Geography quiz
Pinpoint the biggest US cities on the map
A city and its state are named, and you click where the city is. The closer the pin, the more of its 100 points you keep.
- Format
- Pinpoint on the map
- Items
- 10 pins
- Limit
- 3:00
- Level
- Medium
- Checked
- 2026.10.03
- Spots
- 10 of 60
- Time limit
- 3:00
- Full marks
- Within 25 km: 100 points
- No points
- 500 km out or more
- A city is named. Click the map where you think it is.
- The real spot is then shown with a line to your pin and the distance in kilometres.
- Zoom in first for a finer pin. From the keyboard: arrow keys move a crosshair and Enter drops the pin.
- Pause whenever you like (Esc). The board hides while the clock is stopped.
Click the map where each city is.
Drawing the map
About this quiz
Each round draws 10 of the 60 most populous cities in the lower 48 states. The state is given, so the test is where in the state the city sits. Distances are real kilometres along the Earth's surface, worked out from where you clicked, so the score is the same on a phone and on a big screen.
- A pin within 25 km keeps all 100 points. From there the points fall in a straight line to nothing at 500 km.
- The cities are the 60 largest by the 2020 Census, leaving out Honolulu and Anchorage, which are on the map's insets.
- After each pin the real spot is shown with a line to your click.
- The first round of each day is the same for everyone. Play again for a fresh draw.
Sources
- [1]US Census Bureau. Gazetteer files: 2024 places.
- [2]US Census Bureau. 2020 Census: redistricting data (P.L. 94-171).
- [3]US Census Bureau. ANSI codes for states.
- [4]US Census Bureau. Cartographic Boundary Files.
Note on the data. The cities are the 60 most populous incorporated places of the lower 48 states at the 2020 Census. Each position is the internal point of the city's place record in the Census Bureau's 2024 Gazetteer place file. Distances are great circle distances on a sphere of radius 6371 km, from the click turned back into latitude and longitude through the map's Albers projection. The 50 states are those on the Census Bureau's state code list, leaving out the District of Columbia and the territories. The map is drawn from the Census Bureau's public domain cartographic boundary files, with Alaska and Hawaii moved and rescaled into the lower left corner.
Last checked October 3, 2026
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