuvalu and Nauru.

Distance is border to border, not centre to centre

Huge countries can be surprisingly hot. Russia is close to Japan, the USA is close to Russia across the Bering Strait, and France borders Brazil through French Guiana. Always think about the nearest edge of a country.

Zoom in before you guess

Spin the globe to the hottest area and zoom in. Seeing which countries are still uncoloured around your best guess is often enough to spot the answer.

Practise with unlimited games

Practice mode gives you a random country whenever you want and does not touch your daily streak. It is the fastest way to learn the map of Africa, the Caribbean or Central Asia.

Put it into practice

Try these strategies on today's country, or read how the game works if you are new.

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